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The 2008 Georgia State Time Trial Championship was held Saturday October 18, 2008. The season started in mid February with the Tundra TT in Atlanta. Needless to say, it has been a long season. The course for the state TT was just inside the Georgia -Tennessee border below Chattanooga. The course was advertised as hilly to rolling terrain. That was very accurate. I don't think there was more than a mile of total flat road on the course. You were either climbing or descending.
It was around 48 degrees at the start and it was windy. The course was in the shape of an "H" and that was a total of 8 turns with three of them being 180 degree turnarounds. The roads were rural and narrow. I lost a lot of time on the 180 degree turns. I had just switched from standard brakes on my TT bars to Profile Design Aero brakes or "speed reducers" since they don't really stop you very well. They took a little time to get used too and I did it on the course. I started out fine and was cautious not to go too hard and blow up before I really got started. I rode a good steady pace and picked it up on every climb. This seemed to work as I noticed the other riders were slacking the hills and speeding down the descents. I overtook between 10 - 12 riders during the race. I lost count at one point - so that is pretty close. There had been a car accident near the first 180 degree turn, so the officials shortened the course by about 3 miles. The final distance was about 21.7 miles. I was able to avg. 25.68 mph on this rolling course. It was good enough to win the cat 4 group by over a minute and a half. It was fast enough to have won the master's group, placed second in the cat 3 or cat 2 group and I would have placed 3rd in the cat 1 group with my time. My time was the 5th fastest overall for the day. I was very pleased with the time and with it I claimed the cat 4 state TT title, I took home the jersey and finished my season with a great feeling.
In summary for the season, I took the state championship in the Criterium and Time Trial. I won the cat 4 Georgia Cup series, which is the largest amateur race series in the nation. I also took the " Most Aggressive Rider" MAR title for the series as well with my sprinting. I have been ranked #1 in the cat 4 TT on USA cycling site and top 5 in every discipline at some point over the season. I have more than enough points to upgrade to a cat 3 and now the difficult part starts - going into that field and not getting killed week in and week out. Good luck to everyone and I hope you had a great season!
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experienced. Just can't ride. On the upside, my golf game is getting better.
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This year I have more to be thankful for than I typically do. My wife and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary and we are both healthy and gainfully employed. But the real thing I am thankful for is one hell of a good season. I began racing at 40 years of age. I had only been riding 10 months prior to that and had no idea what to expect. Well, it was harder than I expected. I thought it would be like club rides and I would dominate most of the riders....well, all of the cat 5's were doing well on their club rides. Then I moved into the 4's. I did okay that first season. In the next few seasons, I would bounce from Cat 4 to master's races and did okay. I had the occasional good weekend of racing, but never able to really put several good weekends together. I just missed the state RR title by 3 inches, for second place. Then I was second in the Time Trial state championships. Like I said - not bad, but not great.
This year I was able to turn that corner and pull it together. I trained hard and got good results. My main race series is the Georgia Cup. It starts in early March and ended in mid September. I was on the podium for every weekend except one. That weekend I had no team with me and skipped the TTT. If I had raced it, I would have been atop the box for something. This year I achieved the following;
State Criterium Champion
Georgia Cup Cat 4 35+ winner
Georgia Cup MAR series winner
3rd KOM - Georgia Cup series
Ranked in top 5 nationally by USA Cycling in TT, crit, RR and # 7 in stage race (all at the same time)
Ranked #1 Cat 4 TT at three separate times during the season
