It's the Number 3 for Konrad Witt!

After a third place overall finish in the Men’s 4/5 series of the Tour of America’s Dairyland 16-year old ABD rider Konrad Witt is ready to officially jump up to the Men’s Category 3!

Konrad raced all 10 days of ToAD and finished in the top 10 six times including second place finishes at both the Sheboygan stage and the Downer Avenue stage. Here’s a quick summary of each stage from “Team Witt”:

• Thiensville - Was doing great, in the top 10 with one lap to go.  Crash right in front of him brought him down and he finished, but way down at the bottom.
• Grafton - 4th place; nice recovery after a somewhat disastrous first day.
• Waukesha - At this point Konrad was apparently not worried about the overall at all, and spent several laps way out front of the pack; he also picked up a nice $75 prime and then finished 31st.
• Greenbush (road race) - 6th place.
• Schlitz Park - 5th place.
• Ripon (time trial) - Konrad's hates time trials and never does that well in them, but because he was actually in the top 5 overall, he did the time trial and managed to squeek out 2 measly point by coming in 20th.
• Sheboygan - 2nd place!!  Podium at last!
• Fond du Lac - 4th place.
• Downer Avenue - 2nd place! in a very full, very tough field; awesome finish that his mom and uncle were able to witness as they joined the guys Saturday in Milwaukee; more importantly, this took him from 5th place overall to 3rd.
• Madison - He rode with the pack for the entire race on very short, three-downhill, one-uphill course, but got a flat in the last couple of laps and finished behind the pack; fortunately there was no one challenging his 3rd place position at this point, so he was on the podium once again accepting a trophy/placque for 3rd overall in the 4/5 category.

Way to go Konrad!!!

Konrad Witt finished third overall at the 2011 Tour of America's Dairyland.

Prinner Report From her Bronze Medal TT Ride

This report originally appeared at "The Prinner Posts"

Here is a perfect example of the messed up schedule of a competitive cyclist;

• Wed-Sun race Nature Valley Grand Prix,
• Sun drive 6 hours home after an agonizing 8 laps of Stillwater crit,
• Mon get everything done you’ve put off during NVGP and pack for Nationals,
• Mon night drive to Champaign,
• Tues morning (uncomfortably early) meet Hogan Sills and Ben Damhoff/ girlfriend Molly and drive 12 hours to Augusta Georgia,
• Wed preview TT course twice and cramp up because it’s about 100 degrees with 100% humidity,
• Thurs morning race the U23 Women’s National Championship Time Trial...

The course was definitely one that needed no brakes and absolutely no technical skill whatsoever. It was 30km (~19 miles for those of you stubborn Americans) of rolling hills and the type of muggy heat that leaves no hope of ever getting dry again. I had spent 2 days searching high and low for an individual who would lend me a disk wheel with no success, and I was continually told that having a disk was vital for this particular course. With just 1.5 hours before my start time I was getting desperate asking random pro teams and people I knew if they had a disk to spare. Unfortunately, there seems to be a shortage of disks here in Georgia because no one would lend me one (or it might have to do with the fact that they didn’t want to give some random girl a disk that costs almost as much as a car). After downing three Gatorade bottles in my warm-up and sticking a pantyhose full of ice down the back of my skinsuit, I was as ready to go as I would ever be. And just as I was dismounting my trainer to roll over to the starting gate, USA National Team director Jackson Stewart appeared at our team tent touting a disk wheel that he had gotten from someone else that had gotten it from some junior. It was a moment that epitomized my usual last-minuteness. I never even got to meet this junior who lent me a ridiculously expensive bike wheel. Needless to say the shifting was not all that great and I could not reach my lowest cog in the back (which for a while made me believe, to my horror, I was riding junior gearing in the race).

I wasn’t nervous until two U23 women in front of me fell off the ramp in their starts. I couldn’t help but worry if there was something wrong with the ramp, or the holder. One chick even took out the time clock on the left hand side (quite ironic if you think about it). After seeing a bunch of chicks falling over I punched it super hard from the gun and shot off the ramp as straight and true as an arrow. The rest pretty much goes without saying. I suffered for 30 km, crossed the finish line thinking my face had caught on fire, and sat around in damp clothes until results were posted. For my first year in the U23 category, I came in a respectable 3rd place, 55 seconds off the winner, Tayler Wiles.

