Super Squadra

If there’s any race in Texas that lends itself to a field sprint, you’d think it was Houston Grand. With its long, flat straight-a-ways, sweeping corners, and short duration of only 60-minutes, the downtown route, out and back along Allen Parkway, isn’t often described as “selective.”

However, during our last two trips to this event, we’ve seen Wenger ride a long break-away that was eventually pulled back on the last lap, as well as a multi-person move that went clear, and ultimately stayed away, in 2009. During this year’s day trip to Houston in the Durata Training dude canoe, we developed a cohesive plan to both factor in the race, and place well, no matter how things played out on the road. (During this pre-event game planning, we also mourned the absence of Lady Haga, who took a well deserved break from bike racing this weekend.)

With only an hour to have fun on our bikes and $2K in prize money on the line, the action in the P1,2 race started quickly. But without much wind blowing across the exposed route, along the banks of Buffalo Bayou and past Houston’s oldest still standing brick house, the field remained relatively bunched up at speeds hovering well above 30 mph. Sitting at the back was akin to drafting behind a fleet of semi-trucks.

Once exuberant race announcer, “The Announcer,” a.k.a. Mark Purnell, began ringing the prime bell, we started attacking in earnest. Wheeler succeeded in soloing across the finish line to secure $100 cash monies, as well as a limited edition Ivan Basso signature Fizik Saddle. (Please contact our ebay representative, Phil, if you’re interested in this exclusive seat as unfortunately we won’t be able to use it due to sponsor obligations.) A couple laps later, Phil, Alan, and I all jumped at the same time for a prime. Upon seeing we were all attacking in unison, we all sat up unison. Then, seeing we were all sitting up, decided to start attacking again. Perhaps bewildered by our tactics, the pack declined to offer much chase, and the three of us rode off the front. I managed to ride Phil off my wheel, and keep Alan from coming around at the line to win the prime. (Of course, Phil may have simply decided to drop back to the quickly closing pack and Alan might not have seen much point in beating his teammate for a BMW embroidered polo shirt and baseball cap, but, whatever.)


With about three laps remaining, Lawson Craddock decided to start racing and it got really hard. The field strung out and started splitting with all of the big hitters driving the pace at the front. Coming out of the u-turn, Wheeler put the final nail in the coffin of the peloton by countering a split containing Bike Barn’s Kevin Kremke and Stefan Rothe of Team Hotel San Jose. A semi-cohesive eight man group split off the front of the field containing both Wenger and Wheeler, in addition to Kremke, Craddock, Brian Fawley of Park Place Lexus, Logan Hutchings and Cody Foster of San Jose, and GS Tenzing’s Scott Veggieburg.

Dave and Steven played their hand for the win early on the final lap, attacking and countering one another out of the u-turn heading toward the finish. Though, their bids for victory were brought back, and Craddock took his third TXBRA win of the season in a sprint over Fawley and Kremke. Wheeler and Wenger ended up 6h and 7th, with Wikoff and Ting both top five in the field sprint.

After enjoying a couple 64-calorie recovery beverages, we re-loaded the Durata dude canoe and headed off in search of sustenance from the far east—Chinatown, technically southwest of Houston. This mystical land of buildings inscribed with symbols you may best recognize from the tattoos of hard bodied beach goers, sits just off of Southwest Freeway on Bellaire Blvd. Our international ambassador, Alan Ting, treated us to an authentic Chinese meal of eggplant in garlic sauce, barbecued pork rib, and black bean sauce simmered clams. We also ate a tun of rice.


For desert, we treated ourselves to a delicacy unknown to Austin Chinese food eaters, but renowned by 19-year-olds for its high sugar content, massive portion, and low price. The dish involved a quartet of sweetened carbohydrates items, such as red beans, peanuts, and oatmeal, that was then sprayed with shaved ice and drizzled with syrup (condensed milk was 50 cents extra). We each armed ourselves with a spoon and dug in, content with placing four riders in the top 13, and completing Super Squadra’s most successful Houston Grand to date.

Though it’s a been a few weeks, it’s finally time to weigh in with a Ft. Davis report. After all, Chad’s climbing prowess at nationals deserves a little context. After Fayetteville, we all knew he could ride a great stage race but could he drag his 150+ pounds of Aggie up the steepies as well? Keep reading to find out!


Ok you’re still here. Luckily there are a few other characters in this tale. Steven, David, Chad and I piled into the Bicycle Sport Shop Sprinter van and made our way out to Ft. Davis on Friday afternoon. After a thwarted attempt to eat some comida deluxe in Ft. Stockton, we tucked our tails in between our legs and ate at Bienvenido’s AGAIN. We checked into the paradoxically luxurious yet rustic, modern yet antiquated Camp Indian Lodge. Rooming arrangements were done by seniority. The OG’s (me and Dave) in one room and Chad and Steven next door.


