This Weeks FoCo CIC Successes

Last night was round two of the Tuesday night criterium series, sponsored by New Belgium Brewery, Ciclismo Racing, the City of Fort Collins, yourgroupride.com, and the cycling-faithful Dr. Tim Anderson. (I'm sure I'm missing some sponsors so I apologize if I neglect to acknowledge you.) I wasn't present so I'm speaking through multiple story tellers, but apparently the star of the show was Mr. Aggressive, Brad Cole of Ciclismo Racing. Attacking multiple times lead to Brad and the ever-tenacious Dan Porter, owner and Godfather of yourgroupride.com, establishing a two-man breakaway that sustained until the finish. Dan said, "Brad pinched me into the dumpsters before the finish", but in the end Brad wound up his ferocious sprint and beat Dan to the line. Visit yourgroupride.com and check out the video produced by Dan--what a fun way to watch the action as it unfolded.

Day two of the weekly training race schedule included Wednesday Night Worlds, starting at the Budweiser plant off of I-25, heading north along the frontage road to Buckeye Road where the race headed west. The final leg includes heading south on north Shields, jogging a couple miles along Owl Canyon Road to the west, heading south on north Taft Hill Road, and finishing west to the Cement Plant where the finish line lies at the top of the leg-breaking climb.

Tonight was unique in that very little wind forced selections among the riders even though numerous attacks began after the town of Wellington and persisted until the finish. In the end Dan Porter of Team Rio Grande and Jonathon Garcia of BMC held a sizable lead up until the final climb to the sprint. I was lucky to have a couple faithful strongmen, including Brett Kirby of Team Rio Grande, Rich Davis of Spike, and teammate Alex Hagman, take some strong pulls to reduce the gap before the finish. After the guardrails, Alex started to fade so I started sprint #1 to bridge to Dan and Jonathon. Sprint #2 took place as soon as I made contact with the pair, allowing me to open a gap on the competition. New talents Aaron of Rio Grande (sorry can't remember last name) and Troy (don't know last name either) held my wheel and I caught a glimpse of Aaron under my left arm which initiated sprint #3...there would be no easy victory tonight. Sprint #3 was the nail in the coffin and Ciclismo Racing took win number two of the week.

I'd be remiss to not acknowledge how grateful I am to be a part of such an incredible Fort Collins cycling community. The old school persistence to see the weekly training race scene prevail and the cultural components of the tough-man attitude and ruthless competition allow us 'newby's' to establish a solid foundation that we can take to the national race scene. From all us 'newby's', THANK YOU!

Dead Dog is this weekend...more exciting things to come!!!

-Phil

State TT

This is a little late, but better late then never. Anyway, last time I blogged I was beating up on some masters riders nothing too great. However, this time is a little more exciting I actually beat some good riders. We had the state TT a week ago and I have to be honest I didn't know what to expect. The last time I did a TT with any significance was in Irvine, Ca and that ended with a flat tire. I felt like my form was good and was expecting to win, but then again you never know. There was a good turn out lots of people sporting very expensive bikes and gear that I sure that they only ride five times a year. Things started out well we got there early and drove the course. I had never raced this particular course before and wanted to see it. It was a 23.25 mile out and back course with rolling hills at the beginning and end. We headed north first and then turned and went back south. This being Nebraska wind was going to be a factor. However, the wind was blowing north to south so we had a tail wind first. I started fast catching my minute man pretty quick and then I started pulling back people the rest of the way. I wanted to have something left in the tank toward the end so I tried to be steady in the middle and hammer the last half. Everything was going good until the end when I started to get tired the last 1.5 miles. My time was good but I still need some work before nationals. All in all it was a good race.

Jarred

Nature Valley Grand Prix pictures from Stages 1-3

Credit goes to Cyclingnews and VeloNews for these!

This is probably 100m before the TT finish, on a very long and painful small-ring climb. OUCH!!