In lieu of Wednesday Night Racing- a Wed Night/Northbrook Report

Ed. Note: Here's a great report that Stacy Appelwick filed a couple of weeks ago.

Whoo hoo!

What fun I've been missing! The ABD women's team showed up en masse (except Jeannie-she's in IA) last night for the Wednesday training crit in West Chicago at the Pelladrome! Fabulous time and great training. It's so darn hard racing with the boys. Thanks to everyone for volunteering your time and organizing this every week! I'll for sure be back! If you haven't made it out to the Pelladrome yet, give it a try!

Thanks to Kristen for her recap of the Spring Prairie RR last Sunday up in WI. http://pwppedalingwithapurpose.blogspot.com This course is 6.4 miles of rolling terrain with a 18% grade finishing straight. We had the pleasure of going up it 6 times for a total of 39 miles. After the second climb, I just rolled through the downhill section and got about a 6 bike length gap and Lindsey Durst of IS Corp attacked and I caught her wheel. We went through turn one, I looked back and we had Kelly Hess of Kenda and Holly Matthews also of IS Corp with us. It was the right combo of teams represented, so it stuck. In a nutshell, Lindsey was protecting Holly's position, so she was doing most of Holly's work, so Kelly and I set about to attempt to escape from them. We started attacking. On the 5th lap, I put in a pretty hard dig, but it was on the wrong spot of the course. Live and learn. After dangling for awhile, I got caught and Kelly attacked hard. She rode away as I was too gassed to catch her wheel. We rolled around for another lap and after the last climb, Holly and I dropped Lindsey. My goal then was to attempt to drop Holly. It didn't work. That girl is strong! Since I was attacking her, she went into defensive mode and slowed to let Lindsey catch back on. When I saw this was happening, I finally sat up and realized I'd better save something for the sprint. Sure enough once we turned the corner for the final climb, I caught Holly's wheel, but those sprinter thighs of hers dropped me after all the previous wasted effort. It really wasn't wasted though, because more lessons were learned!

Kelly won it by a large margin, Holly was 2nd, I was 3rd and Lindsey rolled in behind me after all the work she did for Holly.

There were many interesting things that went on in this break, but it would take way too long to talk about them all. All I can say is that this bike racing business is the just the coolest thing ever!

Thank you to ABD for supporting our team! We really appreciate all you do to support cycling and racing. This is such a great community of people!!

Chris, Elena and I are now off to Minneapolis to race on the track at the Fixed Gear Classic this weekend. Jeannie, Kristen and Jessi are racing the Galena stage race and Sarah's racing locally in MI. Good luck girls! We'll see you in MN for the Nature Valley Grand Prix next Wednesday.

Stacy

Jeannie Kuhajek's Galena Report

Jeannie Kuhajek took the overall win at the Tour of Galena and has a great write-up over at her blog.

Go Konrad Go!

In case you haven't been checking the Tour of America's Dairyland results you might not have noticed that ABD's own Konrad Witt sat in third overall in the Men's 4/5 after Tuesday's stage!!! 

So, Category 4/5 ABD'ers, if you need any extra motivation now is the time to head north and give the kid a hand!

Keep up the good work, Konrad.

Pelladrome Races Cancelled Tonight

Hello all, happy hump day.

Unfortunately this wacky weather is just too threatening tonight and we're calling off this week's round of Wednesday Night Training Races at the Pelladrome.

Best of luck to everyone racing at Nationals, Glencoe, ToAD and/or Northbrook this week!

Jeannie Report: O'Fallon Grand Prix

Jun O’Fallon Grand Prix Road Race

With no team race on the schedule, Brian and I decided to head down to O’Fallon, Illinois, for two days of racing aimed at boosting our fitness for the harder racing ahead. About five-hour’s drive south of Chicago and just east of the Mighty Mississippi River, O’Fallon is a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. The course was a 40 km loop through mostly narrow rolling rural roads, the rows of early season corn lining the course lush green and just inches above the soil.

