Blackgrove Wins for San Jose / Photo by Lee McDaniel Photography

From VeloNews
By Ian Dille
Published: Sep. 18, 2009
Race Results: Here

At the lobby bar of Dallas’ W Hotel on Thursday evening, pro bike racers and bike racing fans alike held their champagne glasses high in toast of Team Hotel San Jose’s Heath Blackgrove, who scored his second consecutive victory at the TX Tough Grand Prix by out-sprinting a breakaway group of five riders.

“We missed two big moves and were able to bring them back. It really speaks to the strength of our squad,” said Blackgrove, who placed in front of OUCH-Maxxis’ national criterium champion John Murphy.

Between sips of bubbly, Blackgrove deferred personal praise. “I give all the credit to my team,” he said.

Big night in Dallas

The penultimate stop on the USA Crit Series tour featured a full field of 125 riders racing a roughly one-mile, four-corner loop around the American Airlines Center.

To locals, the swank retail and restaurant area surrounding the stadium — dubbed Victory Park and developed by Ross Perot Jr. — is known as the home of the Dallas Mavericks (a few of whom also occupied the W Hotel bar).

But on Thursday night, the city’s enthusiastic cycling community came out in droves, despite an onslaught of nasty rain, to cheer on the nation’s best criterium riders.

Jumbo screens broadcast the action around the course. A news helicopter hovered overhead throughout the duration of the 75-minute event. The disc jockey from a local radio station played MC and gave the pre-race call ups (not muffing a single name).

The race started with a lap of silence in honor of the recently deceased Dallas cycling legend, Chris Hipp.

Attrition and tactics

The wet conditions at the race’s start made the final corner — a tight 120-degree turn heading up a long drag through the finish line — a single file affair in the field.

Each lap, racers were peeled off the back of the pack in droves, while those diligent enough to stay at the front sprinted for a slew of $1,000 primes.

Team Type 1 and OUCH-Maxxis were the main instigators early, forcing a number of dangerous moves that caught out Team Hotel San Jose. However, determined to ride hard in their home state, the Austin-based amateur team went to the front and drove back the splits. The team recruited Blackgrove from the now-defunct Toyota-United squad for 2009.

An exciting finale

As the race clock counted down to 20 minutes to go, the field finally split for good. Blackgrove, John Murphy (OUCH-Maxxis), Michael Creed (Team Type 1), Adrian Hegyvary (Hagens-Berman LLP), and Adam Myerson (Team Mountain Khakis) escaped from the severely depleted pack and gained a maximum advantage of 20 seconds.

Missing the break was Kelly Benefit Strategies young sprinter Jake Keough, who is leading the USA Crits Series in a tight competition over Team Mountain Khakis’ Mark Hekman. Keough’s teammate Reid Mumford quickly went into time trial mode at the front of the field, narrowing the gap to eight seconds, before ultimately losing steam.

As the roads dried over the course of the race the speed increased significantly, allowing Blackgrove to hit the final corner first and with enough momentum to hold off a hard charging Murphy at the line.

Keough placed second in the field sprint to maintain his overall lead in the series heading into the USA Crit series finals in Las Vegas next Thursday night.

Race Notes

While acknowledging his whole team wasted themselves at the front of the field, Blackgrove gave special recognition to his former Toyota-United cohorts, Sean Sullivan, who’s returned to form following an early season knee surgery, and Chris Wherry, the former US professional champion racing in his final event as a professional cyclist.

“I fully intend on staying involved in cycling as a coach and manager,” said Wherry, whose post-race retirement party also served as his teammate’s victory celebration.

“I’m excited about the next phase of my life and having a chance to give back to a sport that’s given me so much,” said Wherry.

From VeloNews
By Mark Zalewski
Published: Jul. 28, 2009

International Cycling Classic, the 17-day race series held in and around Milwaukee and Chicago that is better known as Superweek, concluded on Sunday in Whitefish Bay, just north of Milwaukee. Fly V Australia’s Bernard Sulzberger was crowned as the overall series champion — a position he defended the entire series since winning the opening race July 10. In fitting fashion, the final race was won by Sulzberger’s Fly V Australia teammate, fellow Aussie and last year’s series winner Jonathan Cantwell.

“Jonny (Cantwell) won last year and he wanted to win again this year, but it turns out that I was leading so it was all about the jersey,” said Sulzberger about the team’s tactics.

