Breakage/Flattage
So yesterday I flatted before the race started. So I guess riding around the venue on my race wheels before the race is a bad idea.
Fortunately I brought a spare wheel (race wheels are tubulars). Unfortunately my spare race wheel was an agressive build and about two years old. The course was rather rough and at some point I spoke pulled through one of the rim eyelets, causing the wheel to rub the brake. It wasn't a huge thing where I noticed it as I was just concentrating on the race but it was having an effect, three spins around and the wheel stops if you spin it by hand.
I wasn't on a good day on a tough course so I don't think absent that I would have placed well but I'd like to think I may have finished instead of being pulled with 6 to go in a race with about 35 laps. The course was a tough hill crit and technical. There was a longish big ring climb after a slow tight turn so that was great training anyway...
Gold star of the day goes to Evo rider David Duke for finishing the 30+ and cat 3/4 races, I'm not sure anybody else did that. Most people I know got blown away in the 30+, which was won by Josh Frick of DC Velo, with Evo's Dave Fuentes second. It looked like Frick pulled one of his last lap on the backside flyers to get a gap into the final turn and hold off Fuentes. Craig Clark had a win in the 50+ all but sewn up when a DC Velo guy bumped him in the last turn and took him down, so the other DC Velo guy in the break won. Hmmmmm....
Tattoo Man wins Amateur Natz
As one of the visibly tattooed members of the peloton I thought it worth posting this link:
here. This guy is totally covered as far as you can tell from the pix. Nice.
Jens Voight is the Man!
Jens Voight won the 2nd stage of the Tour of Germany with incredible will. Two 2nd Category climbs in the finale. He goes clear over the first climb, ends up in a group of eight men. They are brought back before the final climb. There is a descent into a town where the stage finishes after the 2nd and final climb. He goes clear again on that climb, with past-master at the classics David Rebellin and Kazak Andre Kashechkin. Rebellin starts missing turns as they come into the last four kilometers, trying to save his legs for the sprint. Meanwhile the bunch is chasing hard. Zabel is there, desperate for a win. They come under the kilometer kite with a 10 - 15 second lead. Rebellin keeps skipping turns. I start to get worried for Voight, a rider I like very much. Amazing that that he attacked again, many riders would have given up after being brought back after going away over the first climb. Now he has a classic winner sucking his wheel. Surely he is doomed? With four or five hundred metes to go he looks back and sees the bunch on his heels. He surges and they lose Kashekin. The bunch is now at five seconds. There is a corner at 150M to go over a slight rise. Does he sit there and wait so as not to let Rebellin the advantage by draft him, but allow the bunch to catch up? No way dude, he doesn't want to risk getting caught on the line and he isn't afraid of Rebellin. He should be right, Rebellin won a triple a in 2004, taking the Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Fleche Wallonne, and Amstel Gold raaces over 8 days. But Voight's motto, when in doubt, attack! So Voight jumps hard for the corner; he gaps Rebellin initially, but Rebellin claws his way back up to Voight as they take the corner, but they take it so fast, Rebellin slides out as his inside-outside line threatened to put him into the barriers, and he almost lost his back wheel from underneath him. Voight doesn't see this, but sprints out of the corner hard, zig-zagging across the road. Rebellin was set up well to pass Voight and may well have taken the stage from him but for the narrow road, but Voight's aggressiveness played to his advantage yet again! What a great rider!
Tour of Germany - heads up!
Hey for everybody who bemoans this whole FLANDIS debacle, here is something to take your mind off it. The Tour of Germany. This is a really good race with some monster climbs and a good field. Vino is back seeking redemption. Levi will try and defend his title. Gusev just showed his talent by winning the prologue for Discovery. Check the links at the right or pony up for a subscription to cycling dot tv.
