how can 25 minutes of racing be so tiring?
It's true ... Sunday, i think i only was actually racing for about 25 minutes total. The entire day.
and i'm shattered as i sit and wait for the office brew to kick in.
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Well, first lets talk about that dramatic stage in the Alps yesterday. The entire trip to the Hellyer'Drome that morning saw me calling Sabine every 5 minutes for updates.
"is it Contador in the lead group?"
"what !!! he flatted?"
"oh no ... poor Mic Rogers, i love that aussie dawg"
~ and so on.
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At this point, the race is tantilizingly wide open. And for those afficianados who don't much care if an American arrives in Paris ... this Tour is building to be the best since 2003 (with the exception, of course, of last year's tear-jerking, foot pounding, heart stopping Stage 17 performance by that testy blue-balled Flandis).
And yes, somebody hand me some crow for calling out Kloden to leave Vino behind. I didn't see the footage, but all the word is how Andreas shut down his engine to keep Vino in the game.
happily shattapped on that one.
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Local Reportage
Oh my, oh my ... they put on a good show at the Velodrome this weekend. WarrenG and his merry crew outdid themselves with a killer bit of Championship Promotion. The pump was primed perfect for that cuteypie RobinH and the big AVC show this weekend.
gawdamn, gawDAMN i can't wait for that thing. It's gonna be a party folks ~ come out Friday night and watch the madness. It will be one for the memory cards, i'm tellin' ya.
and i don't even want to think how hard the next day's racing is gonna be ...
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SATURDAY was all about the timed events and an ending slugfest of Points Racing. In the combined 30s and 35s race ... it was man-the-torpedos warfare out there. I think Reaney was satisfied with his brilliant ride in the Indi-Pursuit, so sort of laid back and played kingmaker during the Points affair. He wasn't his normal uber-aggressive self and really had guys scratching their heads trying to figure out how to play it.
Lombardi's Pelaez and i had a very cool battle for the top-spot with AltoVelo's Brian Peterson chomping away at any weak moments either of us showed. It was so much fun.
SUNDAY saw one of the biggest rides of the entire weekend with Peterson cracking a blazing fast 1:10 in the Kilo. Reaney stepped up huge and swung for it, putting up the 2nd fastest time of the day with a 1:11 ... those two guys are BIG powerhouses and could very well kill it at Nationals at T-Town later this year.
The Kilo is one crazy-ass event. There's a science to the thing ... but only a thin shell of it surrounding a chaotic, swirling, angry center of pure barbarism. It's a beautiful mixture of fury unleashed and finely tempered steel.
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The rest of the day was all about the sprints. The Team Sprint has to be my new favorite event. What a big brutish slobbering of power and spit. The women only did 2 laps ... which i think robs us of some spectacle. I'd love to see them do the 3 lap event like the men ~ much more dramatic and sparkly.
WarrenG broke the universe in his first jump out with his team of Nolan and Fillerup. Something snapped under his Visigoth crush of a pedalstroke and he cracked his ribs into his bars and stem. He recovered enough to finish promoting and do a few match sprints ... but, it ended up taking him out of the Gold Medal Match Sprint against Tanner.
THAT was a sprint I would have paid money to watch. Tanner is the artist out on that track and Warren is a howling madman flinging himself at bullets. What a show that would have been.
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In the 40s Match Sprint, Jeffe was up for the championship against a true trackie sprinter. I mean, this guy was HUGE. I'm pretty sure one of his legs outweighed me. It was Carlos of Montano Velo and he was wicked fun to watch sprint. He was one of the few guys who you could actually see change gears. When he popped that clutch and notched up his sprint ... holee shyte, what an acceleration.
Jeffe and I talked about it and figured he'd have to play the race to his strengths and make the sprints long and arduous. So, with Carlos trying to contain him up on the wall, Jeffe fought it off and punched it from a country mile, narrowly holding off the big man for straight wins.
The 30s Match Sprint probably saw the most evenly built rides of the day. Brian Percival and Mattias Elgart would take 3 sprints to decide a champion with each digging into the playbook a fair bit deep to find ways of putting the other off balance.
Elgart looked to have a bit more experience though, and ... with the power of a fabulously pink bike (that i covet horribly) was able to win the day in glorious order - bringing the true trackie fans to their feet.