Sulzberger was in a constant battle from Dutch rider Hans Dekkers of the ProTour Garmin-Slipstream team. However, Dekkers had only one other teammate in Ricardo Van der Velde for the entire 17 days, with American Mike Friedman coming in for a couple of races at the end. Compared to the four strong riders of Fly V Australia and the five-man roster of the South African Team MTN, Dekkers was outgunned and had to settle for second overall.

For Sulzberger the series is sort of an anniversary, as this was the first racing he did in America. “Last year this was my first ever racing in the U.S. There was five of us from Virgin Blue and that team became Fly V Australia.”

But racing here last year as an unknown was far different than this year as the race leader. “I was able to get into a lot more breaks last year, but this year I was in a couple and then everyone is on you!”

The South African Team MTN had a successful inaugural race on U.S. soil with three in the top ten overall, and Jay Thomson winning the points jersey.

It is not hard to discern who Thomson battled for the points jersey, as a quick glance at the final standings shows three Team GearGrinder riders behind him, including last year’s winner Chad Hartley. The team did everything they could to get Robert White into the jersey, but Thomson, along with his five teammates, were just too strong.

“It was really hard but the team has been working with me the whole time,” said Thomson, who not only could sprint with the best but also rode a 30km solo breakaway to victory in one of the road races. “It was fast at times and then at other times they realized who the fast guys are. But we capitalized as a team a lot early — over 17 days someone is going to figure it out eventually, but we won six stages.”

Thomson said that the team used Superweek for what many professionals do, training. “The team brought us over here to get some form and get some international exposure. But we rode a couple of hours each morning and then with a 100km road or crit race at night, it’s the best training you can ask for! After this we are headed to the Tour of Ireland.”

Seeing ProTour riders doing $2,500 crits in the American heartland is not an everyday occurrence. But Dekkers and Van der Velde said their trip over was also for training, as they had most of July off with a certain race in France going on. After the first race in Beverly, both Dutch riders said the race was much faster than they expected, and that it never let up.

The 2009 edition did not have quite the drama of last year, which pitted a large Rock Racing squad against Cantwell and the Kelly Benefits team. Still the racing this year was pretty fast — at times turning negative as riders only racing a few races were caught-up in the ongoing cat-and-mouse tactics for the overall and sprint titles of the omnium.

Fly V Australia and Team MTN were the largest teams, while other teams such as Team Hotel San Jose and Kelly Benefit had numbers on a few days, but were not interested in the overall. Other pros used Superweek as a warm-up to bigger events such as the Chicago Criterium, with Brad Huff (Jelly Belly) winning in Racine on Thursday before taking the $5,000 Chicago race win the following Sunday.

Overall, the 2009 edition was an improvement over 2008, which was plagued by late start times, questionable courses and pay-out problems. Still, some category races were started late and subsequently shortened, to the dismay of the riders. As well, with overall numbers slightly down, some category prize purses were reduced.

“It’s not as big of an event as last year, for sure, but it is still competitive,” said Sulzberger. “But there was no Rock Racing with Bahati here — they had eight guys here last year.”

In the women’s series, which was extended this year to 14 days, Colavita-Sutter Home took home all of the honors with Nicky Wangsgard easily defending the yellow jersey with help from her teammate Shontell Gauthier. Gauthier herself rode home with the red sprint jersey — taking it late in the series from the pair’s former teammate Jen Purcell, who was guest-riding with the team for the first week only. Purcell had built up such an advantage in that week that the jersey was absent for most of the remaining races as she was back in Austin, Texas — making for an awkward moment each day at the jersey presentations.

The Colavita crew had to fend off attacks from a large contingent of Hub Racing, who had eight riders to break the pair. But the Hub team was unable to take advantage of their numbers over the series with Wangsgard and Gauthier clearly much stronger.

Overall the longer series seemed to enjoy larger women’s fields than in the past, likely due in part to the increase in races.

Robert and Rauri did excellent at Superweek, and the other guys are wrapping a super series up and then on to Chicago Crit on Sunday. They have one of the most active teams in every stage and racked up numerous top 3 and top 5 results Jen was racing with Colla Vita with awesome results and team work to dominate the women’s races. Zach had some tough breaks and bad luck at the Jrs stage race but helped lead out a team mate for a super finish in one stage and a solid tt after going down the day before.