Finish - Race - Category
1st - LaGrange Criterium - (GA State championship). cat 4, 35+ -Ga Cup
1st - Dahlonega Table Rock Circuit race GA Cup - cat 4, 35+
1st - Gainesville Time Trial - cat 4, 35+
1st - Time Trial, LaGrange - cat 4, 35+
2nd - Time Trial, Union City - cat 4, 35+
2nd - Time Trial -Chattanooga - cat 4, 35+
2nd - Stage 4, Tour of Atlanta Stage race - Team Time trail - Cat 4 < 35
3rd- Union City Criterium Ga Cup - cat 4, 35+
3rd - Perry Roubaix Time Trial - cat4, 35+
4th - Sunny King Criterium - Master's 45+ (combined 35/45 field - scored separately)
4th - Stage 3, Tour of Atlanta Stage Race -John's creek circuit race - cat 4, < 35
4th - Rome RR Ga Cup- cat 4, 35+
4th - Elberton RR Ga Cup - cat 4, 35+
4th - Cycleworks Dog Days RR - Master's 45+
4th - Stage 1,Tour of Atlanta Time Trial -cat 4, < 35
5th - Perry Roubaix Circuit Race - cat 4, 35+
5th - Rome Criterium Ga Cup - cat 4, 35+
6th - Elberton Criterium Ga Cup - cat 4, 35+
6th - Roswell Criterium -Master's 45+
6th - Tundra Time Trial - Master's 45+
8th - Gainesville Criterium Ga Cup - cat 4, 35+
8th - Chattanooga Criterium Ga Cup - cat 4, 35+
Weekend results
1st place - Gainesville Stage Race
1st Place - LaGrange Omnium
2nd Place - Chattanooga Stage Race
2nd Place - Union City Stage Race
2nd Place - Rome Omnium (tied in points for first)
3rd Place - Perry Omnium
3rd Place - Dahlonega Omnium
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2008 has been a great season for me so far. My performance has continued to improve as the season progressed. It began in March with the first Georgia Cup race in Albany, Georgia. and this report goes through the Rome Georgia Cup race weekend. 14 Podiums and counting.
Race High lights of 2008:
Georgia State Cat 4 criterium champion cat 4
Georgia Cup cat4 35+ series Leader- yellow Jersey holder
Georgia Cup cat4 35+ sprint leader
Albany Stage Race - cat 4
Prologue - 2nd Place
Perry Roubaix Omnium
TT - 2nd place
Circuit Race - 5th place
Overall - 3rd place
Gainesville Stage race -cat 4
TT - 1st place
Crit - 8th place
Overall - 1st Place
Chattanooga Stage Race - cat 4
TT - 2nd Place
Crit - 8th place
RR - 13th place
Overall - 2nd place
Sunny King Criterium 45+ master's
4th Place
Historic Roswell crit 45+ master'
6th place
Union City Stage Race - cat 4
TT - 2nd place
Crit - 3rd place
RR - 17th place
Overall - 2nd place
LaGrange Stage Race - cat 4
TT - 1st Place
Crit - 1st Place
RR - 11th Place
Overall - 1st place
Rome Stage Race - cat 4
Team TT - 5th place
Crit - 5th place
RR - 4th place
Overall - 2nd
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April 5th was wet, cold and the start of a great weekend. The second stage race of the Georgia Cup premier series was held in Gainesville, GA over the weekend. The TT was around 10 miles and it was followed by a 54 mile road race a couple of hours later. The following day would be an afternoon crit.
The day started in the mid 50's, raining and a little windy. So, a nice Spring day in Belgium! The TT started flat for a mile and then was climbing up until the turn with two RR tracks along the way. After the turn it was down and fast. The hills were pure suffering. I was able to keep a good pace and then blistered the return. I won the TT by :20....a good start to a stage race weekend. The RR was hilly. I was not sure how I would ride after the TT effort. There was a KOM climb on each of the two - 27 mile laps. The hill was 1.5 K with a 9% average grade. I have suffered on this hill in years past and was worried. I got to the base of the climb fairly far back in the pack and to my surprise, was climbing better than most. I was the 4th across the KOM line on the first lap and 8th on lap 2. About 4 miles out I moved into the lead of the pack and at around a mile to go was third wheel. As the group acellerated, I went off the front on a gamble at around 250 yards. I faded about 50 out and got swarmed. I finished 24th, but with the same time as the pack. The remainder of the day was spent drying bags, shoes, helmets, etc.
Sunday was going to be interesting- Saturday had been hard and I went into the Crit as the Stage race leader by 1.4 seconds. KOM and finish time bonuses were making this really tight. I rode the crit fairly conservatively, I hit the final sprint mid pack and ended up 8th. Kept my lead of 1.5 seconds and won the weekend.
