Season in review (April)

During the month of April our racing moved north to Gainesville, GA and Chattanooga, TN for the next two rounds of the Georgia Cup followed by the Athens Twilight. We were greeted with a nice down pour during the Gainesville time trial and a few railroad crossings made for an interesting time trial. The crossings made nice jumps at 30 mph but it was a little scary when you didn't know that was going to happen! Joey lead the team with a well deserved 15th place in the tt. To make things more interesting the 81 mile road race started a little more than one hour following the time trial. The course was mostly rolling with one decisive half-mile climb that split the weaker riders out of the peleton. Thomas did what he does best and sprinted in for a 6th place (2nd in the field sprint behind Tommy Nankervis of Toshiba-Santo). The following day we raced the crit in downtown Gainesville, a very fast and fun course. Unfortunately, three Toshiba-Santo riders and Oscar Henao of Clinica Union Cycling established a break midway through the race and we weren't represented. However, Thomas once again used his sprinting prowess to take 2nd in the filed sprint for 6th place once again.

Our Chattanooga trip was rather interesting as five people and seven bikes crammed into a small extended stay hotel outside of the airport. With only two twin beds we resorted to making nests on the floor anywhere we found space. The upside was that we were able to cook our own food on the stove and the microwave! Joey once again showed his time trial strength by netting the best result on the team with a 22nd place and Jafer followed four seconds back in 27th. The downtown crit was a very fast and aggressive race with nonstop attacks from Toshiba-Santo, a pro team that sends a full squad to every GA Cup. On the final lap of the race Jafer was riding behind Oscar when a slower rider bumped into Oscar coming out of turn four. Oscar swerved causing Jafer to swerve and a few riders behind him collided sending one rider to the ground. As Joey came around the turn, the rider was laying on the ground in front of him and without time to react Joey ran into him snapping his fork. Luckily, Joey escaped with only minor scratches! Thomas who escaped the incident sprinted for our top result again, taking 9th place. The road race on Sunday was in a remote part of North Georgia called Chickamauga and we were greeted with very cool temps and wind at 11 am. The course was 4 laps for a total of 90 miles with only 2 substantial climbs, one was for the kom (king of the mountain) and the other was in the feedzone. The race started with a few attacks but it regrouped for a few minutes until the next series of attacks when one Jittery Joe's rider went up the road with one other rider. Jafer and another rider bridged to the break then one more rider made it across, for a total of five riders. Jafer helped in the break but knew that since there wasn't a Toshiba-Santo rider represented that his chances were small. However, he used the break to gain valuable time bonuses on the KOMs picking up 12 seconds, enough to move him up a few spots in the GC. The break was finally caught with a lap and a half remaining but the final time up the KOM the race split apart with ten riders eventually going clear. The peleton was single file over the climb and was splitting apart trying to regain contact, however we couldn't get organized fast enough to catch the break. Thomas easily took the field sprint for 11th and Jafer finished 13th overall.

The Athens Twilight was the official kickoff for the USA Crits Speedweek, a week long crit racing series that went from Tuesday to Sunday, through North and South Carolina and then back to Sandy Springs, GA. Like usual, the thought of racing the Athens Twilight makes everyone a bit nervous as this is one of the fastest races we do all year. In order to start the race in Athens you have to do a compu-trainer grid qualifier on Friday, which is basically eight trainers hooked into 2 big tv screens which shows your time, distance, watts, and watts per kg on the screen. To make matters worse, you are on a big platform in front of people with an announcer talking about the race and saying how bad you look. Before each wave you got a few minutes to warmup on the trainer before the 8k time trial started. The trainers simulated a real course by adjusting the resistance on the rear wheel. Joey had the best result on the team taking 11th overall followed by Jafer in 24th and Oscar in 31st. Each team got a callup for their best rider on Saturday night, so Thomas didn't have to do the grid qualifier. As I said earlier, the nerves were running high on Saturday night as we prepared to lineup for the race. Thomas was the first rider to get a callup so he was able to pick his place on the starting line. Everyone else got a number according to their result on the grid qualifier and the official would call people up in order but it was still a fight to get to the line. As expected the race started with a bang as everyone wanted to ride at the front or attack for the primes. Not long into the race Steve Tilford collided with Thomas past the start/finish slamming both riders to the ground. Amazingly, Thomas wasn't hit and only suffered a few bruised ribs but quickly rejoined the race (he actually went down inside of the pits where riders rejoin the race). The next rider to go down was Oscar when he got caught in a major crash out of turn two and went flying through the air landing on his radio in his back pocket about 20 laps in. Thomas had a pretty good view of the wreck since he was already on the ground when Oscar crashed. Luckily, both riders made it back into the race but the crashes had taken a toll on Thomas. At one point we were the last four riders while the peleton was single file down the front straight with a gap opening up between Jafer and the rider in front of him. It looked as if the entire team was about to get dropped but Oscar started yelling at Jafer to close the gap and he was able to slowly close the gap but the damage was done. In the next few laps Thomas was out of the race, then Jafer, then Joey, with only Oscar remaining. At that point more than half of the riders had been dropped and Oscar held on to take 37th. Even though the race didn't go as expected it made the team more motivated about the upcoming Speed Week,