The masters 35 plus 4/5 team has been consistent all year and lead both the teams and the individual points series. This has been a well organized and successful group of guys.

I have talked to several of the team members preparing for the State Time Trial and we should have a great turnout there.

The heat seems to be quite an issue so please be careful when racing and or training after early morning hours.

We are out of team clothing in most sizes and are going to start selling them at more sponsor locations. Please let us know if you would like to order additional items as we are planning to submit this order within the next week. There will be a practice kit now offered with the black and green colors reversed.

The goal is to have these mid early to mid September.

The Austin Downtown Crit is coming up quickly upon us and we are going to be in need for additional staff and volunteers. The areas to cover will be marketing, media, course set up, tear down, course marshals, food/bev, awards presentation , packet pick up. We will be contacting directors for various roles and fill in spread sheets to cover the needs. Bryan, Lizzie, Adrienne, and I will be creating a master spread sheet to fill in.

Be safe on the road and watch the heat exposure. Thanks again to everyone for wonderful team and sponsor representation, weekly rides, and community work.

Regards,

Barry Lee

The program will award up to twelve (12) reimbursement stipends for their travel expenses to Junior and U-23 Nationals. The exact amount of the individual reimbursements will be depend on number of applications we receive and a needs-based formula applied to each applicant.

The requirements for these reimbursement stipends are as follows:

1) The racer must attend and race either the junior or U23 national championships in either the road or track discipline.
2) The racer must have competed in seven (7) Texas Cup road and/or track events.
3) The household income for the racer’s family must not exceed $125,000.

The reimbursement amounts will be in the following ranges. The final amount for each recipient will be determined after all of the applications are processed.
Household Income Reimbursement
$0 – $50,000 $250-$500
$50,000 – $75,000 $200-$350
$75,000 – $100,000 $100-$200
$100,000 – $125,000 $50-$100

The application form may be found at: http://www.txbra.org/organization/files/natsTravReimbursApp.doc. Please return it totxbra.board@gmail.com by July 31 for consideration.

Thank you for your continued support of racing in Texas.

TXBRA Board
Andrew, Rob, Jim, Bonnie, and Kurt

Thanks to Bryan, Robert, and all of the club for everything. The events, group rides, the work at the Tuesday Nighter course, and for riding your bike.

Wow, Congrats to Kurt and all the other team members for this race and all the season.

I am sorry to have missed the race and the “experience” CC is always a selective course and favors those on strong/powerful form. Big props to Kurt, Jon, for raising the bar and going for it. I have experienced the course first hand several times and will never forget Robbie’s state champ race there.

Congrats to Zach and Christian, and all the younger guys. I love seeing Nathan the Bergh’s having fun and enjoying the sport.

It takes confidence as well as fitness, and racing smart, and at times a bit of luck. It is not the strongest man /woman that always wins or even makes the final selection.

Its always inspiring to read about mates/friends on the team learning the dynamics of team tactics. It important and at times overlooked and not utilized enough. When you start to set yourself apart and be marked more in your group its even easier to allow other members of the team to benefit.

Congrats to Robert, Rauri and Will working together and being stronger as a group vs individuals burning matches that can at times help others more.
They counter off all your hard work. You have actually worn the pack down and the next move is the winning selection.

I am back in Boulder and working all weekend. Heath, Carlos, Sean and Chris are lining it up at Winghaven at 3pm today. They are all healthy and riding strong so we wish them all the best.

We are holding camps at the end of September for road racing. Tactics, training, power, nutrition, recovery /body work will all be addressed. The numbers will be small in order to better service each individual. It looks like Ben Day will be the special guest pro if all works out. This will be a couple weeks before State Road Race. There will be a serious emphasis on climbing technique, interval training, and tt type work. Ben is a world class TT’er. He has been a recent threat in Tour of California, Redlands, Tour de Beauce, …… He is a former Toyota United Team member and now on Fly V with Henk Vogel’s team.

I will be posting more information, pics, schedule, dates, costs, services offered. The groups will be less than 12 and most likely 8-10 as an ideal personal setting.

I am back in Boulder and working all weekend. Heath, Carlos, Sean and Chris are lining it up at Winghaven at 3pm today. They are all healthy and riding strong so we wish them all the best. These guys and myself, are all excited and eager to help mentor and share valuable experiences from sport and life.