So far, I have had a podium in my last three outings, so far....so good. This weekend is a stage race in Chattanooga TN. I've got my fingers crossed.
Keep the rubber side down ;- )
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2008 is just like every other year, it could be a good year or mediocre - who can tell. This year I am stuck between two goals. My first is to be a top performing time trialer. I have two options - race within my category at cat 4 or my Master's age group of 45+. I currently am not the top of either group. This will be my 5th year of racing. I started in 2004 and have gotten better each year. Unfortunately, the competition has gotten tougher each successive year as well. The times that were winning TT's in '04 are not in the top 10 this year. Who knew? I have tried many things to improve over my few years of racing, self-training, training groups, supplements, improved equipment. All have their place, but none is the magic bullet I was hoping for.
This year, I have a systematic approach to my training. Foremost was the addition of a coach. In October of '07, I enlisted the help of Travis Sherman. Travis runs the Alabamacyclingnews.com website and Podium Finish Training services. He is a cat 1 racer and has been working with me to develop my fitness into the best form I can get. I have to admit, the first few months seemed to match my own self trained regime, but I have seen that his approach has added other items into my plan I had not. I also have seen improvements in power and stamina I had not seen in previous years. Bottom line - coaching works. I am also looking at my fitness maintenance in the form of better stretching, and bike fit. I visited with Nathan O'neill - 8 time Australian National TT champion earlier this month to get his help with my bike position on both my road and TT bike. He made some big changes. The results show that they are for the better. I am also planning to attend a TT clinic Nathan is running to get some additional pointers.
I am plagued with issues around my lower back and so far, the bike position changes have helped. I am adding in inversion boots to help decompress and stretch out my back a few times a week. It sucks to get old! If my personal funding can be modified - I would like to add a few improvements to the TT bike to "buy" some time that I don't seem to find through training.
Last year I dedicated my entire season to the Master's race level. Admittedly, I was not that competitive with the cat 1's and 2's most of the time. I had my occasional moments and did okay. I peaked against them with a 4th place finish in Savannah. My finest accomplishments came in the Team Time Trail with my buddy Scott Matty. Tragically, Scott was killed earlier this year on a training ride and I will never have the benefit or pleasure of competing with him again. He was a good friend and a great riding buddy. Team TT is probably not on my agenda for the near future without my friend.
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Well, its been a while since I updated my season, so here I go. Rock Hill was the last update of note. I hit a period where I was a little burned out, so I chose to avoid too much racing and slacked off the training just a little.
Union City, GA
I raced again in mid June for a 12 mile TT. I got 12th which was not bad considering the fiasco of registration at the Union City Omnium. I got zero warm up and went straight from pinning my number to the start line.
Savannah, GA
My next event was the Georgia Cup Stage race in Savannah, GA. We started with the Team Time Trial. Normally, I would have been pumped, except only myself and one other member of the master's squad went to Savannah. Georgia Cup allows up to 10 riders. We had two. From the start we were at a disadvantage. Scott Matty and I rode quite well. It was only 12 miles long, so we still had our work cut out. We managed to pass two teams before the finish. And we didn't get passed by any other team, so that was a good thing. The master's field in Savannah was pretty strong. Lots of cat 1's, 2's 3's and a few former pro level riders. In the TTT, there was Memorial health/Team One. They are a talent stacked team. Over a dozen state titles in the group and the current state crit, RR and TT jersey wearers. Also the state cyclecross champ. Needless to say, they won the TTT. They fielded about 8 guys. They were strong enough that they rode both the masters and the P/1/2 Stage race. We did well enough to pull off third place. Not bad for just two of us. We beat several teams of 5 & 6 riders. The second place team only had 3 riders, but that included the former master's World TT champion -David Grice, the current GA state 45+ TT champion - Doug Pomeranz and another cat 2 that was plenty strong. So two cat 4's held our own in a good field.