Bright and early we lined up for the hill climb road race. I attacked twice and found my way into the early break that would survive just until we hit the longest portion of the hill climb. I saw Wenger climbing in his drops in third wheel, with Chaga only a few wheels back. Steven was already unhitched when the field lumbered by. After a spirited ascent to the McDonald Observatory, we received the good news that not only was the hill climb finished but Haga floated up the hill to a fifth place finish. Wenger was only a bike throw away in 12th place.

The time trial was run in good conditions. Hard cross/headwind 9 miles out and up followed by 7 miles of blazing downhill tailwind. Wenger looked poised for another run at the top result but we all had a big surprise to find he was fifth. Chad had a great TT for 8th but it wasn’t quite on par with his FSR wind-tastic heroics. By night’s fall we sat 7th/8th on GC over 90s back from the tied-first duo of THSJ’s Heath Blackgrove and Kevin Nicol.

With the need to conquer something before we left Ft. Davis, we headed for the hills. We picked the highest point we could see from our poolside vantage point and headed towards it. When we scaled the summit we were pleased to find we had found a legitimately high point from which we could see not only the Observatory but the Prude Ranch, Sproul Ranch, all the way out to the TT course, and into town. It was a dizzying way to end the day.


The next day we started on wet roads, which quickly dried under the gusting of crosswinds. A few miles of attacks led to the major move of the day with Steven, Heath, Chad, Stefan and a handful of riders hoping to profit on GC if the move went the distance. Missing were Christian sitting on 3rd GC and the co-leader Nicol. Chasing was in earnest right up to Bear Mtn. climb at which point I was already well off the back with a broken spoke. Chad was excellent up Bear Mtn and all other riders from the early break were gone except for Heath and TEH JACKAL. All three riders drove the move and would finish the day ahead of the large chase. We had a few hopeful moments that Chad maintained enough time over the field to nab 2nd on GC but in the end he jumped from 7th to 3rd. A superlative day of heads up racing bolstered by a few key attacks from his support crew.

Collegiate Road Nationals. This race has been my focus since the 2009 edition, so you can imagine how much I’ve been daydreaming lately.

First, the course: The course starts with a long, fast descent. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it is what it is. In dry conditions, we almost touched 50 mph on it without trying. From there it’s some small rolling hills before a short steep kicker that takes a bit over a minute to get over. This is followed by a small descent and some more rollers before a longer climb of about 2 minutes, and then a fast descent and more rollers before the final climb of the lap. This climb…the tough portion of it takes almost 5 minutes, and rises about 600 feet. The race does 5 laps of this—the last time through we climb up to the state park, which is an additional kilometer (and 300+ feet elevation gain). Our race (72 miles) would have us climbing over 8000 feet! Here’s the course profile:

Yesterday, we (me, Shane Haga, Cody Foster, and Greg Hercules) rode a loop of the course to get a feel for the climbs and descents, and enjoyed the scenery. The weather was awesome. I was undecided about my feelings towards the weather to come—my recent race results prove that I’m good in the sufferfests, but that doesn’t mean I like them. I decided my 25-tooth cassette would get the job done, but I wanted some more teeth to keep my cadence up on the climbs…good thing I forgot my 12-27 back in College Station. So I bought a 12-26 at a local shop (there’s more than a dozen in Madison!) along with a new pair of rain/wind-resistant gloves.



After prepping the bike last night (including putting the new cassette on my wonderfully light 303’s), the last touch was to mount the bike number. I could have been foolhardy like most of the people in the race, but you should never underestimate the Cool Factor. While most people were zip/twist-tying a paper number to their seatpost (it’s going to rain, people, think about this…) I was folding mine down, filling it with paper stock, sealing it with packing tape, and then poking holes to fit it onto my KirkLee-Hattaway Number Mount Carbon Prototype (thanks, Matt!).



Race day began at 5:30 for me. I woke up and checked the weather—the rain wasn’t here yet but it would be soon. Every bite of my poptarts (the breakfast of champions, you know) had to be forced down like green beans for a 5-year old kid. It’s hard to be hungry that early in the morning. I packed my bag and loaded the van, ready to roll out. The iPod died a mile outside of town…so much for the pump-up music. So I spent the next 25 minutes of the drive running through tactical scenarios in my head.

At the parking lot, I began to get dressed and prep my bike. It was sprinkling lightly. With an hour still to wait before the race, the rain set it. Our host for this trip, David, let me have a rain jacket so that I wouldn’t have to start the race wet. Staging was the usual chaotic process, and I ended up in the 6th row or so, with about 40 racers ahead of me. We would be starting the race with 146 riders…definitely the biggest race I’ve ever done! The start was neutral done the first hill until we reached the start of the loop, at which point things got sketchy. Everyone wanted to be at the front, but nobody wanted to take any risk in the turns the first time through on the descent—so naturally we all rode the brakes the whole way down. Ah, the smell of burning rubber.