And I guess every blind gopher finds a hose to hump eventually ... as I was able to win the 35s sprint title this year. The first matchup was against Brian Peterson ~ a kickass dude i dig racing with. We did some bumping, some wheel swings, and raced 110% all over that track this weekend. Frickin' awesome.
As the rounds progressed, Matt McNamara was able to take M.Martinez in his quarterfinals, then held off my pal Kyle Glerum for the bronze medal.
Their match was a crowd pleaser, too ~ with McNamara able to contain Kyle's fitness with a fierce wall battle through 3 rounds.
In the Gold match, it was me against a guy named Tor. Yes, i outsprinted a guy named Tor.
... that's just wrong.
38 comments:
my job at the track is to drink all the beer and take pictures of Steve that he will hate the next day when he sees them on your blog
and you totally look like a trackie in that picture
well, except for the flower petals..
I think that would be Tore......he's H-O-T!
Yummy, for crow dinner. Kloden was the ultimate team player. I think that it he could have gone with the Moreau group. He almost pulled it back, but that cracked Vino, so Kloden, and his cracked crack, stayed back. I suspect the my and our in German is probably one word.
Anyone want to talk about how Ligett is losing it. How many times is he going to mix up Valverde and Vinokourov? One wears baby blue, other black. One blonde the other brown.
"He almost pulled it back, but that cracked Vino, so Kloden, and his cracked crack, stayed back."
... now you're just showin' off.
oh sweetie, we have to at least TRY and make steve look dorky.
... well, i guess we don't have to try that hard.
and thank you for riding out there and then being my wonderful beer-drinking, picture taking, chair taking support crew.
i adore you.
that last pic is very nice...
camphone?
i'm utterly impressed at what you guys do on your 'off' days from road racing.
Speaking of showing off, congrats on taking the match sprint title, flower and all.
Yeh, you do not have to try too hard. As soon as I see her smiling face coming with that freak'n camera I can not contain myself and I start giggling like a school girl....
Nice report and good job to you and Jeff!
I am still in awe over B.Peterson's 1K. I think that time was faster than the "elite" winning time in '06
I had fun squirting geezer juice with you all this weekend. Great racing!
Actually the elite 1k time for 2006 was done by Stephen Hill at 1:06 at ADT Velodrome in Carson City, CA.
Stephen Hill's going to be around for the American Velodrome Challenge. I've seen his data and he's done several 1900 watts.
Doug Northcott - 2k watts.
Josiah Ng - 1800 watts but he's a lightweight.
It's going to be all power all night long.
hernando - 762 watts
bring dat shit.
Let me clarify: the "elite" NCNCA championships at Hellyer last year.
ADT vs. Hellyer, different tracks way different times.....
sorry for the confusion,
steve
Double reminder - for those not racing at AVC come hang with the party crew. Info here
AVC Friday Night Party Info
How do you tailgate at a velodrome? Come to the AVC Race at Hellyer Velodrome in San Jose, CA July 20-21 to find out. The "track-gating" party starts at 6 PM Friday night.
FOR DETAILS CHECK OUT http://myspace.com/hellyeravc
Ah yes, that makes sense. Yeah Peterson's 1:10 is faster than last year.
Normally there's about 3-4 seconds difference between ADT and Hellyer. So in theory, Peterson *should* be able to do a 1:06 - 1:07 at ADT.
I think at 110 lbs you are putting out at least 780 watts Olaf... :)
You just gotta watch out for the crosswinds!
steve
i guess i better race next weekend so i'll have an excuse for feeling/looking like something the cat dragged in on monday
I echo everthing in the local reportings.
HUGE thanks to everyone who had a hand in organizing and running the events this weekend.
I wouldn't even know where to begin with describing all the things i learned this weekend, or all the little things that added up to big fun.
Good times with good people!
You won the sprints? You have now officially made track racing gay.
What are the macho men supposed to do? Join the Village People?
I got to see snippets of the racing-it was fun to see so many people out racing hard, and having fun.
The Bag Boyz represented themselves well, at times it seemed like they went so fast because they had no idea in advance how much it would hurt later! Why would a sane person choose to do more than one kilo in their lifetime?