Next was the afternoon's crit. Man - it started fast and stayed that way. There were constant attacks and a boat load of primes throughout. I got a calf cramp about 40 minutes in and lost the main pack. It was a stage race, so I couldn't quit or I would be out completely. I kept peddling, single legged at times. But manage to recover and make some time back. I passed a few guys who were blown off and got back to 17th place. Didn't loose too much time. Sunday was the circuit race along the Olglethorpe Speedway. This is a 2.6 mile LeMans style race track. about 8 turns with banked corners. It was fast and fun. The field was around 55 riders. It started fast and stayed fun. Scott stayed up front and tried to get into the breaks. Scott doesn't have the fastest sprint, but he has one hell of an engine. If he can make a break, no one will drop him and he can make sure to have a high finish. He made every break, but none of them stuck, so he was in the field at the end. I stayed on the best sprinter in the field to make sure I was always where I needed to be. This kept me near the front most of the race. Memorial Health tried to send a group out and they stayed away for awhile. Several attempts were made to get them, but it never really worked. With three laps to go - I made the decision to keep them from routing this thing and did a very hard effort to close with the pack in tow. I made it, but thought my race was over. My effort hurt a few so, I kept in the top 15. Recovered enough and was in the mix down the final straight away. I got blocked at one point and finally got clear. Opened up a great sprint and got 4th place. If I had kept a better position - I would have been on the podium. I ran down everyone with my sprint. It was a good day. My legs were there!
Sprott, AL - Alabama State 40K Time Trial Championships
Never heard of Sprott? Well there is a reason for that - there is nothing there of note. Only a road. And that road was all we needed. My team, Columbus Bike Racing (CBR) took 13 riders to Sprott for a maiden voyage to the middle of nowhere. We had three teams for the Team Time trial and two Juniors for the individual race. The day started in a rainy Wal-Mart parking lot at 5 AM. We gathered and caravaned three hours in the rain to Sprott. The rain continued to fall throughout the TT which made the rooster tails in the face really nice in the TTT.
Our juniors did well. One was from Alabama and won the 13-15 state champion's medal. The other placed second in the juniors and won some cash. The event allowed for 4 riders per team. We had 4. All were pretty strong and we were in good shape. Until we actually had to be. One of our guys misjudged the time and stopped for a nature break and missed the start. We took off too hard and blew another guy off the group within a few miles. It was just me and Scott Matty again. The rain was not good, but we did have a slight tail wind. We were flying - we passed three teams by the turn at 20K. Our average speed was 28.5 mph. Then we turned. The wind, oh the wind. We now had 20K of pure suffering. We kept a good pace, but into the wind - ouch. No one passed us and we didn't pass anyone else. There was no one up there. That would have helped. No rabbits in sight!! We crossed the line with a 25.6 mph avg. Not bad, in fact it was good enough to win the TTT. We beat all categories and took the 1st place. If we were from Alabama, we would be state champions. Oh well. Our cat 4 team did well and our cat 5 team did good too. They also podiumed in their groups.
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I raced the Rock Hill Spring Omnium over the April 13-15 weekend. Rock Hill is a small town in SC, just below Charlotte, NC. The Omnium started with match sprint heats that culminated in a sprint final. I had never done a pure sprint event, so this was a new thing for me. I sprint fairly well, so I was pumped to go try it, but worried because Rock Hill was a six and half hour drive. We got there about a hour before the sprints started on Friday afternoon. My group, Master's 35+ was first on the line. I had a minor mechanical that was resolved by my shop mechanic (Bryon Thornton - Ride On Bikes) over the phone. Luckily it was an error I caused and could easily fix (with a little guidance).
The sprint format was 8 guys per heat. They held your saddle at the start just like a TT. It was a 500 meter distance. I wasn't sure what to expect and right from the gun, one guy was all over it. I kept him in sight and around 250 meters out - I laid down the gas. No one was holding my wheel and I took the heat without any bother. The win qualified me for the final, so I had a 3 hour wait until the final. The final was played a little different by most of the riders. I got nervous and went out fine, but jumped too early. Another guy rode me in. I almost took the lead back, but ran out of road. I placed 2nd. My team mate Scott Matty won the Master's 45+ sprints.
