Winding down

As the season wraps up I find myself struggling to keep up with younger or more motivated racers. These signs were apparent several years ago when I was warming up for the McClane Road Race and some unknown racer in goggles and helmets approached me and asked, "Mr. Kogure, how are you doing?" Who the hell would call me "Mr. Kogure?" Of course, it turned out to be an ex-student of mine whom I had taught when he was a freshman.

So despite all the stories of, "back in 19... I was racing against blah blah blah" I guess I have to admit I'm really now a masters racer and it's good to see the younger riders moving up in the sport. Out here at the Mellowdrome, it's great to see two fierce competitors Grayson Brookshire and Jordan Marhanka battling it out over the course of the Summer. As with all juniors, who can predict what they'll be doing when they reach manhood, but I'm sure that this summer will be remembered by them forever.


Image of the night: Jordan Marhanka leading out the final sprint in the points race. Hey, isn't that a sprinters lane violation? Refs? Read more!

Sprinting

Last night I came and watched a great sprint tournament at the mellowdrome. So this is just a reminder that there are currently some great discussions about sprinting:

Link(FGF forum)

Clay Worthington's Sprint Tactic Presentations Read more!

Going home

Drowning our sorrows in Detroit
















Ok, we actually stopped at a nice comfortable Holiday Inn and caught the end of the Tour stage. Before anyone gets too worried, I'm fully functional. In fact, my first thoughts after dragging myself off the track were, "okay, no broken bones. Still have all my teeth. Have to get back in relieve Josh."

Until someone came up to me and said, "Gen, take your hand and put it over your cut and hold your lip in place."

Hold your lip in place?

So you can guess I won't be entering any beauty contests soon.

So the cumulative toll of World War 3:

9 Spectacular Incidents.
1 bent frame
A pile of wheels
20 Riders "collected"
2 Riders collected by KO.
1 Rider collected by TKO, deemed unfit to continue after receiving repeated blows to the head.


A shattered front



More casualties of Battle Bloomer Hills

That being said, the racing was great and Dale Hughes and all the volunteers put on a great show. A live band, great announcing, and a really nice party at his house that made everyone feel welcome and comfortable.


And please excuse this song, but it's dedicated to all the riders who've raced on the other side of the pond, or those who've dreamed of it. Nothing better than cheesy europop!

Thanks to Josh Reddoch for all the photos. If you click on them you can get a bigger detailed view and some of the detail is pretty fascinating. Thanks to Danny and Ruggy for their advice, the Speedfix guys for being good guys, and Nancy for the host housing. Read more!

All In: Landis style...

Quiet boards under the sun



































Schwinn Paramounts














Elite National Criterium Champion, relaxed off the bike but a killer on it.















Dale Hughes, promotor/track director who keeps the riders in line. His wife Christine is a great announcer who keeps the crowd well informed and excited about the racing.













Patching the track















Today's plan was classic Reddoch style: go from the gun and put tremendous pressure on our opponents until something gave. However, before our race we had a couple of miss-and-outs to finish before the madison. We rode those competently, with Josh capturing a 4th while I fought to a 2nd. Frankly, the miss-and-out was a lot harder and more fatiguing for me today since I didn't have Josh in my heat to control the pace.


Riding second wheel in the miss-and-out

So Josh hit them hard and hit them fast, and within 5 laps we had detonated the field and gained a half lap with one team following. And then this happened.




Well, at least Josh finished the race and we only slipped to fourth.
Read more!

Getting past the first day jitters

The second day went much better than the first. Josh rode the pole in the miss-and-out to 8th place,while I miscounted the laps and ended up 3rd. It was a little frustrating because having sat in the draft for most of the race, I was obviously much fresher than my opponents at the end of the race, but somehow my brain went out-of-phase in their pull "every other lap" format.

The madison also went much better and we ended up 3rd out of nine teams. This was a much welcome result after yesterday's shelling.

Here are some sounds of the Rochester Hills velodrome posted on NPR.
Link
It really reminds me of the sounds of an old wooden roller coaster.


Some madison chaos


A view from the infield





















A view of the framework


















Justin Williams of Rock Racing/National Team. Aka C.Thunder. C.Thunder was paired up with W.Lightning. You can guess what C and W stand for....






C.Thunder got some ribbing from his mates for his team issue socks. Notice the L and R.



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Just the facts?