It is wonderful to see all the new members joining at all levels and to see growth and improvement from all team members. Thanks for all the wonderful representation on and off the bike. You make the sponsors, team and sport proud. Thanks to all our sponsors for support and making a difference in the community and in the sport. Please support them and share them with others.

Cheers to all of you-

Barry
512-567-4376

THSJ’s Jonathon Perry stayed up front and pushed the pace up all the climbs at Copperas Cove to take his 1st Cat. 4 win. Here are a couple of YouTube videos of his pacing the pack up a big hill, and his winning sprint finish. Congratulations Jonathon.

Pretty cool to see THSJ (Vargas) in break w/ Garmin-Slipstream

Summary of ICC (Superweek) GC to date:

Pro/1/2 Men
7th – Carlos Vargas
24th – Sean Sullivan
56th – Ronnie Strange
57th – Heath Blackgrove

Pro/1/2/3 Women
3rd – Jen Purcell (riding for Colavita/Sutter Home) – currently, she and her teammates (Nicky Wangsgard & Shontell Gauthier) have stamped Colavita on the podium.
30+ Men
4th – Robert Biard
27th – Ruarri Day-Stirrat

Vargas in break at ICC.

THSJ is racing well! We’re all cheering back in Austin…keep it up!

From Robert Biard:

Thanks to all, it has been a great time up here. Hopefully next year a few more 30+ racers can join me and we can win the series. I have been riding alone most of the time, and the others in the top 5 all have several, up to 12 teammates. There have been over 120 masters riders including a few former pro’s, and some masters national champions. The points race is pretty much over and guys are just racing to protect their positions at this point. I should stay in 4th tomorrow and have enjoyed the experience. Tomorrow is the last race in the masters 30+ series in Evanston, IL. I will try and get to the top of the podium for the first time but if nothing else I will make the field chase me a few times.

The men’s team is riding strong, for those of you that don’t know Heath, Sean, Carlos, and Ronnie are up here. I believe Barry and Chris are headed up tomorrow.

Heath was relentless in his attacks last night, going off the front at least 5 different times. He, without question, deserved the Most Agressive Rider jersey for the second week in a row

The DW was again super hot and dry on race night. The women’s 4/5 and juniors went off at 5:10 pm and the 3/4′s at 5:40. Cat 4/5 rolled out at 6:10 – it was the super short (8/10 mile) course up top, so I knew it was going to be a sufferfest for me. Throw in a big wind and staying in the pack was critical. Our race was no different than the rest in that it splintered immediately. There were 9 corners in .8 miles, so it was turn, stand and drive to the next corner all race.

I prepped well. Watered down big time and soaked myself as well to keep my core a bit cooler. Took a few laps to find the fastest corner angles and since it was single file most of the race you could dive for those angles w/o worry of traffic in the corners. Found myself about 8th and away in a lead break of about 10 right off the bat (about lap 2). Cory May (ATC) and both my HSJ Teammates were in this break. There were about 2 solo chasers and then the big pack about 30 seconds back (which was rapidly losing ground to us and was beginning to splinter as well).

Pulling the Break - Lap 3

By about 21 minutes I found myself yo-yoing off the back of the break w/ about two others. Just couldn’t hold the acceleration off of the S after the start finish (the most technical set of turns on the track – critical to hit them with speed and smooth transition – then get out of the saddle to keep the wheel ahead). Finally lost a wheel, and despite digging deep and fighting to get back, I lost ground. Now I was solo in no mans land about 20 seconds off the back of the front group and 3/4 a lap ahead of the main pack. At 25 minutes I lapped the main pack solo, but I saw the main break (down to about 6) about 15 seconds behind me. With two to go I was lapped by this group.

No man's land between break and pack.

Weird night – lapped by the break, but I lapped the peleton. Everyone was so scattered at the end it was hard to determine who placed where. Would hate to have been a judge tonite. Really pretty happy w/ my ride (other than I lost the main break…damn !). I was reeling in folks the last three laps who’d popped off the break. Actually outsprinted 3 at the end (I think they were lapped riders), but two more powered by me in the last 20 meters. My good friend Cory May from ATC won and Omar Chavez from HSJ (who had raced the 3/4′s just before) took 2nd. I think I was again in the top 20. The many solo laps killed me though with all the wind and heat, and I was definately out of it at the finish. Was a bit dizzy and a little nauseous for just a minute or two. I rode for the shade of the tent and downed two full water bottles. That which does not kill us only serves to make us stronger.