The crit was a good course with a long downhill, a climb and six corners. I won the first prime. The group was a little sketchy in the downhill corner at first and I got out of the front bunch for a while. I made my move up too late and didn't get good position for the finish. I placed 10th in the crit. Again, my team mate Scott Matty won the Master's 45+ crit. He was racing like an animal!!
The weather turned bad on Saturday afternoon and the rain set in. We were worried that the Road Race would be miserable in the rain and wind. We arrived at the race venue and just before we went off - the rain stopped. Around 35 miles into the race - the Sun came out. I rode a conservative race and stayed mid - to back of the pack for the first 30 miles. I moved up a little and with around 7 miles to go - I moved up to the top 15. With 3 to go, the hills were all gone and it was nothing but flats. The pace ramped up to between 27 - 30 mph from there on in. Mostly because the RR was combined 35/45+ masters and Scott Matty was trying to blow the pack apart. Another team mate, Darren Sorrells was constantly taking Scott's pulls to keep him off the front so he would have something for the finish. Darren did a lot of work and sacrificed his race for Scott and ultimately me. Since I didn't do any work for Scott, I had good legs. On the final mile the pack was really nervous, we passed the 1000 meter mark and everyone was jumpy. We were over 30 mph at this point. When the field got to about 400 -350 meters out, guys started moving everywhere. It was earlier than I wanted to make a move, but I did not want to get boxed in and have no shot - I went for it with everything I had. I knew I couldn't hold it that long, but I was hoping I might create a gap and ride that in. Well, two guys stayed with me, but couldn't pass. I held them off until about 25 meters, I felt my legs lose a little and they came around. I looked back and I wasn't getting swarmed. I crossed the line 3rd, but one of the riders was a 45+ so I got second place.
I went to pick up my RR cash and asked if I placed in the Omnium. I was thinking maybe 5th - to my surprise, I had won the Master's 35+ Omnium. All in all, I took home over $200 for the weekend. Not a bad weekend. My buddy Scott got locked up with a guy in the sprint and placed 10th. He was riding much better and lost out on winning the 45+ Omnium by a point. Scott placed second overall for the weekend. He collected over $200 as well.
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Well the second race weekend of the Georgia Cup Series was this past weekend. The good news is that I had no bad luck! Actually, I had a good weekend. The results were okay and my fitness is coming along pretty well. The races were held in Gainesville, Georgia. This is a small town north of Atlanta. The weekend was a stage race with a TT, criterium and a Road race.
I raced the master's 35 + group. My goal was to be top 5-10 in the TT and top 20 in the crit. I did the RR course last year and I didn't think I could be competitive, so my goal was to finish.
I was the second rider off in my categorie for the TT. Due to my poor performance in the last race with the mechanical in the TT, I was rated as someone that would be the rabbit and passed quickly. Well, this week I had sound equipment and was ready. I got a good start and started out a little too hard and had to get my HR down at the two mile mark. The course was rolling hills and had two turn-arounds in it. I kept my 30 second man in sight and could tell by the first turn around I was not far from overtaking him. I got him in the next mile or so. I poured it on after that. I finished feeling pretty good. I found out the results later and I had finished 9th. I was pleased with that. The winner was a cat 1 and he was 41 seconds faster.
None of my master's team mates went up for the TT but they did come up for the crit. The course was a 4 corner speedway in the city's downtown. We had 5 riders in the crit. It started really fast and stayed that way. The announcer called at least 7 primes and that made it tough. There were several former pro's in the field and plenty of 1's, 2's & 3's. Well the speed hit some of our guys hard. We lost 3 within 15 minutes. The two of us left were doing fine. Scott did some good work in lap 21 and shut down an 8 man break that was getting away. I was working hard to stay on the pack. The race was 24 laps and Scott got 13th. I could not pick it up much in the end and finished 20th.
