CFT Cycling Team Tuesday Night Ride

Short and sweet this morning:

The medal tally for the year has been updated. Nice job by all podium finishers.

The race this past week went well, our official photographer, Jackie Neagos will be wrapping up her photo shoot recap, then we will post the results.

The TNR ride this week had 26 riders, the weather was fantastic,, blue skies, 80 degrees. If you were not on a bike this evening, you missed out.

Banky took a neutral sprint!

Finally, beginning this Thursday, June 28 we will begin weekly crit training. This training is meshing with the standing Thursday night ride. The ride will leave the Hannah Center at 6pm to head to the training grounds. July has many crits, take advantage of this training to impove your skills.

Did I mention that Banky took a neutral sprint last night?

Later.

My apologies for being MIA for two missing blogs. I attribute this to time constraints and writers block. To remedy the matter, I no longer keep track of time and I pulled out some Edgar Allen Poe writings for inspiration: Lots has happened. Two TNR nights have come and gone. I will summarize them in one line. Fast and furious. In addition we have been loose on keeping score tally's, which is no big deal as we are accomplishing what we want on the ride. Two teams are still working hard to hone strategy and tactics and things are meshing fairly well. We have juggled the lineups and put some parameters on how much one rider can score in one night. This has opened up sprints to other individuals and it has worked well.

We have to talk about Potter road. For those of you that do not know it by name, it is the road through the trees leading to the 5th sprint. Bottom line is the road is crumbling from the edges in. Those of you that were there Tuesday night know what I mean. The one section in particular has crumbled halfway across the right lane leaving about 3 and half feet of pavement on our side of the yellow line. In its place now is a 4 to 5 inch deep gaping hole that devours wheels and bikes. Until fixed it will only get worse. There are other areas on the road that present some great hazards also, especially at high speeds.

There has been some brief talk about finding alternate route around that road. Maybe continue on up Williamston to Dexter Trail. Further discussions will happen on this before a decision is made. In the interim, I propose/suggest this for the next ride: The 5th sprint and the leadup to it become a neutral zone for this next week. First of all we need to ride that road slow to see if the bike eating hole is even fixed. Second, if you have not been on that section by yourself and your only exposure to that road is in a pack on Tuesday night, then you really don't realize where and how bad that right edge is. By running that section in a neutral, reasonable pace this upcoming Tuesday it will give all riders the ability to see where not to be on that road at a high rate of speed. Then after this Tuesday we can discuss further on what to do for the remainder of the rides. Anyways, that is my suggestion for this upcoming week.

As for the CFT Team. West Branch and Mt. P. By now I am sure you have seen the results. Pretty darn good stuff. This weekend brings on two more points races. Good luck to all

Finally, our race is now 10 days away. Thanks to all that have volunteered and for registering early.

That is all for now. later.

READ BELOW FOR ALEX'S SUMMARY OF HIS MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND IN AMERICA'S HEARTLAND:

This past weekend marked the famous Snake Alley Criterium in Burlington Iowa, which happens every year memorial day weekend. Along with "the snake" there are also 2 more crits which follow up on Sunday and Monday. Paul Gregory who is living in St. Louis for the summer decided to to take the short drive up and meet me for a weekend of racing.

Saturday
The snake lived up to its infamy without a doubt. It was 95 degrees and our race didnt start till 1pm so keeping cool was a snuggle in itself. Those of you who dont know the snake, its a 5 switch back one block climb that averages 12.5 percent with kicks of about 17-18% and a one block lead in that averages about 7% so its no easy roll in.
and it looks something like the pictures attached. The race was awesome and it was an all out sprint to the first climb I was able to wiggle a bad start spot into top 15 at the top of the first climb. I was able to say about 15th for the first 4 laps of 12 but the heat really got to me, and Paul. We both blew up to the point where pedaling in the little ring was a chore. Paul ended up passing me way late in the race but I was far to tired to grab his wheel. He ended up 22nd and I was 26th of about 55. Not a great result but an awesome race and would love to do better there in the future.

Sunday
The 34th annual Melon City Crit was an interesting course of a 1 mile oval with one 90 degree corner and a long grinding climb at the bottom of the decent there was a speed bump that every lap you hit at 30+ mph which was very interesting. The race started fast, and on lap 2 of 14 a crash happened in the only corner and it split the field. I was right behind the crash but able to sneak threw and stay with the group, Paul was not so lucky. But like a MAN he crashed back on solo in one lap and was able to sit in the lead group of ~20. With about
11 to go the first big attack came and a rider went solo for about 6 laps, him being solo it was no huge threat. In this time paul snagged a field prime and I could tell he was feeling good up the hill. I however was not. On the bell lap a good attack came from a michigan guy and with Paul on my wheel I went to the front to try to bring it back. I went to the last climb with an all or nothing mentality, I hammered as hard as I could to string out the field and took Paul up to about 500m to go. He was not able to catch to solo move but ended up 5th and I was 20th of 55. Not the best tactics on earth on my part but Im glad we got a top five. We dealt with the 95 degree heat much better this day.

