This was my very first time trial event and my first race of the year. The temperature was mild, about 55 degrees and very windy. Sustained wind speed was 15 MPH with 25 MPH gusts. The course was 20K. 6 loops around the Willow Metro Park. It seemed as though the wind was against you on 3/4 of each loop. I managed to complete the course in 37:41.4 with an average speed of 21 MPH which put me in 19th of 24 in the CAT 5 Men. It was a good experience and a good training session for my upcoming events this summer.
31st Seahorse Challenge Sprint Aquabike Race Report
It was a perfect day for racing here in Climax this morning! The air temp was about 60 degrees at the start. The water temp was 67. I raced the Sprint Aquabike division which means I had to swim 500 meters and then bike 20 kilometers. I was able to get right in the front of all the sprint athletes at the start of the swim, I always try to do that to avoid getting caught up in the slower swimmers. I felt pretty good throughout the entire swim and my time was 9:18. I then raced up the hill on foot to get my bike from transition.
The bike course was very hilly, but the wind was very light (about 4 MPH). My average speed on the bike was 20.5 MPH. I finished first….because no one else was doing that particular event. It was great to see so many other WSI team mates there, plenty of awards for the team! Everyone did awesome!
by Matt Wright
2014 Sodus River Road Time Trial race report:
It was a cool and sunny morning in Sodus for the event. Temperature was about 53 F. at 9:15 just before my start time. The event was small, then north to finish. I used a normal road bike with clip on aero bars and placed 9th out of 9 in Cat 5 men. Average speed for the 20K was: 21.56 with a time of 34:34.4. If I had taken off the aero bars and ridden the “Eddie Merckx” class I would have placed about 4th. Maybe next year…. One added bonus was a free pint glass just for participation! A nice event that I would highly recommend.
Thank you to all of our wonderful sponsors!!
By Matt Wright
And they’re off…..
Last Night WSI Team Active Racing got together to kick off planning for the 2014 Season. Eric Cook was nice enough to host at his house and, since I was driving from out of town, I convinced
him to go for a ride in advance of the team meeting.
That may not have been the best idea. Dwight joined us and is (for some reason) at mid season form and Eric is, well what Eric always is…a machine. I was a bit late for our departure time after making some much needed purchases at Team Active, although I was dressed and ready to go, my bike still needed to get prepped and I wanted to put toe warmers in my boots and hand warmers in my gloves. Not sure what the temperature was, I remember seeing about 20 degrees. While I was prepping my gear, I told Eric and Dwight that I needed about 5 minutes. Dwight said “Okay, you get all ready, then we will start spinning and warm up on our way to the ‘Dump’.” I thought he meant, we would have time to warm up, not that we would get on the bike and proceed to ride at 22 mph right out of the driveway! I got warm, but not much of a warm up.
We met Kathy at an intersection about a mile from the entrance to the Dump. It was too cold to socialize too much, but very good to see her. I had not seen her since she returned from RAAM. The Dump is a great technical morass of cement, tar and tile and, if you go down, something gets scratched or broken.
Last time I rode the Dump was 3 years ago, that was in the middle of the summer and I was much more comfortable handling my bike than this ride when the ground was frozen and I was cold. Nobody fell, though I did do some sight seeing a couple times, but all in all a great ride through the woods. On the way home, Dwight pulled and I locked on to his wheel as if my life depended on it.
My feet were so frozen, that they were numb, and (you know the feeling) I wanted to cry they hurt so bad when they started to thaw out. But then we went to Crazy Horse for some pizza and a beer…then all was good.
All got much better when I saw the team that I started riding with 5 years ago. Mike, Eric, Kathy, Dan, Danny, Hannah, Devin, Chuck, Charles, Dave, Dave Sr., Eric, Cameron, Dwight, April, Keith, JJ, Groat, Josh, (and I probably forgot a couple guys), have all been around since I started riding. (JJ brought his daughter with him, it was great to meet her too.)
There is something about the internal fight you have with yourself while you are putting out a big effort (or fighting the elements) and then get together with friends who do the same thing. It is a fraternity and sorority and a family. It was great to see everyone, go for a ride and talk about all of the great things coming for 2014. I value our friendship and look forward to an awesome 2014. For those who could not make it, we missed you.
Go WSI/Team Active Racing. Jack.