Stephan Rothe took the P1/2 race with Kevin McCarty 2nd in a sprint, they were a lap up on Heath Blackgrove (3rd) who maintained the leaders jersey for the series and won the most aggressive rider for the night with banzai solo’s off the front time and time again. Amazing to watch. Pack was lapped and another 3/4 lap behind the top 5 finishers. 50 something started that race, I think only 20 something finished, such were the conditions and the pace.

Heath curb jumping !

This weekend lots of HSJers will be at Copperas Cove. Heath said he, and I’m assuming the other pros, will be driving to St. Louis for the Tour of Winghaven a big-time 80 mile single day crit.

Next week at the DW is my favorite course , it’s clockwise the full two miles up the corkscrew. If you are contemplating trying a race at the DW, this is THE course to ride. Very forgiving w/ the two long straights (pack sits up here typically and it’s easy to roll back into coverage if you’ve lost a wheel) and mostly flat and down hill with only the very short corkscrew to contend w/ to get back on top.

Weight back down to 170 after last nights effort and a healthy salad last night. Man, My daughter Alyssa turned me onlto a great new salad that I love now. Bowl of fresh spinich leaves, lots of green grapes & those little grape sized tomato’s, a liberal amount of cheddar cheese, walnuts and cashews and diet rasberry vinegarettes dressing. WOW ! Back close to fighting weight.

From Robert Biard:

For those of you racing tomorrow at Copperas Cove, good luck, I will be doing the P1/2 race. Bring water, lots of it, even if you are starting early, it is a fun course but always demanding, and windy I think just about every time I do it I fail to drink enough water and pay for it. Tomorrow I will have 4 bottles so hopefully I can manage. Drink early and drink often!

Sol Frost (L) was 3rd, Thacker Reeves (C) won, and Heath Blackgrove (R) finished 2nd in the New York Life Pro 1/2/3 Race.

Hot night (as in heat) at the Driveway tonite. Temps were 95+ in early races. Lot’s of THSJers out tonite. Great to see. We had 6-8 riders in the 1/2/3. Heath got in a break that stuck and Barry and others shut the pack down. There was a massive gap between a 5 man break and the pack. Thacker Reeves (Richardson Bike Mart) followed an attack on the backside riser out of the break and left the rest wondering what happened. Took the win easily. Blackgrove won the sprint for second and won the most aggressive rider jersey as well. Reeves said he knew he couldn’t outsprint some of the group he was with, so he made a run and it worked out. He said he looked back and was suprised to see no one on his wheel, so he buried his head and drove for the finish.

Heath Blackgrove earned the New York Life Brad Houston Law Most Aggressive Riders Jersey in the P1/2/3 race.

3/4′s were well represented as well, Jonathon Perry was off the front alot. 4/5′s had 5-6 THSJ’ers. I spent three laps up front, then dropped back to recover a bit, then w/ 3 to go dropped a chain down the S’s. Got it back on w/o dismounting, but the pack was gone. Hateful !

As the 35+ race started the lightening really started to show. Everyone started packing up in a hurry. I got to 71 and Brodie when the storm broke. Wicked drive into Lakeway. Going 35 mph on SW Parkway and passing cars.

Also Bryan was there with some more THSJ schwag. Some small bibs, plenty of jerseys, polo shirts and gloves.

From Robert Biard:

I got to the driveway early tonight..in time to watch the Jr and Women’s 3/4 races. We had great representation from beginning to end. That was the most THSJ riders I have seen at the Driveway all season. In the open race I think we had about 8 riders and it was a blast racing with all the guys. Great to see so many teammates out there and so many new faces as well.

There was some nice racing today out at the driveway, it was a bit warm for sure but a lot of fun. I think I got most of our teammates, not sure if they are all accurate…
Will Ross – Gold Medal
Rachel Byus – Gold
Zach Bergh – Silver
Heath Blackgrove-won age group but out of state resident
Danny Marquardt- Silver Medal
Nathan Ploeger got Silver for Jr’s 10-12

Kurt Thomas rode most of the 35+ 4/5 race off the front was caught and then managed a top 10 in the field sprint.

Robert Biard