Velochallenge

From my good friend who puts on one excellent track event in memory of a former “Rose City” Team member.

Top Ten Reasons to Race Track at Alpenrose:

10. Your lost powertap computer can be found on the track apron.

9. Team Astana has never heard of Alpenrose.

8. No worrying if your wheel change is a 9-spd, 10-spd, or where the
supportvehicle is. Or where you maybe left your spare wheels.

7. There are no hills.

6. You never have to turn right.

5. There is a bell to remind you when to sprint.

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Velonews has just remarked that Track cyclist Stephen Alfred as been given a life-time ban from cycling after refusing to submit to an out-of-competition doping test last November. According to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) this is the third violation of anti-doping rules for Stephen Alfred. He is not the first American cyclist to be banned for life. Track racer Tammy Thomas was banned for life in 2002.

2005 US National Track Championship - Keirin Final

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Wow!!! look at the crowd at the Velodrome event in Melbourne.

Oh yea, there was also a spectacular crash in the Mens Under 18 2K Scratch race on Wednesday.

• http://theage.co.au
• http://www.cyclingnews.com

Exciting and Fast. That’s how I would describe tonights track racing out at Alpenrose. Once again the 3’s were combined with the 1/2’s due to I guess either not enought 1/2’s or not enough 3’s. And again the fear of the pace being too high and me not keeping up set upon me. I should realize by now, that since I have been riding and training for the past week I’ve actually improved my engine since my 2 wks off.

This evening’s race was centered around an ominum with three fun races: miss-an-out (my first one), snowball x3 (another first), win-an-out. I must say as a 3 you get to do a lot more racing formats then you do as a 4/5. Fun! The first race format of the evening (miss-n-out) started off at a quicker tempo then usual, since the officials were pulling riders every lap. Team Rubicon pretty much set the pace by lining up in a train and keeping it going strong. I held on and was pulled for the 8th spot.

The snowball was an interesting race format and pretty much required not only the riders, but the officials to do advanced calculating methods to determine who’s in first, what’s his names in second and I don’t know’s in third. Somewhere in this whirlwind race I shot out of the group to take 2-3 laps in the front spot for a few points. The last few laps I hung onto my teammates Jerome’s wheel for another lap or so, good enough for a few more points.

For the final race, I didn’t think I would have any juice left for the win-n-out, but somehow I managed to find that extra energy. Started off fairly well, until a few riders decided to bolt and try for the win. I felt good because I was in the group with the majority of the 1/2’s (Team Rubicon, CMG, Gentlelovers, and my team BBC.) The lap before the bell rang out, the chase group I was in lined up and pretty much caught the break-a-way group without any effort. This is where I made a mistake, I hung out in the back waiting to be pulled around then maybe make a sprint. No luck, the two people in front of me had no more gas and I saw the front group I had been in pull away. By the time I pulled around they were already 1/2 a lap ahead and even they were breaking up. I decided to bridge up to the chase ground consisting of Jerome (BBC) and Kirk (Team Rubicon). I was running out of steam from my effort when I reached them so I decided to help out my teammate. I therefore pulled up front and pulled for the remaining lap hoping to give Jerome a little bit of a draft. I think Kirk got to the line in the end, oh well, I tried!

In the end, it was a fun race and I believe I ended up in the top 10, but I want know that until the OBRA land supercomputers calculate the snowball scores.

So I thought I would go ahead and try my hand at a time trial event. I’m not much for time trials myself, for me its a very lonely race and I personally prefer mass start events like road race, crits, and my favorite track racing. Overall, it was a descent ride, minus the cramp in my right leg 45 minutes into the effort. Not sure why I got the cramp, had a good breakfast, nice long warm-up with a few jumps, made sure I hit the start sweating, did some stretches prior. Anyways, once that cramp set in I had to back-off the pace it was just to painful to continue at my previous pace. Well I know one of my goals for next year. Marking down to get better at time trails. I know I’ll get some good practice during cyclocross.