The road race course had two KOM's on each lap. Our race had 8 laps. The big hill was 1.5K w/ a 9% grade. The second KOM hill was 500 meters. These two were enough to tear the field apart. I stayed with the pack for two climbs up the big one and then faded. I kept working and did finish the race. We had three in the race and I finished first for our three and they came in order behind me. We finished, but it was tough. I got 37th. It was a hard 37th.
The weekend met my goal and I think I got some good fitness out of it. We did out training crit tonight and I won the first one. I put in a great sprint from behind and ran down a good rider.
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The season has started and the "bad luck" hopefully is all used up for me. I say this because the first event in Georgia for the road racer's is the Tundra Time Trial. A few of us registered and were on our way to Atlanta one very chilly morning when my truck, Ford F150 super crew, decided to break down at 6:45 AM, we found ourselves stranded on the interstate with three TT bikes and temperatures around 18 degrees. We were 45 miles from the closest help and 2 hours away from the race venue. Needless to say, by the time we got help, transferred vehicles - we were too late to make the TT. (Strike One)
Last weekend, March 3 & 4 was the start of the Georgia Cup series. I was pumped and primed to make up for missing the Tundra TT. We traveled to Albany, Georgia all set to enjoy the stage race. We registered, put chip timing devices on our bikes, warmed up and lined up for a short, technical and hard prologue. It is 3.3K with 12 turns. With slight ups and downs and some wind. I was ready, in the start house - official counts down and I put in two strokes and my back wheel comes out of the frame!! I immediately try to keep from falling over and then reset the wheel. How could this happen? I have preridden the course three times, done jump sprints and been on the rollers for thirty minutes. I hop back on and it comes out again. I am throwing profanity like a sailor. With such a short TT, this is killing me. I finally get the wheel in, (the skewer is bent on the end now and was really hard to force in). I get going this time and I am running on pure adrenaline. I have lost time as 4 riders start after me plus a little more time. That is over two minutes lost. I start closing in on the rider ahead of me but did not catch him. I turned in the slowest time in the master's group thanks to my misfortune. With my actual ride time, I think I would have been around the top 5 - 10, who really knows. (Strike two).
The criterium is next and we field a good master's contingent from my team. We have 6 riders in the field. There are some pretty good riders against us. Several have ridden with their pro licences in the past and then there are still 8 - 10 cat 1's, and plenty of 2's, 3's and a few 4's to round it out. (which included me). The crit is fine, technical with 8 turns. We are moving pretty good, a little attack goes off the front and our team leader is not sure it will stick. A team mate, Scott, bridges up with one other rider and the field settles a little. The biggest team in the field has 12 riders and one of their's is in the break, so they sit back and we do too. A few more bridge up and now there are 9 in the break and they are motoring. We sit back and probe a little to make the bigger team work to cover. My guys take me up and I won the only field prime of the race. Scott takes third in a time bonus prime with the lead pack to help his overall time. The final laps really pick up and I get boxed before I can gain good position for the finish, I miss it, but another rider on my team, Butch, makes a good move and takes 11th. I passed a few for 15th and Barry pulls down 17th. Two other riders in our group had mechanicals and were out of the hunt. (No real hit, more like a walk)
The road race was the following day. Man, the temps were in the 40's with 10-20 mph constant wind. The course was through open farmland, so the wind was everywhere and it was 62 miles for the day. We started out and the pace was okay and then it really picked up. We had 8 riders in the master's group for Sunday. After the KOM hill, we lost one of our guys and along the way we lost three more. It was down to 4 of us, Scott, Barry, Butch and me. Everyone was riding strong and I was happy to be in the mix. Well about half way my lower back began to twinge. Then it spasmed. Well, I was off the bike for weeks with this issue in January, so I bailed from the race. (Strike Three)
On a good note, Scott had another good race and so did Barry and Butch. Our 4's did okay and Sheila, our only woman at the event was in the mix with the P/1,2,3,4 women's group. She was in the sprint and pulled down 10th. Sheila is a cat 4, so this was a very strong showing.
I am looking forward to the next Georgia Cup in Gaineville Ga. It is an omnium with a short 7 mile TT a crit and a climbing RR. I hope to do well in the TT and survive the crit and RR without a strike.
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