Mad-Era Highlights

The top 21 things about a weekend in Madera:

1) Playin' like Bo Duke, with the back end steppin' out, gravel flying, and rubber squealin', after taking AWfoSho's shortcut to the start of the Ben Hur TT... There is a road on the map, but nobody said anything about it being 12 miles of dirt. Should've seen the look on that rancher's face as the Mazda sped by in a 5o mph cloud of dust with three bikes on the roof! Should've seen the look on AWfoSho's face when he realized his pops could drive like that...We did make the start, albeit only minutes before reg closed...

2) The beautiful country off of Ben Hur Road... might think about moving their one day...

3) AWfoSho not finishing last in the prosey stage one TT...

4) Watching Deadliest Catch marathons on Discovery in the Madera Motel 6... The only other entertainment in the neighborhood was the local high school kids wretching in the bushes at 6:30 in the morning after a run-in with some Prom Night debauchery... That or counting the wheels on all the trucks in the Pacific Pride Trucker's Dream Stop, gotta be one of the only places in the world where truckers can pull to a stop after a long haul, hook AC units to their sleepers, run in to the video section of the local version of Gas-n-Go to rent some porn, stop by the Trucker's Chapel (a converted box trailer), and be back in the afore-mentioned sleeper in about two shakes of a calf's trail... imagine all that good stuff in a one square kilometer area...

5) AWfoSho not finishing last in the prosey stage two TT...

6) The Staz chuckling to himself as the guy who just passed him in the 4's TT went straight when he should've turned... seems one of the local farmers was in need of a few of VeloBob's orange cones so made a quick stop on one of the course corners where somebody had conveniently left them for him... too bad for the guys that had a good ride going...

7) Funeral cakes for dessert at Perko's Cafe... Madera: the only place in the world where one can hear a former Czech National Champion on the road say,"I don't have my glasses. What does that say? Funeral Cakes?"...

8) Not having to wake up at o-dark thirty for a bike race... Having the kidlets upgrade is really starting to pay off. Not only do I get to skip the occasional Friday at work, I don't have to ask for the dreaded 5 am wake-up call when I check in. Now if we could just get something done about those higher reg fees for the pro/1/2 field!

9) AWfoSho not finishing last in the prosey stage three Crit...

10) 7 hours making new friends in the feed zone... There was Tiffany who's husband rides for Morgan Stanley in the masters, Melanie who's husband rides for Sierra Nevada in the 3's, the Vello Bella squad with their resident life-of-the-party, Olaf Vanderhoot, etc... I'm gonna try to figure out a way to charge admission to feed zones... people would pay for that kind of entertainment...

11) The Sierra Nevada Pale Ale flavored soda-pop that Mike Hernandez slipped me in the feed zone... See? I told you people would pay for that kind of entertainment...

12) El Gigante still in the lead group of the 3's RR after lap one, and two... oops, he's not there the third time thru...

13) Having Shawn and Chad tell me that El Gigante flatted at the end of lap three and was NOT dropped from the lead group in the 3's RR... Those boys took good care of El Gigante. Chad even offered him his wheel when the unmistakeable sound of escaping air was to be heard... alas it had adult gears on it. El Gigante would have been DQ'd after winning the field sprint...

14) Staz's valiant effort to hold off a charging 4's field in the RR... Those Simply Fit guys will never get out of the 4's if they are scared to stick their necks out for fear that they might get dropped if the attempt at victory comes up short... I can hear 'em now, "I could win if I can tolerate this pain for two more K's, but if they catch me I might get dropped and won't be able to finish 23rd in the field sprint, better slow down!"

15) The smile on Jason E's face after finishing the 5's race second on the GC... Hope you like that T-Shirt, Jason. I hear that all the words are spelled correctly on this one!

16) Watching the women 4's feed... gals trying to take a bottle from the right-hand side with their left hand, gal's saying, "okay girls it is the feed zone, no attacking!", feeders doing sommersaults in the middle of the peleton... thankfully, she was the only one that touched pavement... bottle's rolling hither and yawn... you get the picture...

17) Watching The BL earn his 2's upgrade by winning the the 3's RR... That boy has been working hard the last few months. I'm glad to see him out of the testosterone-driven, horse power-laden 3's where you are one stupid bike trick away from a 30 bike pile-up worse than anything this side of a NASCAR restricter plate race...

18) Listening to the cattle lowe as they try to find a way down the rock band behind the feed zone... for three hours... I always wondered what lowing cattle sounded like.

19) AWfoSho not finishing last in the prosey stage 4 RR...

20) AwfoSho not finishing last on the GC in his first prosey stage race...

21) Final Results posted in a timely manner by VeloBob!!! Gotta say thanks to Bob and his crew for putting up with all of us snot-nosed bike racer types for another weekend...


The top three things maddening about this year's version of Madera

1) El Gigante's ride ending flat out of the lead group in the 3's RR... He had a good one going and was in need of the confidence boost...

2) The Staz getting caught in the last K of the 4's RR... upgrade points, where art thou???

