Epic

For those of you that missed the weekly ride last night beacuse of the threat of bad weather, shame on you. While only 4 of us showed up, in my opinion it had to be one of the best rides of the year. Sure we only did 30 miles and were only out there for about an hour and a half, but all the elements were there for the makings of an epic ride. And when I say elements I mainly speak of the rain and wind. Mix in hills, hill repeats and some work on team tactics and you have an outstanding ride.

It looks like we should be sending four guys out to Whitnall this Saturday, so we did some tactical practice to work on some team dynamics. It would of been even better had we had two different squads out, but I think we made some good progress none the less. It is nice to see that the team is starting to really come together so early in the season. All this work in the early season should start paying out soon, and the next big race we will be doing as a team will be The Tour de West Lafayette in Indiana next month. We still have three weeks to work out the kinks, but we should have a very strong showing there as well.

Another Great Tuesday Night

Perfect temperature, no wind, fast racing and no crashes. Thats probably the best way to sum up last night in Matteson. I was surprised at how few people had showed up compared to the first week. The thing that really caught my attention was the xXx'ers. Or should I say the lack of them out of about 50 riders there were only two from xXx.
BB-VP had a great showing last night with three starters in the A's race and 5 in the B's. In all six races we had someone in the top 5, and at least two in the top ten. We tried out some tactics last night, some worked, some didn't. But we will have plenty of time to work on those as the summer progresses. Thats the great thing about Matteson, you have three chances a night to try and get things right. I won't talk too much more about tactics here as I don't want to give anything away. Racing is difficult enough as it is, without other teams knowing what you plan on doing.

1997 Liege-Bastogne-Liege

Want to learn how to lose a race? Watch Jalabert in the 1997 edition of L-B-L. Bartoli was outnumbered 2-1 all the way to the finish by JaJa and Zulle. Attack after attack after attack couldn't break Bartoli. Finally he broke Zulle with 2k to go then rode JaJa off his wheel. It seemed as if JaJa was more concerned with what was happening behind him than in front of him. Lesson learned, the race is in front of you. After 7 hours and 19 minutes JaJa was 1000 meters away from a huge victory. Instead he was too worried about a possible counter attack and let the lone threat simply rde away from him. I don't think of Jalabert as taking second that day, rather he was the first loser! Bravo Bartoli!

Whitnall Park Criterium

This Saturday will host another running of the Whitnall Park Criterium. This race holds a special place in my memory for a few reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it is a great race. I first did this race way back in '96 or '97 I can't remember which now, but a few years back to say the least. It was to be my first crit after only my first road race which was the Rock Cut State Park RR in Rockford. I can remember distinctly that the weather was finally getting warm enough to ride without any extra layers, which was a welcome relief to what seemed like a very long winter.
This was to be a day of firsts for me, yet I hadn't quite expected the first one that was about to take place. As my teammates and I began preparing ourselves and our bikes for the race, there was one preparation making the rounds that in retrospective was probably a sign of the times, performancing enhancing drugs. Yep, you read it right, drugs. It was the late 90's after all and as we now know everyone seemed to be doing them. My teammates drug of choice you ask, ephedra. While they all sipped their sports drinks and popped their pills, I politely declined and applied some embrocation to my pale legs.
While our race was rather uneventful, I finished 11th out of about 30 I do remember some kid that showed up wearing a full Team Saturn kit and had a Team Saturn bike as well. I checked out the sticker on the top tube and it read VandeVelde. I had heard the name before at the Velodrome, and wondered how nice it would be to have a full carbon fiber bike and a team mechanic to keep it running.
I wonder what ever happened to that VandeVelde kid? Oh wait... I know, he has since gone on to ride in some other bike races I have heard of, namely the Tour de France for one. Christian ended up winning the Pro 1/2 race that day and has since gone on to lead the life we all dream of. Who knows maybe some kid will show up on Saturday and change his life forever too. I'll have to keep an eye on the results I guess.

Ahhh... The Spring Classics

Once again the Spring Classics dished out incredible weather. From the sleet, snow and rain from Flanders, to the horrible weather that was predicted at Roubaix that never happened. The weather in Northern Europe is always unpredictable as storms roll in off of the Atlantic with just a moments notice. And here you always thought that Chicago weather sucked. Check out this photo of Stuart O'Grady at Flanders this year, snow and all.

The weather for this years Roubaix was supposed to be so bad that most teams had custom bikes built just for the race. Most of the bikes that were built had seat and chainstays that were lengthened for more mud clearance as well as longer forks for additional clearance up front. The Silence-Lotto team went as far as using Ridley X-Night cyclocross frames with cantilever brakes. Fortunatley the weather turned out better than predicted, and most teams were able to use their standard road frames. It just goes to show how much the weather can affect a race such as Roubaix. Kinda makes you wish you had the choice to run different bikes based on the weather doesn't it?