Maybury, or rather, yrubyaM
Maybury Time Trial – August 17th, 2013 – Northville, MI – Maybury State Park
The 2013 Maybury Time Trial was the 8th race in the MMBA Championship Points Series, and a race that I had been looking forward to quite a bit. I had finished 3rd at Yankee and 2nd at State Games, and since only 2 out of 3 of the CPS time trial races count towards your points total, the only way Maybury was going to matter to the standings for me was if I placed higher than 3rd. There’s also the time trial “series within a series” for the CPS (to encourage racers to do all 3), but I wasn’t particularly concerned with that. In short, I wasn’t feeling much pressure for this race, and really just wanted to go out hard and have a good time on the trail. Livening things up a bit was the fact that there were quite a few sport SS riders competing – Eric Wolting wanted to lock down the time trial series in his last race in the sport category (he’d won at both Yankee and State Games); Tony Cressey (who beat me by a lot at Pontiac) was back racing following a broken scapula suffered at Mud, Sweat, & Beers; my Wolverine Sports Club foes Tim Fargo & Fabrice Portes were in attendance; and Talon Tramper had made the trip with his Village Bike crew from GR. Oh, I should also mention that they had reversed the course, which eliminated any benefit the local riders may have had.
A little about the course – Maybury is 75% tight, technical singletrack with lots of rocks & roots. Reversed, there’s basically no intuitive way to carry momentum, so it required a really active riding style (read: a LOT of work). For the race, it was roughly a 10-mile loop, with 1.5 miles of grass/gravel/2-track at the start, 6.5 miles of singletrack, and then another mile or so of pavement/2-track/grass at the end. The race organizers gave everyone a chance to pre-ride the course on the Friday night preceding the race, which I took advantage of. I’m not sure it really helped me, because there’s so much technical stuff that your brain just goes “Roots, roots, roots, rocks, roots, horrible switchback, surprisingly terrible climb (featuring: roots!), roots… bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…” Nothing really sticks. But it was good to get a decent spin in my legs the night before the race, and it did give me a general idea of what to expect.
The morning of the race I was feeling pretty great. For the past two weeks, work had been rough with long hours and high stress, and for the first time in a while, I was feeling scrappy. Unfortunately, this didn’t exactly translate to how I felt during the race, but it was a good way to start the day nonetheless. My beautiful bride Jessica and my brother-in-law Eric were kind enough to accompany me, and we arrived at the park around noon. I had a 1 p.m. start time, so I got my business together, chatted with Mr. Wolting, and cruised around for a warm-up that was probably too brief. It was relatively hot out (high 70’s), for what’s been a very cool August, but otherwise the weather was perfect. So, on to the race.
I was 5th off the line behind 3 Expert/Elite SS riders and one sport rider (Jonathan Bolenbaugh, I believe?). I had a clumsy start, missing my pedal and jamming the nose of the saddle into my lower back/upper butt. Ugh. On the initial out-and-back grass/2-track, I could tell I wasn’t going to feel great during the race – heavy legs, rough breathing, etc., likely due to the heat. But cycling is suffering, right? Push through it. I caught the sport SS rider after about 2 miles in the single track, and he kindly let me pass. After that, I was basically alone all race. The expert/elite guys in front of me were clearly extremely quick, and I never saw them. I did see some of my sport SS competitors on the trail where it doubles back on itself, and towards the end I could tell that Eric was making up distance on me, but I was never passed during the race (which, during a time trial, means you’re cooked). I kept my head about me, made sure I stayed upright on my bike, and tried to find the best lines through the root maze. There was a climb at the end of the course that everyone had been griping about, as it really catches you off-guard, and I did have to do a bit of a run-up for that. Otherwise, I felt like I was riding competently, but I didn’t feel fast. Eric caught up to me right at the end of the course, and he crossed the line right behind me. That meant I definitely did not win, as he had started over a minute behind me, but other than that I had no clue how things were shaking out. When everything was sorted, it turns out my time of 41:27 was good for second place. Eric had tied with a geared sport rider for the fastest sport time of the day at 39:59, and Tony Cressey had finished for 3rd at 42:25. Given how I felt during the race, I was very happy with this result.
I’m likely going to be skipping the last Tailwind race at Stony Creek on Aug. 24th, so that leaves just two more MMBA series races at Addison and Pando. Time to finish this thing strong. – Adam Cefai