Crit Nationals – Downers Grove, IL

This how to roll! Race the Cat 3 race on Saturday then Cat 2 on Sunday – With my family out in force both days I had a blast! On Saturday in the 3’s race I waited till the last half of the last lap to make the move mid pack to the front – I was leading with three turns to go at the second to last turn some jack ass dove me on the inside not even coming close to making the turn and almost took me out. I tapped the breaks 10 guys go flying by! I’m back on the gas with 100 meters to go passing guys to the left and right! I gun down 4 guys in less than 100m. Finish 6th.

Sunday was more of a hold on and see what happens. All that really happened was I avoided all of the crashes to finish in 53rd.

Tyler

Christian finishing 7th in rome - all photos of the Rome crit taken by maigh.com and copied from christianleask.com 

Me coming in 5th in Rome 

Me and Christian at the front of the Rome Crit 

Me and Brian patroling the rear of the group at the rome crit  

Me on the climb in the Rome Crit 

me taking them throught the corner in rome 

Me on the front of the climb of the rome crit 

Me at the start of the Rome Crit 

Start of the Rome Crit 

Me, Christian, Joel and Brian at the Rome TTT 

Christian, Joel and Me in the TTT at Rome 

Georgia Cup – The Siege of Rome – Rome, GA

What’s this more road racing?

Team Time Trial – Very cool! Great concept minimum 3 riders, 3rd rider to cross the line posts overall time for the team. For this effort we had Joel, Brian and myself, so we recruited Christian Leask (christianleask.com) to join us. Not one of us had road together before this and only Christian and Brian had done a TTT before so we just went with it and made it look like we were pros. We had a blast as you can see from the pictures, coming across the line we even made it look like we practiced this before by going three wide full on sprint to the finish. We ended up 4th on the day, not bad for our first try.

Criterium – It was great I had three teammates in the race so I we had some tactics to plan. Joel and I took off from the gun and got on the front Christian rolled up and asked me why I was on the front. So I rolled back into the group to sit in and wait for the end of the race. Well with about 3 laps to go I got impatient and went to the front with 2 laps to go I took off and went for it. Well sort of, I kept thinking I was getting caught so I wasn’t going all out but coming out of the final turn they stilled had not caught me so I was sprinting to the finish and got caught by 2 guys at the line and ended up 5th on the night. Christian was 7th so we had a good showing…

Road Race – Another 75 mile race with a climb that was about insane! We went over the climb twice and then finished on the climb. First trip over I fell of the back but then chased on after almost following 2 guys in to the dirt on one of the turns on the decent the road sign said 10mph that might have been a clue to slow down but not us we went into it a 50mph! The two in front of me went off the road the guy behind me and myself managed to get it slowed down enough to turn before we did the same. After catching the group and recovering it was time to go over it again. This time I went over with the lead group insight but they took off and I never caught them. After catching a group of 5 other riders we worked together to finish. I finished 22 but I was still 3rd in the Omnium and I’m 13th in the Elite Leader Board for the Georgia Cup.

Series 7 – Perry - Roubaix Omnium, Perry, GA

Well with the early end to the SERC Mountain Bike Series I decided to try my hand at road racing since getting my category 3 upgrade last year I have only race two crits as a 3 and that was last October so I had no idea what to expect going into this weekend.

Time Trial – The Omnium started with a 15 mile rolling Time Trial, looking around I could see this was a little different from the Cat 4’s in the fact that everyone had full-on TT bikes, helmets and every other aero thing you could have. I just threw some clip-on aero bars on my road bike to see what I could do. After 15 miles I was in 4th place and I only finished 45seconds behind the winner. Not to bad.

Criterium – Tactically I missed out on marking the top 5 riders in the Omnium. I messed up when I pulled a break back in, and three of the top 5 riders took off on a break, only two of them managed to stay away till the end. I finished 4th so the top 4 of the Omnium stayed the same. Not bad I’m still in the mix on first try at a road Omnium.

Road Race - Well this would be interesting as the race was 75 miles multiple laps of the course with a 2 mile dirt road section each lap. We let a couple breaks go up the road but always brought them back each lap. With one lap to go the guy in second took off with another rider on a break, coming into the final miles we chased him down and caught him about a half mile from the finish, that’s when I jumped. It was a little to soon and I got caught just before the finish but managed 7th, which gave me 2nd overall in the Omnium. Not bad for my first road Omnium.

SERC #8 Aniston, Al – 4th place overall in the series

It’s the last race in the series and all I need to do is finish one spot ahead of the riders in 5th and 6th overall in the series to finish in 4th place overall. The race was great but tough I hit about everything in sight. On the first lap I smashed my pedal against a rock that I didn’t see (see picture) which sent me flying. On the second lap I slammed my head on a low hanging tree, then it was another tree on the 4th lap. My bottle cage broke some where in there but I still pulled off a 7th which kept me in 4th place in the series. My goal was a top 5 in the series.

SERC #7 Macon –

Not such a good day I was in a good position all race in the top 5 till the last lap when I just blew I went from 4th to 10th in 5 miles. But I maintatined my 4th place overall in the series.