It was kind of an auspicious beginning when a rider from our seeding TT came sliding down the track during the start of our 4 lap seeding event. Josh managed to avoid the crash but I can't imagine our time was that good. In the madison qualifier we were clearly out of our depth -- we were quickly caught behind one crash and repeatedly gapped off the back until we lost a lap. When we jumped back in we felt much better about things but this pretty much relegated us to the A consolation finals.

On a brighter note I managed a third in the 1 mile scratch race but it really wasn't the best of races. I got caught out of an attack, chased back on, and was gassed and could only hang on for the finish. But that's racing.


Gen sulking after the race.


Gen also didn't do so well in his fight with Scully the golden retriever.


One of the cooler things was watching Adrian Hegevary and Dan Harm: you could see how experienced they were from riding the European 6-day circuit. These days you see lots of teams taking trips to Europe but these guys are a throwback to the days when racers traveled by trains and slept on couches going from race to race.


The second qualifying heat was pretty quick. The picture is blurred because as you approach the speed of light, cameras have a hard time picking up the images.

Daniel Holloway and Ben Barsi-Rhyne were also very impressive, in addition to a couple of Juniors, Danny Heeley and Justin Williams who were riding in the National team kit. If they keep it up, I think the future of endurance track cycling here will be all right.


Under the tent... Daniel Holloway explaining his secret Madison techniques, "If done properly, no can defend!"
Read more!

7/3 Update

After a quick cup of coffee we were soon on the road up to Michael Moore Territory. We rolled through the city of Detroit past the refinery fires, GM plants, past 8 Mile road, and headed towards Rochester Hills.


Flint Michigan.



The Bridge to Canada: just in case we need medical care.


After arriving at Bloomer Park Josh and I did some secret training before our competitors arrived.


Secret training



















The track itself was beautiful -- an all weather wooden 200m track -- and it was wonderful to hear the rumbling of the wooden boards as the bikes moved around the track.



Can you see the beautiful track?



















At 48 degrees in the corners the track is steep and the G-force compresses you through the turn. That doesn't sit well with my out of the saddle sprinting but I'll cope. The radius of the turn is also so sharp that you really can't see that far ahead if you're looking straight ahead.


"Gimme a rope so I can climb this thing Batman style."

Read more!

Morning 7/3

Like many bike racers if I don't get this:









I feel like this:


Read more!

On the road

The Lowmobile was loaded up with our bikes, gear, and a quiver of assorted Cane Creek wheels and off we went: first stop Toledo, Ohio, to crash at John Card's house, a friend of Josh from the Cane Creek elite Ohio Cross team.



Cincinnati, an old industrial city rising from the banks of the Ohio River.












After Cincinatti we ran into Jesus.













The Lowmobile headed into the impending 3 day storm...






photos by Josh
Read more!

Gen and Josh's Big Adventure

(Note this is not Bloomer Park but an image from velocitybicycles.com)

So it begins. We're actually taking a road trip up to Michigan to race a 3-Day International Madison event on one of those steep 200m wooden tracks, one of those steep tracks that you can stand on the infield and touch the track. With help from the CTCA and some start money from the organizers I don't want to make a bad showing, but I have to admit I've been having some "bad racing dreams", kind of like when I was a Cat 4 back in the late 80's. You know those dreams where you can't find your cycling shoes or you're trying to find the start line as you hear your race going off. Mind you the last time I did a real serious Madison was with Bob Muzzy and my memories are of me coming in way too slow. After the race he seemed pretty non-plussed but he must have been thinking, "you idiot...."

Now my apprehension isn't helped by looking at the list of competitors: local hot shots from various tracks around the country, names I actually recognize. At the top of the list (since I know them), is Ben Barsi-Rhyne and Daniel Holloway. My memory of Holloway is as a young kid screaming into the gravelly infield at Hellyer at full tilt, everyone jumping out of the way, his rear wheel fish tailing in a full lock skid until he came to a stop inches from us, all the while with a big grin on his face. We also rode a team pursuit together with Dave McCook. We dropped our first rider, who was on drop bars, in the first kilo. Otherwise all I can remember is hanging on for dear life and taking only half lap pulls in the last half while someone on the infield kept on shouting 22-9, 23, etc... In my memory, we finished with a 4:47 but Farid corrected me as it being a 4:41. Wow, was that really me? Anyways, it was nice because we beat the always good "Larry Nolan super team" that he cobbles together every year using local TT-all stars. Holloway has gone on to become elite Crit Champion, numerous wins on the road (just won a stage in the Tour of Pennsylvania), and took a silver in the Pan Am points race.

So now I'm sipping my coffee and am about to go pick up Josh. Keep you updated! Read more!