Monday
Was the Quad Cities crit to cap the weekend. A flat 14 lap 8 corner crit in downtown Rock Island, IL. The race started off very fast and very windy and stayed that way, i had to work hard to move to the front but once I was there it was pretty easy to stay around the top 10. There were not many attacks being that we were holding about 28-30mph the whole time. On the bell lap no one really took control of the race which scared me, and I was right. I was able to stay toward the front and was sixth 7th wheel going into the last corner.
The last corner also had a huge crash which I was in-front of but it still cause the person ahead of me to react to the outside and I was literally inches away from nailing the barrier. When I gained control of my bike I looked back and there was no one in site that was still upright. I was happy to roll in for 7th still on two wheels. Paul was not involved in the crash but was unfortunately popped with about
3 to go in a big acceleration.

Overall, a great weekend of some fast racing with some very good fields from all over the midwest.

The gales of November returned for our May weekly ride and they were straight out of the West, proving to be a formidable opponent for 20 riders. But, thanks to Cary, with input from Rick and Mark, they provided an excellent training moment as we headed South. After a demonstration at Barnes road, we learned the fine art of an efficient echelon in three separate groups. Some of it was pretty and at times ugly, but the concept was embedded into all. We need to continue to hone these techniques and skills in the coming weeks so that we all ride more efficiently.

As for the scoring, the suggested change by Cary was welcomed by all. Our two team concept will stay intact, but each rider can only score once for the night. In a duplicate win for one rider, the scoring will default to the second rider across the line. This worked out well with six different riders taking sprints. The scoring for the night ended up 16 white and 5 black.(someone double check this)
Totals to date are:
white 43
black 27
eots 6

Frankenmuth
"there are a thousand stories in the Naked City".... great movie... there were also many stories from a Frankenmuth weekend. If you want the cold hard numbers, the results are posted on the MBRA site. If you want the rest of the story, here is some of it. First off, I knew nothing about the goings on of the Dog Bowl, now I do and I am still traumatized. As for the racing, 15 CFT riders made the journey with many fine showings. In the cat 5's Tanner had his inaugural RR experience. Thanks to a course marshall snafu, I am sure it did not turn out as planned, but he has the bug now. Joe Kennedy had a good showing in the 5's, Bryan Waldman and Kevin Gamper had superb showings crossing the line in 1st and 4th place, only to be told otherwise, (see aforementioned comment about the course marshall snafu). Both took the disappointing news in stride. In the 4's, Craig Newell and John Gracely had nice showings and both finished in the points in what proved to be a very fast field finish. Also in the 4's Brad Neagos suffered through a mechanical issue at the start and watched from the sidelines. But, as one passer buyer stated to Wade as he saw the issue unfold, "your rider handled the situation with class". Nice thing to hear about a teammate. In the 45m's, Mustapha and Mike Williams (good to see Mike racing) finished in the field as did Mark in the 55's. In the 35 masters the ZACADOWA train (my new acronym for wade, doug, zack and cary, get used to it) was a major factor in the race. Although each of them said separately they were a little disappointed in not getting Cary to the line first, the ground work is laid for the future. In talking with Cary he said it was an "awesome sight" seeing 4 black CFT jerseys come to the front of the field with 1 mile to go and take control of the finish. End result 3rd place for Cary and a superb effort for the team.

Hope to see all at West Branch, until then, later.

WMSR summary by Brad Neagos

West Michigan Stage Race was a great weekend of weather and of racing. The mystery man John Gracely put CFT on the center stage of the Midwest racing scene with his performances. John had an impressive victory in the crit coming from about 15 riders back to take 1^st place and win the field sprint. He followed this up with another 1^st place finish in the road race. John finished 8^th overall in cat 4. Craig Newell also had a strong performance this weekend finishing 5^th overall in cat 4, and dominating all 3 events. In the time trial department Dave Joos put in a strong effort taking 2^nd in 55 plus category, For the other 3 CFT riders, John Draminski, Joe Kennedy and Brad Neagos, WMSR proved to be a great learning experience and will certainly help as our racing careers start to take form.