Super Squadra

May has already been generous to the Bicycle Sport Shop p/b Girling crew. We won this week’s Driveway Criterium on Thursday, came up with a close 2nd place on Saturday’s Medical Colleagues of Texas Coldspring road race, and a win on 5/4 at the Sugar Land Criterium. Just in time for the Giro, we are hitting form for the first grand tour of the year.

Reverse chronological order.

Accept Alan’s push on the back side of the course for 150m because I’m darn tired.

Put up one arm.

Cross finish line in first place!

Stand, shift, and will myself to the finish line.

Corner.

Stand, shift, and muscle out a huge gear.

Leave turn way to the outside and very slow.

Hit brakes after entering turn way too hot.

H a m m e r . Thank you SRAM SRM for capturing what I must recreate in training.

Steady pace, need to have enough gas to get around technical backside of course.

Unbelievable. I have not been absorbed by a fast moving pack.

Wide open part of course means wide open physiological throttle.

Roll through highly energetic finish line with one lap to go and a gap that could stand to be larger.

Count backwards from 100 by 3s to take my mind off of how much this move stings.

Corner.

Fly past shoppers who seem a bit surprised that I am riding my bike through the parking lot, by myself.

GO.

Left side of road slows down a bit. I grit and accelerate as hard as possible in the saddle to stay low in the headwind at start/ finish line with exactly two laps to go.

I end up on the right side of the road on the home straight.

Wheeler caught. Pack regroups and mushrooms with no team taking over a lead out.

Wheeler strings out the whole race with another attack. Several groups of two turn into the “pack.”

Wheeler caught.

Wheeler attacks and tells Ting, riding on the front of the race, to do nothing but sprint.

Ting makes $50 in a prime.

I have not idea what happens because I am too far back in the race.

Wikoff gets caught up in trouble. He hits the brick cross walk in turn one after an Orven decides to make it 1/3 of the turn with a soft tire, then slam on both brakes and take out two riders. Needless waste of incredible equipment. Best wishes to a healing Greg Bauer.

Wikoff, as always looks fabulous and strong at the front of the race.

Ting seems to be riding strong.

Wheeler clearly ate his Wheaties this morning. He’s rolling strong.

I ride at the back. Very back.

I ease up.

I think about dropping out, 30min into the race. It occurs to me that every time this happens, I win.

Perhaps worst race day sensations since high school cross country.

8min into the race, I blow. The race is fast. The teams racing are strong. I’m ready to support the team from the sidelines.

Fast!

Very hard start to race, everyone thinks that the race will split early on the moderately technical course.

Call up for start line.

Wikoff switches my number to right side.

After 14yr of racing, I have finally figured out how to pin a number on my own skinsuit. The number looks like it’s sublimated into the clothing.

So, here’s the full file. Feel free to email me for power file.

We raced our tails off at Coldspring. Wikoff was amazing. Thacker deserves the win, but regardless, we had a great race and Phil is on great form.

The Driveway, the hardest race of the week, every week. The break pretty much rolls from the start line due to constant reshuffling. I got a hall pass from the group since all of my teammates were chasing the move. Just before the corkscrew uphill turn, I jump hard and catch Barry Lee and Tyler Jewell slightly off guard for the first time in a decade.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 5:59 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.