During the first lap, lots of little attacks went off and got chased down. Throughout the entire race, one or two guys would attack at a time and the pack might chase it down immediately or they could just look at each other and let it go. I was floating the front 20 or so to stay out of trouble and be in position in case the pack split. The first time over the long climb was going to be interesting, as everyone was still fresh. As I expected, the pack split about half-way up into a group of 50 or so. The rain jacket I was wearing was becoming uncomfortably hot so I shed it at the top, hoping that the descent wouldn’t make me too cold.

On the preride of the course, I predicted that the pack would split on the big climb each lap and regroup on the descent, and that’s exactly what happened. Our lead group was descending at nearly top speed (still using the brakes a little bit), and the rest of the field caught back on after a few miles. A break of 4 or 5 slipped away that had me worried. I definitely didn’t want to waste energy and go with it so early in the race, but it had nearly 2 minutes on the field. I was hoping that working in a break would tire them too much to do the climbs quickly. Sure enough, their 1:30 lead on the field dropped to zero over the long climb at the end of the second lap because the field charged up it so quickly. Once again, the field split on the climb and reformed on the descent. I noticed, however, that fewer riders made the split the second time around and fewer riders rejoined. Yep, that hill was going to make or break the race.

This pattern held true for lap 3 and 4 as well: small break with a minute on the field, caught on the big climb. The pack split (smaller group each time) and reformed (smaller each time). On the descent, we no longer used our brakes. I wouldn’t classify it as really technical because none of the turns were very hard but they were all blind and the road dropped off steeply into a ditch if you overcooked it. I was thoroughly enjoyed it! Based on cadence and gearing, we were flying down—in the rain, mind you—at a smidge over 50 mph.

After the long descent on lap 4, 2 pairs of riders rolled away easily. The guy on my right made an obvious move to attack, so I decided to follow. I did some of the work to get up there, but it wasn’t a very taxing effort. Our break of 6 formed on the first little climb, but never really got organized. I wasn’t about to drive the break and wear myself out if none of them were going to do so, either. Those short times we did get organized, I made a show of being exhausted by wearing a huge grimace on my face and throwing in a shoulder bob so they wouldn’t complain when my pulls were half as long as anyone else’s. On the climbs I flailed around a lot like I was just hanging on so they would pull. I didn’t expect the break to stick and it seems like they didn’t either. If it somehow stayed away, I’d be the freshest one there. If it didn’t, well, I just got to do a full lap at an easy pace and not deal with the accelerations of the pack charging up the climbs.

The rain picked up, and that descent really stung my face. That may be because I was leading the descent and we were going faster than every before. We were caught by the field—or what was left of it—just before the first climb on the last lap. Our lead group was now about 30 riders strong. In the few miles between the first and second climbs, over half a dozen attacks went off and the field brought them all back. With such a feisty field, I didn’t want to waste my legs—which were still feeling great, by the way—on a little attack before it really hit the fan. I was also a bit timid because my wonderful new gloves, as valiantly as they fought, had finally soaked through and I couldn’t feel my hands anymore. It was taking a great deal of effort to articulate a single shift. So when 2 riders slipped off, I didn’t expect the group to let it go. The course is twisty enough, though, that once you’re out of sight you’re really gone.

We hit the base of the climb 1:40 down on those two riders, with about 10 minutes left in the race. This was going to be close. I moved up to about 6th wheel for the climb. After a minute of climbing, a Fort Lewis rider lifted the pace quickly and forced a hard split at the front. 2 riders went with him, and I gave chase with a Colorado rider ahead of the shelled field. The Colorado rider couldn’t contribute on the climb, but I dragged him along because I had plans for him later. I held the group of 3 ahead of us to a bit over 5 seconds ahead over the top of the climb. Keep in mind (consult the profile if you need to) that for this final lap, the big climb that concluded each lap was only half of the final climb of the race. On the short downhill before we started the last climb, I got the guy with me to pull through hard (remember, I said I had plans for him…) and he reeled them in to 50 meters before we made the last turn to start climbing again. We railed the turn onto the climb to make up as much distance as possible, and then I had to get from my 13 tooth cog to the 26 with fingers that I could no longer control and without losing momentum. I finally got it, but not without upshifting twice in the process! With my gear settled, I got to work. The group dangled just ahead of us—the lead riders were gone by this point. Half-way up, the climb levels out a bit at the Ranger’s station. When it pitched upward again, the Coloradan popped. A Fort Lewis rider had been dropped from the trio ahead. I had lost my chance at victory, but the podium was just 50 meters ahead of me. That became my sole focus: catch that guy!