3) Forgetting to tell Kelbster to record Talladega on Sunday... Afterall, it is the best restrictor plate race NASCAR has to offer...

Weekend at Wente

The Wente Road Race has never been one of my favorites... perhaps it is because of the haunting memories of a last lap bonk when I'd climbed that mean finishing hill so slowly that AWfoSho walked beside me giving me some much needed encouragement (read: a hand on my back), or maybe it is because we've rarely won there... until last weekend.

Wente is the course where Bryan Larson and Davitamon, then riding for SGW, figured out how to make AWfoSho go long in the sprint; Wente is the course where El Gigante has suffered through some chest constricting asthma attacks, Wente is the course where we've blown tactics in a grand way...

But that all changed this past weekend where it was AMD that screwed the pooch, tactically speaking. In the 15/16 race Charlie Avis and Davis Bentley had Laundry isolated in the break... for some unknown reason they failed to attack him repeatedly until one of them got away. Instead, they trusted their climbing legs and Laundry made them pay, beating them handily in the finale up Altamont Pass. Glad to see that we aren't the only ones who occasionally fail tactically. Seems we have a little streak going now in the 15/16 category at Wente with Laundry adding to Davitamon's win last year.

AWfoSho and Davitamon did their laps in the prosey race in search of some form... 4 times up the hill was enough for Davitamon, AWfoSho called it quits after climbing the hill for the fifth time...

PtotheArker earns the hang in there award... He rode most of the 17/18 race alone, but he finished. Takes a strong head to do that...

Sunday dawned bright and early in a reverse of Saturday. AWfoSho was first off on Saturday in the RR, El Gigante was next to last, making for a long day for me in the feed zone. On Sunday, El Gigante started early enough that I had the pleasure of watching the first race; and AWfoSho was last which allowed me to watch every race.

Same basic thing, with the exception of the pro women, re-enacted over and over again at increasingly faster speeds as the day wore on... a few attempts at breaks followed by a bunch sprint. El Gigante, the Staz, and AWfoSho all put a few more miles in the bank for June and July with not much exciting to report... a second in the 15/16 race for El Gigante, and a finish in the prosey race for AWfoSho were their best efforts.

I did get to watch Daniel Holloway come up just short of beating the Berry Boy's lead-out for Devon Vigus in the fast guys race whcih made me think a little...

two, three, and four years ago I watched Holloway, Riggs, and Switters rip junior races to shreds. They'd attack and attack and attack. Then their attacks would be followed up by Joe Iannerelli, Thor, or Tyler Gough... Riggs, Holloway, and Switters all have contracts now and are being paid to ride their bikes. racing has definitely changed this year... AWfoSho or Davitamon or TK will throw down an attack, but nobody else is willing to follow through on it... seems like nobody but the DBCJRT boys are willing to stick their nose in the wind and take a risk. Everybody is following wheels. Funny thing is that Riggs, Holloway, and Switters didn't get their rides following wheels. If you want to be a bike racer, you have to race your bike!!!

Catching Up on Old News...

I may be getting along chronologically, but I'm still a young buck when it comes to the Otter... been down to Monterey 4 times with the young'ns and their bicyclettas. The fun part is that 3 of those 4 times we've put a kidlet on the podium. First, it was TK in 05, then AWfoSho in 06. This year Garden held the torch, finishing 5th in the circuit race.

still a couple of spots shy of the top step, but we'll get there...

them's some proud peoples

and on the European Front... TK climbed off that big bird that flew him home with a 103 degree fever. Spent a few hours on the cobbles of northern France with the same fever, but didn't quite make it to that famous Velodrome in Roubaix. Read all about it here...

from the deep South... looks like a few of the domestic teams, Successful Living and Jittery Joes, forgot to get on that Midnight Train to Georgia. They missed the break yesterday and gave up nearly half an hour on the GC... somebody's got to chase. Too bad our homegrown boy, Eric Riggs, didn't jump into the break... would have been fun seeing a kid we've all watched grow up riding for the GC. Alas, Riggsy has to cut his teeth against the Europros somewhere... maybe next, year with the added experience that this year brings, he'll be in a fighting mood...

and finally, as a source of motivation... found this shot from Fitchburg on the Hot Tubes website. AWfoSho was trying to wrangle up a few sprint points, when he got the "Come on Nino" call from Danny Estevez.

Uphill sprints suck... unless you spend time working on them. I know a good hill off of Pleasant's Valley!

Recognize this Guy?

He's wearing green instead of orange and white, and his head is down in his traditional "I'm gonna win that prime!" style, but I've watched this guy race enough to know how he sits a bike from 500 hundred meters away... DBCJRT alum, Blake Anton aka Thor, takes a dig at the UCSB Island View Classic last Saturday.

Didya get the prime, Thor? and where'd you finish in the race?

