2 week countdown!

I got married on July 4th at Round Rock, Texas and then had a quick 3 day honey-moon in Georgetown before flying out to race and report Superweek in the Chicago area. Since I have the Deaf Olympic Games coming up in four weeks time, Superweek was perfect timing for me to get in some decent speed-work training. However, I suffered some set-backs in crashing and totaling my Orbea Opal frame. I did get a Sram road bike for two days of racing, but could not keep borrowing it and had to get my K2 frame shipped up to me from Austin. Jose from the Sram Nuetral Race Support kindly built my bike up and I was able to continue racing. The unfortunate thing was that the bike set-up was not right and this contributed in me not finishing a number of races. I was also busy with race reporting for Cycling News and that took up a large portion of my time.

This is my second week back in Austin, first week was basically a rest one (only did 3hrs of riding including a Driveway race). This week has me embarking upon a 4 -week training program provided by Nick Flyger to help me gain more speed and taper for my events in Taiwan. I have seen some encouraging signs this week, including good power outputs in the Driveway race yesterday. I had some good 20min and 5min power figures that bode well.

It is also my last two weeks here in Austin as Jennifer and I will be flying out on August 18th for Reno where we are visiting family in Winnemucca for four days. I'll be doing some altitude training. We'll be heading down to Salt Lake City to attend the USANA International Convention and there is a down-town city criterium race on the 23rd August which is perfect timing to brush up race skills and keep the legs on the razor edge before the Games.

Wikoff shoots to victory

In a frenetic last lap pack dash to the line, Phil Wikoff (Super Squadra) shot out with 250 metres remaining and looked to have the win comfortably. However, a late charge by Daniel Carruthers (Hansaton Hearing Systems) kept Wikoff in check . In the end, it was a wheel that was the winning margin with Heath Blackgrove (THSJ) in third place comfortably ahead of ever improving youngster, Zach Berg (THSJ). John Trujillo (GCCA) rounded out the top five.

52 starters rolled out on the shady ‘Speed loop’ course for 60 minutes of high speed racing. The course is probably the easiest out of all the course offerings that Willis of Holland Racing puts on. It’s a nice smooth 1.2 mile long course with a switch-back turn at the top of the hill. This spot was the hardest spot of the course due to riders bunching up prior the turn, diving in and then accelerating hard each time through. It is very rare that a break will succeed on this particular course.

There were various riders all trying to escape and establish breakaways and they were all reeled back in within a lap. About half-way point, a threatening split opened up that contained most of the strong riders. This caused a sudden number of guys to leap-frog across and then it was all back together again. With six laps remaining, Daniel Carruthers (Hansaton Hearing Systems) attacked hard down the right side going out and instantly got a big gap, however only one rider went with him and Carruthers decided to sit up as the pack looked urgent and wanting to keep things together. With five laps remaining, Stefan Rothe (Rothe Training/Mercy) attacked hard with Heath Blackgrove in tow plus a couple of other riders. Carruthers who was still on front waiting for the pack to come through still had enough energy to latch onto the steam-rolling train. David Wenger (Super Squadra) also bridged across to form a high-powered breakaway with only four laps remaining. The pack must have seen the threat and had chased hard and the break was re-absorbed at the finish-line. This set-up for the exciting sprint finale that was won by Phil Wikoff and this secured him with the early July mini-series lead. Super Squadra seem to have the uncanny ability of choosing their winners for each month. Last month it was David Wenger and for the May series it was Stephen Wheeler. It remains to see if they can continue their good run of form and seamless teamwork with keeping their man Wikoff in running for the overall win in July.