June 5th BUMP & Grind

I went to BUMP with intentions to improve on my DNF from last year and after 34 miles of mountain bike racing on a fast yet technical course I finished up in 3rd place. It was awesome, I got a good start in the top 10 and played the waiting game as we worked away at the field till it was a select 3 and we pretty much stayed in that order to the finish.

Not bad for hitting a rock at 25+ mph. The pedal held together for the rest of the race and a 2 hour training ride. 

Ed, Chri and me at the East Atlanta Fat Tire Crit 

Ben and I on the Podium at the East Atlanta Fat Tire Cit 

6th Place at Clemson, SC  

East Atlanta Fat Tire Crit May 2005

A race so close to the house, I can actually dress and ride from the house for this race. It was an open race, so you had all levels at the start line. The race was to raise money for the East Atlanta Boys & Girls Club. It was nice to see so many riders show up for the race. Atlanta Pro Bicycles was the main sponsor of the race so they had 11 riders. Pacesetter had Ben, Dave and myself so it was 11 vs. 3; it was a fast race, not to mention it was on mountain bikes but on the road. APB was sending rider after rider up the road so the 3 of us marked 2 riders each that we thought could stick a break and left the other 5 alone. Our plan worked just as Ben (PSSCT) and Chris (APB) were coming back into the group Brannon (APB) went up the road we let him go but as soon as Patrick (APB) started to go I stuck on his wheel and he pulled me up to the soloing Brannon, while Ben and Dave patrolled the group. The three of us attacked each other on the last turn with Patrick pulling off the win and myself coming in second. Ben Pulled off 4th in the field sprint.

SERC Number 5 Clemson, SC May 2005

It had rain for what felt like a month but the day before the race it stopped. The race started out fast as always but I was right in there, going into the woods in the top 10 and working it. We hit the first climb, which were a little slick but no worries between the Litespeed Sewanee and the Schwalbe Skinny Jimmy’s I was hooked up! The second climb wasn’t so good when the rider in front of me lost traction as I was going over a log so I had to dab, with that the freight train of riders blew past, leaving me in about 15-18th I worked hard to catch back up to the leaders. On each lap I was gaining by the 4th lap I could see them in the distance but with only a couple of miles to go I just could close it down, I finished 6th just 1 minute behind the chase group. Not bad.

Look for new updates coming tomorrow! FINALY!!!!!!

Charles Rossignol pushing it to the limit at the Cheeha Crit in Anniston AL. 

Tanasi SERC # 4 – A tired and cold slug to 9th place.

This is a rough race being that is the weekend after Sea Otter and the travel that is involved with flying across the country to race. All week my body clock was off so I was only getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night. Then Friday and Saturday it really hit me I slept over 12 hours each day. Fridays was only broken up when I got up to eat dinner at 9:30pm. I would have slept in on Saturday but I had volunteered to help with a Habitat for Humanity house Pacesetter Steel is building, so when I got home I took a 4-hour nap before I went out and rode.

They said the weather was going to change but I don’t think we had any idea what they meant till we were driving north to Tennessee and it snowed on us for almost the whole drive. When we got to the Ocoee whitewater center (site of the white water event in the 1996 Olympics) it was about 25 degrees F and a light snow. Chris our team manager who races road decided this would be a good mtb race to come out for but after getting there I think he was questioning himself. The course is fun, it’s 11 mile climb with a 3 mile climb at the start when you get to the top it’s about four miles of single track with a 3 mile decent to a 1mile road section to the start finish. We started out fast as always right in to the climb and then it just became a matter of survival to the top as we kept attacking each other to the top. After the first lap I could tell it was going to be a long race, my legs felt like wood. I kept pushing forward till the last lap when Chris caught up to me; we were in a group of three riders one of which was Shey who went to Sea Otter with me. We dropped one when Chris came around me, took up the pace on the climb with that we managed to drop the other rider in the group and pick up about 3 or 4 places. Chris picked up the temp and forced me to pick up the pace. I’m glad Chris was there to help motivate me on the last lap. I couldn’t believe how tired I was but such is racing…

Thank you for reading –

Tyler

Tsali SERC # 3 Broke Chain (11minute stop) but still finished 12th!

The race was interesting; Dave didn’t start with me so when I started and was in the back he couldn’t yell at me. I thought for a change I would try to make it to the front of the group before the single track. It worked I went into the woods in about 8th place, we had a little team tactics going on in front
of us, the guy in second place had a teammate in third place sit up
and hold us back so first and second could get a gap. It worked till
the course opened up and I made my move. Went from 8th to 4th in one
swoop. A few more miles in I had sitting in 3rd, with 2nd in my
sights and about a 20-30 second gap over 4th. I was descending
trying to catch 2nd place when I heard a loud crack which was my
chain blowing apart as I was descending at 22mph, it wrapped up in-
between the cassette and the wheel which made for a great 11 minute
stop in the middle of the race. After I put the chain together I
cased back up to 12th place. It wasn't what I had hoped for but at
least I will be confident for the start at Sea Otter next weekend.

Thank you to everyone.

Tyler