It was definitely worth it, though! Snagged both the top amateur and the top under 23 jerseys with a time of 13:09, good enough for 14th place overall.

Getting called up to the front for these NVGP criteriums is crucial--they're only 60 minutes and all-out from the gun, so staying up front is both safer and easier. It's also awesome to be up there with guys who fight for stage wins at Tour of California!

Standing next to my good friend and former teammate Tom Soladay in the orange Wheaties sprint jersey (AND the red Most Aggressive jersey, to boot!).

Here is our super-fast climber Rolf Eisinger putting in a monster effort to set up our other climber, Ian Grey, for the first King of the Hill--they went 1-3! Awesome team effort and way to stick with our plan: attack from the gun on the tough initial climb out of town.

This part was a blast--the entrance to the hectic, technical finishing circuits was a deep gravel road followed by a FAST minefield of a downhill. WOW. I knew it well from last year and followed a nice little breakaway about 1 mile before the entrance, then dropped the guys in the break to just barely stay in first going into the gravel. The entire OUCH train basically absorbed me and, like in Tour of the Battenkill, I simply followed master 'cross racer Tim Johnson--always a safe bet in conditions such as these.

I think Rory Sutherland (in the black/green King of the Hill jersey) found the only guy he can actually draft that isn't already a teammate!

Awesome company on the podium after Stage 3!

Tonight is going to be a FAST, technical run through uptown Minneapolis. I've heard that it's the trendy, hipster part of town and the Friday night crowd should be going insane! The race doesn't start until 7:45 PM, and Dad is driving up to watch! My plan is to stay at the front and be safe while conserving as many matches as I can for tomorrow's queen stage in Mankato.

Thanks for reading, and follow our team's awesome Twitter account for live during-race updates!!

Good, clean midwestern fun...

Beginning where IG, inc. (aka Ian) left off, the past two weekends have been some of the most fun racing all season. Gotta' love midwest criterium racing...90 min maximum of work per day!

So the past two weekends, I was able to do 7 races in 10 days...the perfect preparation for Nature Valley Grand Prix. The final day of Quad Cities weekend was a dead flat figure eight, which doesn't exactly bode well for us smaller guys. It's better to have a more physically demanding course to sap the energy from the competition, and finish by hitting them hard in the sprint. Unfortunately, the last day wasn't such, and too many guys had fresh legs leading to a crash infested finale.

Tulsa is one of the most fun places in America...an amazing underground bike community is the driving force behind great rides and an even better weekend of racing known as Tulsa Tough. Three days of criterium racing, each day with its own unique vibe. The first day, a twilight criterium, was its usually fast pace but was unusually safe...probably because the city of Tulsa did an amazing job of repaving the roads 3 days before the race. The second day had a small climb, which passes right by the Soundpony, a bar which attracts only the best, most outlandish beer-drinking cycling fans (aka the American Hooligan). (Stop in and see Josh Gifford, the owner of the Soundpony. Tell him he's a hero.) And the final day had a very steep climb (aka cry baby hill) which covered half the course, and the fans (manly the same Soundpony hooligans from the night before) were actually asked by the race promoter to party their asses off and pinch the road giving the racers only about 5 feet from side-to-side to pass. My body was telling me I had a 1% survival rate to finish the race, but that 1% prevailed, because who quits when you are being cheered on by the best fans, EVER?!

They don't call it Tulsa Tough for nothing, because it's almost impossible to bring home the bacon when you're riding solo. Each race I was super aggressive following and bridging to very powerful breakaways, but too many full-sized teams were active and unsettled without the formation of large leadout trains and bunch finishes. (At least it wasn't the Toyota-United show this year.) In the end, although I only finished in the money (15th place) the final day, the Ciclismo jersey did what it does best...race aggressive and make some other people suffer.

Coming up the team has Nature Valley Grand Prix. Stay tuned for more rider incite on the blog...

Thanks for reading,

Danger (aka Phil Mann)