I slowly worked my way towards him, and then passed him 100 meters from the top of the climb. At that point, another Fort Lewis rider was just a couple of seconds up. I started pulling him back as well, but he (Rotem Ishay, it turns out—the same guy that dropped the entire field at Collegiate MTB Nationals like they were standing still) kicked enough at the top to hold me at bay the final 200 meters. I know I could have won the race, but things don’t always go to plan. Nonetheless, I’m bringing home a medal!

After finishing, I had to be helped to undress because my hands were useless. I tried to pull my gloves off with my teeth but it wasn’t working…then I realized it’s because I was biting my fingers. I began rehashing the whole race, and I smiled when I realized that the last 10 minutes of the race is exactly what Dave’s VO2 workouts have prepared me for. I had consumed just one bottle over the whole race, plus all the spray I swallowed. One final thought: this makes the fourth time in 2010 that I’ve podiumed a miserable race…. As for the other Aggies, Shane held on for 4 laps before his legs gave out, and Herc fell victim to a flat during the neutral rollout and subsequent wheel-change SNAFU. Cody made it into the final selection and finished at 28th—awesome job!

In only it’s third edition, the Sugar Land Criterium is proving to be quite a tough event. In geek speak, if a rider can pedal the straights at 400w for 3min, they’ll be in the pack. 6min on the non-technical sections at 400w will get a rider in the second split. 8min? Well if a rider can pull through at 28mph on the technical course at 5.5- 6w/kg, then, they are in the lead group. That’s why Kevin Kremke makes the lead group every year.

After attacking the clip in, Phil took over in driving the pace on the first lap, then a chorus of “red teamers” from Bike Barn and Metro chipped in as well. Soon, we had a large split with all the major players, including Phil, Alan, Steven, state road race champ JT Cody, master’s champ Kremke, junior state champ Michael Pincus, and lots of other tall dudes. After a series of primes, the group reshuffled and there were three groups on the urban course. The pack, the second group with Alan, Cody, and Andy Wilson, then the leaders which included an on-form Steven, Kremke, Hector Rangel, as well as me.


Our group worked okay for a bit, then the prime bell rang. Rangel wouldn’t contribute to the move so Steven and I would take turns attacking the move and the only rider to respond—every time, and then take more abuse from us—was Kremke. He would not hesitate as soon as he’d see Steven or me pounce to continue to split the move, he knew that if he was with us at the end, odds are that he’d out sprint us. So, after counting the accelerations, all 28 of them, that Kremke had to cover from Steven and me, he suffered one last, long chase on the final lap. Steven’s shot at the finish was much better than mine, so I took off early to open a gap that Kremke would have to close in the head wind. As soon as he made contact in the tight right-hand turn about 400m from the finish, I backed off a bit hoping Kevin would lose momentum, too, by taking the tight inside of the turn. Nope! Kremke rolled to a hard fought win, Steven jumped for 3rd, I limped for 4th, and Ian is showing signs of Zabel-like form by finishing 2nd in the field sprint for 6th.

The Matrix Challenge has been an annual highlight of our racing season since 2006. It is hard to find two better back-to-back criteriums on our calendar, and typically off the bike entertainment is a notch above some of the comforts found elsewhere on the calendar (Walburg). Our team was five riders strong, missing only Chad as he was finishing off the Collegiate season with a win at the conference championships.

For the third time this season, I missed the start of a race. Hey, it happens, but the extra warm up time was welcomed to check out the course and any deviation from the 2009 editions. The racing started off fast with several primes up for grabs that the Matrix and Park Place teams fought hard to win. Phil marked all of the early moves and had our unmistakable red jersey in the mix at all times. Pat McCarty single handedly forced the pace of the race and a large split made it up to him about 35min into the race, but it was not until the 1hr mark where the final split was made.

Coming off of a hard repetition of prime laps, wunderkid Lawson Craddock blasted off the front through turn two. McCarty marked him. Kristian House was right on the wheel, but let it go as I jumped across and pushed the throttle wide open. McCarty, who had rode the first hour of the race as the main aggressor, had no reason to work in the move. Lawson and I split the work of the move once I had opened up the gap, then McCarty worked through after getting a new rear wheel due to a puncture with roughly six laps to go.


Coming into the last lap, my breakaway companions were floating on a 30sec lead and we loafed around a bit. The only way to get Craddock in this finish was going to be from far out, he’s got a great finish and I jumped from half way around the course on a slight rise into the most technical section of the course, the quick left/ right near the park. McCarty didn’t make the jump, but Craddock was quick on to my wheel and then nursed his 52x 14 past me with 50m to go.