Super Squadra

Well, people, it’s a new decade. I met Ian back in 2000 at the Collegiate National Championships in Athens, Ohio when we were crash-crazed 20 year olds that had better than average strength for our age, but no idea how to use it against our elders. Over the next 10 years of friendship, we were lucky to have many great mentors guide us to our potential, which got us to the bottom of the US professional cycling scene totem pole as competitors. Along the way, we accumulated national medals and college degrees. As “professionals” off the bike at this hour, our parents amazingly still look forward to hearing we made it through a race weekend with glee on both sides of the conversation, and a full layer of skin.

Bonus footnote: I met Wheeler in 2001 on our way out to Collegiate Nats in Colorado Springs where he couldn’t help but be folksy. He just walked right up to me and said, “Hey are you Ian’s teammate?”

“Yes!” I replied

His next words, “Aw, cool, I go to school with him and wanted to say ‘Hi.’” pretty much summed up all I needed to know about Steven on the spot. He’s just plain affable, until an inevitable slip up in concentration during a race. Then he’ll let you know about it! I’ll save my comments about meeting Phil for when our new Tox Strategies laden kits arrive on 2/8.

Fast forward 10 years to the Tour of New Braunfels. With our full dedication to the sport now coming full circle, Steven, Phil, Ian, and I are attempting to share what we know with the next generation of racers, whom we anticipate will go far beyond the regional ranks. Those are our valued teammates Alan Ting and Chad Haga, who both put their stamp on our opening race weekend of the year. Additionally, many of the Super Squadra Cycling Clinic attendees, entering every category offered at the Tour of New Braunfels, simultaneously put their skills and brains to work. This only added to our satisfaction of cultivating the sport of cycling out of Bicycle Sport Shop.

The road race started off with a thud. Our field broke the rules and was riding left of center after action got hot and heavy. This is regrettable and official Sean McNeil did the right thing in stopping the race to give us a stern warning. Riders were disqualified from the race should they continue to put all of us, including the next generation of top-tier cyclists, in harm’s way. Thank you, Sean.

At the 8mi mark of the race, RBM’s Pat McCarty got a 15- 20sec gap with Team Hotel San Jose’s Robert Biard. The duo was working great and Ian made the bridge up by himself to get our team representation in the move. Shortly after this, our race was again stopped at the finish line due to the grown children in our race riding on the wrong side of the road. We were allowed to restart, but the unfortunate behavior continued. Hopefully, this subject will not have to draw strong criticism from our team blog in future races.

About an hour later, Ian fell back to Earth after his rocket-ship effort in the break. Robert Biard flatted shortly thereafter. Pat had about 2:20 on us with 32mi left to go and was holding strong. We put our riders on the front for some time until THSJ took over with 18mi to go. At the 12mi to go mark, the invincible McCarty was captured and Squadra went on the attack. The rider to counter our moves was again McCarty, who got another 15sec gap with Chad Haga, in his first start in Bicycle Sport Shop colors. Alan marked the first counter with Brant (the brand) Speed attempting to get up to the leaders, but Hot Tubes‘ (and Super Squadra Cycling Clinic attendee!) Lawson Craddock followed the tactics playbook to the letter and took off in pursuit of the two thoroughbreds. Two miles later, Craddock made the bridge to the leaders, and they were nearly out of sight. In the finale, Craddock led out the sprint over a weary McCarty who had spent 56mi pushing wind, with Haga grabbing a strong 3rd place.

Our plan in the next day’s circuit race was again to feature our new, young talent. Our boys rose to the occasion in a very cold, literally freezing, and tactics heavy 75min race. The field was much smaller than the day before, which aided our plan to get in a workout on our way to fine tuning our lead out for next weekend’s Belterra and Spring Classic at Driveway Austin criteriums. All of us, aside from protected rider Alan “Bhut Up” Ting who was ghost riding the field, took our shots to soften up the competition but could never get a meaningful gap. The only rider on the day that was able to get a solid gap from the pack was THSJ’s Speed, but his solo move came back with a little under three long laps to go.



I had the pleasure of sweeping Ting’s rear wheel on the first half of the last lap while Ian kept the front of the Squadra train out of harms way. Hey, when you have a team that wants to race as a unit, put the pieces in place! This took us to the only notable climb on the course where the pack bunched up a bit and I came off of Ting’s wheel to get to the front so his excellent position in the pack would remain unchanged. With Phil coaching me through my pacemaking (“Yes.” “Yes.” “More.” “Yes.”), he took over with a shade over 1k to go with a monster turn on the front. From here, Chad had his moment of truth, he had the toughest job on the day out of all of our roles on the team, taking Ting as close to the line as he could. Chad passed his “trial by fire” with flying colors, dropping the 2009 junior national kilometer and keiren champion off within sight of the finish. Josh Carter sailed away for the win and Alan lunging for the line in 2nd place.

Another highlight of the day included our team’s annual extended cool down after the circuit race, this year featuring a loop including The Devil’s Backbone. Thanks to our sponsors listed to the right, we’re a fit, healthy, and well dressed unit that’s ready for TX Cup racing next weekend.

Two podiums in two days is the best start to a season that our team has had, there must be something to this youth movement. Many young racers raced with purpose and great strength this past weekend, congratulations to all and we look forward to the test of trying to keep pace with you guys. We are in for a hard year, and decade, of racing. Good game, just keep ball in bounds.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 8:05 am and is filed under Race Reports. 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.