Fabian Cancellara I am not...

Photo by Flickr user Will Rose

Yesterday Steve, Vinnie, and I went to Cambridge, MD for the Church Creek Time Trial. 40 kilometers against the clock. It was an interesting adventure - I'd never before gone all out like that over any distance. I finished 28th out of 33 participants in my group (Cat 5) and learned many lessons - like the value of aero bars, remembering your heart monitor, and perhaps training for such an endeavor.

Beforehand, Steve and I joked that we figured we would need to average better than 21 mph to be reasonably competitive and dubbed this the threshold of embarrassment. I fell just shy at an average of 20.8 and Steve clocked in at 21.8 - five places higher.

24.8 miles in 1 hour 11 minutes 41 seconds
(plus 10 miles getting to and from the course)
1858 YTD

Tour de Gastown

In researching for our trip to Vancouver I discovered that there was a bike race there each July, but never quite got around to finding out when exactly it was held and really forgot all about it. When I arrived I was leafing through some of the tourist brochures that Joanne received from the conference she was attending and realized that the Tour de Gastown was happening that night just a few miles from where I was... with very little prodding Joanne agreed to make the bike race our first exploration into Vancouver. The race is held on a fast 1.2km course in the historic waterfront neighborhood of Gastown on the edge of downtown Vancouver. The women's race was well under way when we arrived, but we probably caught half of the 30 laps. We watched from the hairpin corner at Cordova and Water Streets. Between races Joanne and I wandered around the course looking for a new vantage point to watch the 50 lap men's race from - eventually we settled on a spot along Cordova from which we could watch them come out of the hairpin and accelerate towards us. This made for a fun place to watch, but meant they were moving too fast to get many good photos. After a very back and forth struggle between several leaders the winner was local rider Gina Grain in a bunch sprint - who I believe is also on the Canadian Olympic team. Astana's Chris Horner was the big name in the race and for a while it seemed like either he was tearing the rest apart with a blistering pace or they were waiting to see what he would do... after leading for most all of the race a few riders made long attacks of a lap or more - eventually one of these succeeded and Andrew Pinfold took the win. A few more pics on my flickr site HERE
And in the form of a slide show HERE

Tour of Pennsylvania

26-28 June 2008

Off to PA for the weekend to visit our friends Tom and Kate - and to watch a bit of bike racing!
The inaugural Tour of Pennsylvania is a six day stage race across PA for young riders - a so called 'espoir' race for riders under 25 - espoir being the French word for hope.

Joanne and I arrived in Bedford in time to watch the finish of stage 3 which started in Camp Hill. This stage brought the first two major climbs of the race at Tuscarora Summit and Sideling Hill.

The story of the day was that of Peter Stetina who broke away from the pack on the first climb and stayed off the front all day. By the time we arrived the race announcer reported that he was nearly 3 minutes ahead of the pack. Once over the final climb the group began to reel him in, but as they started the final kilometer he stubbornly refused to be caught. It was until they came into sight of the finish that he was caught about 75 meters from the line. He still managed to pick up the King of the Mountain and Most Aggressive Rider Jerseys.

Stetina receiving KOM jersey

On Friday we made our way to an overlook on the first climb of stage 4 - Mt Ararat - the former site of a rather famous landmark on the Lincoln Highway (PA rt 30) - for years it was known as the Grand View Hotel, but in 1978 it was renamed The Ark - they kept the slogan on the side 'SEE 3 STATES AND 7 COUNTIES' - it was in pretty serious disrepair the last time Joanne and I passed through the area in the late 90's on a trip to see nearby Falling Water and Kentuck Knob (houses by Frank Lloyd Wright) Sadly it burned to the ground in 2001 leaving only the view.

Thanks to the joys of the google image search I discovered on this persons Flickr site that it also lives on in what looks to be an excellent model train garden at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. Joining us on the side of the road was a cameraman and reporter for the Versus network - below is a shot of them trying to take in the long shot of the peloton coming up through the valley on the approach to the climb.

From them we learned that Senator John Kerry was riding in the Z TEAM car for the day to watch the race - he is an avid cyclist and a supporter of the team - apparently they were dropping him off later so he could fly to Saudi Arabia for a meeting...

We also learned from the Versus folks that it might be possible to make a detour around the race and get to Latrobe in time to catch the finish. We raced across Western PA in and out of heavy rains arriving in Latrobe with what we thought was plenty of time, but instead watched the race zip past us at a traffic light just outside of town. We still managed to catch the podium ceremony and other festivities. Peter Stetina came in 4th on the day and wound up holding onto and winning the overall KOM - I think he might be a name to remember.

A few more pics are posted HERE

Giro d'Italia 2008

photo - Igor Terzariol found at Steephill from Flickr

My favorite story out of the Giro this year was that of Emanuelle Sella winner of the King of the Mountain competition, 6th overall, and 3 stages - 14, 15, & 20.,

He may have won stage 7 as well, but a flat late in the race put him out of contention.

In Stage 14 he went out in a breakaway and eventually solo-ed to the finish 4 min 38 seconds ahead of his nearest rival on the day.

The day after he won stage 15 by just over 2 minutes.

Then came a mountain time trial (pictured above) which he lost by a mere 6 seconds.

On the penultimate day of the race, stage 20, he once again pulled away from a breakaway on a climb and won by over a minute.

One of the things I love about following stage races is that there are many races inside the race. In this case the story of overall winner, Alberto Contador, wasn't all that interesting in that he slowly pulled into the lead and then narrowly held onto it for the remainder of the race. Contador didn't win a single stage - in fact he didn't even finish in the top three on any of the stages. Meanwhile Sella so dominated in the KOM competition that his nearest rival had fewer than half as many points. Below is how he looked at the end of the race on his first wins.

photo - AFP found at VeloNews