Photo Credit: Steve Ryan

And on the Homefront or So You Had a Bad Day

Crapperapolis was, well, crappy... can't rightly remember a weekend where the kiddos got so manhandled. The only bright spot was Garden's ride, 3rd in the 15/16 race. Otherwise the list of carnage follows:

The Tapinator... one lap in the 15/16's
Ian McPherson... one lap in the 17/18's
Laundry... one lap in the 15/16's
The Staz... two laps in the 17/18's
AWfoSho... popped on the last climb in the 17/18's
Davitamon... popped on the last climb in the 17/18's
Todd Stone... popped on the last climb in the 17/18's
El Gigante... popped on the first climb in the 15/16's
Dishes... succumbed to attacks on the plateau in between the climbs

in all serious... I was witness to some of the most negative racing I've ever seen... once AWfoSho and Davitamon were out of the lead group, nobody was willing to stick their nose into the wind... kuddos to Spiney's Joe Trujillo who rolled off the front and was never seen again... but shame on the rest of the boys. The script went something like this... rider A attacks and goes full gas for 50 meters, then looks ack and realizes somebody is on his wheel. He promptly sits up and the pace goes from 25mph to 10 mph instantly as riders B, and C who have covered the attack are unwilling to continue it despite the fact that they have gapped off riders D, E, and F... Roll along at 10 mph for a bit, shake up the riders and repeat... Cal Giant's Jesse Moore called me after the race to ask if the juniors were actually racing at Copperopolis, because it looked to him like they were just out for a Saturday ride... might as well line all the kids up 50 meters from the finish and have them sprint. Seems like that's what they all wanted.

And... It was funny watching the racing while AWfoSho and Davitamon were still in the group. Seemed like everybody was looking at DBCJRT to do all the work. Looked something like this: AMD's Ben Barse-Rhyne is up the road about 1 minute. Nobody is willing to stick their nose in the wind to bring him back except AWfoSho... When he does, the pace goes up, but as soon as he pulls off it drops to that 10-15 mph Saturday ride... In the mean time, the kidlets are all handing it to DBCJRT... "Come on Davis, aren't you gonna bring it back?" Finally fed up with all the negativity, AWfoSho attacks the group in an attempt to bridge. Immediately, the group comes to life and kids are on the front who haven't seen the wind all day... maybe all season. I smell a marked man... especially when attacks by Spine, BMG, and Tieni Duro went unchased...

Maybe we've earned the reputation of the team to beat... the team to watch... the team that should take all the responsibility in a race... but on this day, everybody but Garden had a bad day.

Good ride Garden!

Can Anybody Read Flemish?

I assume this is in Flemish...

This is all gibberish to me... what we do know is that TK finished 49th out of 150 in the prologue, but something happened on stage two and he finished several minutes behind the main group. Crash? Flat? We are still waiting to hear from TK himself for an explanation...

Jim did find this shot of our kiddo looking svelt in his National Team skinsuit! Otherwise we are still eagerly awaiting news from across the pond.

Across the Pond

TK is leavin' on a jet plane tomorrow for Belgium. He'll be representing for us in the big leagues with the National Team. On the docket is a stage race over the weekend and Junior Roubaix the following weekend, along with all that European culture has to offer...

Check back here often. We are hoping, if the gods of time and the internet allow, for TK's European Diary to be posted right here on our little old blog. And, don't worry, TK promised not to post his innermost thoughts about how you guys look in spandex!

Junior Gearing, Asthma, and Historical Markers

Ward's Ferry is a two hour and fifteen minute drive from Davis, which means leaving home at the ungodly hour of 4:45 am for an 8:00 start... and I thought that P/1/2 races would mean we wouldn't have to get up so early. NOT! (what is this NOT joke?) This suit is NOT black, and we did NOT drive 2:15 minutes to race 12 miles...

Alas, we did. When your coach is cranking out 400 watt painervals each time the course tips upwards, and you are completely spun out in your 52x14 each time the course tips downwards, racing is hard... throw in the random chest-constricting asthma strike, and the outcome is inevitable. AWfoSho did one lap at race pace and three more on cruise control just for miles... El Gigante's equation was similar in the 3's... one lap at speed, one more just for miles.

My day was slightly different... I thoroughly enjoyed nine hours in the car: 2:15 there, 3 following the race, 2:45 back... NOT! Consolations, however, included numerous gold country historical markers (someday I will stop and read them all), tiny little tourist traps like Sonora, Dry Town, and Angels Camp (everytime I drive through them with their old-west store fronts I can't help but picture muddy main streets, cowboy boots, and ten gallon hats along with placer pans, picks, and shovels), and twisty little descents that squeal tires as I try to keep pace with those rocketships on their human powered vehicles (there is nothing like chasing a race in a car full of bicycle wheels when the racers are going downhill)!

One of the coolest things about racing on country roads in the NCNCA is the places those races take you, the history you are riding through, and the sites you get to see... without bike racing, I'd be missing Mark Twain's Calaveras County cabin, the church featured in Little House on the Prairie, and hillsides blanketed in orange California Poppies. Bike racing just fills the glass that much fuller! Did I mention that there is a really cool fishing show on the radio at 5:00 on Saturday mornings... NOT!