Tres de Mayo Ride at Xtreme wheels

FUN RIDE FOR BICICLETA AMIGOS
(bike friends)

Tres de Mayo (May 3rd)
5:00 p.m.


Meet at Xtreme Wheels and ride the Wabash Trace to Margaritaville.

Beverages will be provided compliments of
Xtreme Wheels Bike & Sports

Please bring your favorite
Mexican dish to share at the shop after the ride.

PRIZES AWARDED FOR BEST COSTUMES!!
R.S.V.P. to Blaine, Zach, or Bill
712.388.0800

70 miles ride on Sunday?

Hey fellas,

Who's up for the 70 mile Loess Hills ride this Sunday? Should be great weather.

When will the wind end?

Rode out to Swanson Park to see what's new on the mountain bike trail. The journey south was excruciating, going straight into 30 mph winds. Swanson was worth the trip. The trails have been rerouted by the training center, extending it significantly. It eliminates the very fast downhill, replacing it with some twisting off camber turns-I like it a lot. Racing on the 3rd should be more fun. Andy was starting at the same time I arrived, so we did a lap together-good times. Riding back was entertaining, hitting 28.5 mph on the mountain bike with mud tires. Would have been interesting to try on a road bike.

Spring Classic Criterium - Fred Crashes

This year, they decided to run the Spring Classic as two separate races, rather than a Stage Race. And they also eliminated the Time Trial. Randy reported on the first stage. The second stage was a criterium at Pioneers Park in Lincoln. Run as a separate race enabled the Cat 1/2's to double up on their races, since there was over 3-1/2 hours between them. Randy reported them "stealing our lunch money" on Saturday, and this trend continued even more so on Sunday than Saturday, since riders had to commit to one race on Saturday (since they all started within a few minutes of one another) but could double up for the Crits on Sunday. And this is what they did.

With the Masters 35+/45+/55+ "Open" Division Crits, you were allowed to race Masters, no matter what your Cat rating, as long as you were 35+. And due to minimal sponsorship of the race, all 3 age groups had to compete for the same 5 places overall. The Masters Crit on Sunday consisted of a stellar field of a handful of Cat 1/2's and mostly 3's making up the balance.

The winner of the Road Race, Chris Spence, took off with his teammate Joe McWilliams (both Cat 1's). I was chasing with the pack of 13-14 riders with less than 4 laps to go. At the base of the climb up to the finish, several riders went down in front of me. I thought I was clear but a wheel appeared in front of me at the last second and I went down. This year they had us using computer chips clamped to our front skewers. As I got up to remount, I saw my chip laying on the ground. It took me several seconds to finally tuck it into my jersey pocket (oh, I didn't tell you, that it was VERY cold and WINDY - in the low 30's - and I was wearing my heavy winter gloves!).

The pack disappeared up the hill at an alarming rate, so I chased. I found out later that Mark Brackenbury's bike sustained heavy damage and he was not able to continue. Don't know what happened to the other 1 or 2 guys who went down. With half a lap to go, I caught the pack, but was too pooped to contest the sprint to make it in the money. I ended up winning the 55+ category (beat Rich Pearson in the sprint) but only place 9th overall.

The top 6 Masters finishers, in order, were Chris Spence, Joe McWilliams, Jon Nelson, Marc Walters, Tom Price, Dave Rogers.

I missed not having any of my teammates with me in the race, but everyone had extenuating circumstances. My wife said that race director/announcer John Lefler said some nice things about my accomplishments as I tried hard to catch the pack. I didn't know this at the time, but she later told me that he announced that I WOULD catch the pack, so I'm glad I didn't let him down!

As I told Randy and Pete, the horrendous race conditions this weekend (especially Saturday) help make you mentally tough for future races. Also, I feel strongly that if racing is going to grow in our area, race promoters need to rethink how they structure events. This weekend was a classic example of how to discourage entry by more Masters riders, which is a faster growing segment of our racing community.

Wind, wind and more wind, and Fred kicks some hiney

Pete, Fred and I set out today into the wind in the Spring Cycling Classic. 30mph from the NNW, which made for fun 48 mile race day. They ran the Masters, cat 4s and women 1-2-3 together in our heat. Fred had a great result, beating all the Cat 4s and all of the Masters except two cat 2s (guess the 2s like to beat up on kids for their lunch money, too), finishing third in our heat. He also initiated the second break, after the 2s took off in the first 5 miles. Pete had his shifter die during the race, so no big gears for the 40 mph sections. A shame, since he was riding well. I had my worst day ever on the bike-had a very bad patch into the wind during the first lap, got dropped and finishing many minutes down from everybody-a good day for me to forget. But....nice work, Fred!

Maskenthine XC

Ted, Andy and I headed up to the Norfolk area to race the first Psy-cow-path race of the year, the Maskenthine cross country race. With a 30 mph wind blowing, nasty small climbs, and a technical stream crossing, we all had a fun filled afternoon. Ted and Andy raced Sport Open, while I wimped out and raced Sport Masters 45+. The race went well for Andy, finishing 6th in Open; Ted clobbered a tree and still finished a respectable 13th; I managed to end up in the mud during the creek crossing on the first lap, but ended up 2nd in 45+ (and had the third fastest time over all Sport classifications-within 6 seconds of the best time-I was very happy about that). Excellent race put on by the Elkhorn Valley Cycling Club.