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
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