In our 30+ team sprint start something broke in my rear wheel bearing and I basically applied 1800 watts into throwing myself into the ground. Larry, Jeff and I got our re-ride and the 49/51/48 year-olds showed the kids a good time. We won the 40+ too. I don't think my rib is broken but I could barely hold the bars by the time I went to the start line with Chris, but he's a good guy and deserving champion.
I think it won't be long before Hernando has the nice trim on his sleeves from the points race! And Strawberry Steve too!
We need the Villiage People at Hellyer this weekend.
I nominate Amy and Dave to get working on that ASAP.
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Bunny was the unsung hero of the weekend. her mad dash to the car for my 800 pound toolbox before the team pursuit had to be harder than any of the silly stuff we were doing out on the track.
in other words, you have EVERY reason to feel/look like something the cat dragged in this morning...
Uh, you know I meant that in the best possible sense, right?
It's an exciting tour! No friggen idea who is going to win...I love it.
I think it would be cool if some unknown comes out of the woodwork and uncorks a tour win. I wounder if Alto Velo has anyone there. They are always digging up some mutant out of nowhere.
Track, blah, blah. Fixed gear, blah, blah. 2000 watts, bl... holy smokes.
Congratulations on the Districts result.
yeah, well you guys all smelled pretty ripe after sitting in your skinsuits baking under those tents for hours
luckily, i like smelly guys
up to a point, anyway
especially if they make me dinner.....
microwave pizza night!
"ewwww"?
The pizza or smelly skinsuits sticking to salty nutz?
wuss! you need one of these (found this here: http://www.velonews.com/tour2007/details/articles/12785.0.html)
CSC joins wristband-wagon
Team CSC has joined the wristband bandwagon this year, but it sports an interesting slogan that isn't raising money for a charity or some do-good organization.
Instead, the letters across the black plastic wristband underscore the team's philosophy in this year's Tour: "Harden the Fuck Up."
"Stuart (O'Grady) brought them for the team in London and asked everyone to wear them," said Team CSC rider Frank Schleck. "If it's tough, we look at the wristband and we do what it says. When it gets hard, you harden up. So far it's worked pretty good."
yay!
will you open the box/wrapper?
you guys are all nuts. it is so dumb to have KLODEN waiting around for VINO. he is way stronger in the mts and is the best GC contender, broken arse or not.
Turn him lose, find someone else to baby sit whining VINO.
i'll put the dvd in the machine if you operate the controls
Awesome weekend of racing, thanks guys.
Reaney, you could be a pursuit monster, and turning that kilo time for your first try, that's awesome.
Mike, you and Pelaez were lighting it up in the points race. Probably fun to watch from the sidelines, but damn hard to deal with on the track!
Sprints were fun too. It must have been entertaining watching a couple of sprint newbies go head to head. I KNOW Mike had more than 762 watts during some of those efforts...
Great racing all around this weekend, in all age groups.
Thanks for the compliments. I'm still shocked about the time I turned in the kilo, all the stopwatches must have malfunctioned or something.
Comment too long, so it's on for Friday!
That Carlos is built like the proverbial brick shithouse...rowr.
pabcid standing next to him was like oV standing next to pabcid
really? we looked that retarded?
oh, you mean the size difference...
Tor is another track newbie-did his first track race ever a few weeks ago by doing the the match sprints tournament.
Brian's position on the bike is so perfectly aero. He looks like those guys who specialize in Tour prologues.
That was some fun spectating at the track. I didn't get why the sprint heats progressed so slowly though. I've been watched and participated in sprint tourneys on Saturdays and they roll right through the heats... But I do like the vibe from the track officials. "Team Medicare"--very funny.
Hate to say it but your teamie made the right tactical call on Carlos. And that's what I was sort of getting at with asking you about you doing your races fast--seems like a good roadie tactic when you're up against those guys who look like they spend more time doing leg squats than hill climbs.
I forgot to mention it, but: Does Taz realize the saddle on his track bike is all janked up? I was looking at it in the trainer--the right side is lower than the right. Maybe it got banged up when he crashed that Wednesday?
I'm sure the off-center saddle is completely strategic -- it counteracts the banking or something.
oh, the bent saddle is to counterbalance the bent brain....
Taz, gotta love'm.
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