With the point of the weekend being training, I was hoping to get in some hard racing. Well, I got it! Not because of the field, the course or even the intensity of the race. It had entirely due to Mother Nature. With temperatures soaring above 45 degrees (high 90’s) with humidity to match, a cloudless sky, and a stiff headwind on most of the longer straights, the race was one of attrition. The women’s race was two laps (80 km) of suffocating, energy draining heat. I tell you what, that was plenty. Brian’s mater’s race was three laps and the Pro/1/2 guys had a brutal 150 km.

I wanted to make the race hard without blowing myself apart, so around each corner (the course had 27 per lap) I went to the front and rolled through so that anyone breaking into the corner would have to work to get back on. About halfway through the first lap, the field was struggling. I upped the pace around the next corner transitioning from head-cross into a tailwind and the bunch splintered, leaving a lead group of six. With two of the three bigger hills on the course in the last 8 km of the lap, my legs and arms began to feel like jelly as we passed through the start/finish and a nap seemed like quite a good idea.

Having finished two of my three bottles, I was grateful to grab a fresh ice-cold one through the feedzone (Thanks Jane!) where, unloading my empty bottles, I accidentally threw my remaining half-full one. Being a bit loopy, but not crazy, I stopped to retrieve the accidentally discarded bottle (Thanks again Jane!). A modest attack after the feedzone meant a bit of work chasing back on but the heat quickly demotivated much output of effort from the girls and I was quickly back in the group.

One rider tailed off not long into the second lap and we were soon five. The remainder of the race was relatively uneventful as we each struggled to conserve enough energy (and water) to finish the race. By about 15 km to go, I had just a splash of drink left in my bottle. Heading into the last 5 km of the race, all of us dragging in the heat, one rider attacked up the climb. I dug deep and followed with Chris Roettger (Revolution Racing) on my wheel. We pulled hard over the top, I took my last sip of water, and heading into the last hill at 2 km to go Chris attacked up the climb. And then there were two.

Cresting the hill I felt pretty blown, but the 500 m to go sign boosted my spirits. Gasping for air I stayed on Chris’s wheel out of necessity rather than tactics. She put in a dig for the line but when I stayed with her she sat back down. I stayed on her wheel, sprawled on my bike, melting. Two-hundred meters to go and Chris let loose again. I had just enough left to come around. Chris sat up and I was able to cross the line solo in a full victory salute. My first 2011 US win!

5 Jun O’Fallon Grand Prix Criterium

Thank goodness for morning clouds. Temperatures on Sunday dropped to almost tolerable and the breeze even gave an ever so slight coolness to the air. The crit was a fun albeit bumpy hour glass-shaped course with an exciting chicane corner heading into the finishing straight. The turnout for the women’s Pro/1/2/3 was disappointing at only six riders. But quality isn’t necessarily related to quantity. The race was brutal. When Chris Roettger and Carrie Cash Wooten (Revolution Racing) lined up on the start line, I knew it was going to be a tough race.

I went out hard from the gun, hoping to split up the two teammates straightaway, but with both women experienced strong riders, my plan came to no avail. After a couple of laps on the front I began to question the intelligence of my tactic. My enthusiasm faded, soon to be replaced by a slight feeling on dizziness and perhaps a touch of nausea. We shelled two riders straight away so it was a race of four. Carrie came around and she and I shared the load for a few laps as I regained a bit of equilibrium. Then the attacks, as expected, began in earnest. Chris flew by to my right. No sooner had I grabbed her wheel did Carrie put in an explosion of speed. I chased her down and Chris countered with another effort. And so it went.

At 15 minutes the prime bell rang and, being the optimistic and often nonsensical rider that I am, I put in a big effort, only to be rolled on the line by a very speedy Carrie “I’ll take the Cash” Wooten. We had a big gap after the sprint, so I pushed the pace hard for a few laps, taking advantage of the opportunity to get away from the constant one-two attacks. But with a good 25 minutes to go in the race and Carrie catching a free ride on my wheel with no incentive to work, I was conscious that too much effort on my part would give away the race.

A couple of laps and we were again four—and back to one-two attacks. Thankfully, Chris was now a bit tired from her chase effort, mediating her attacks, the fourth rider, Natalie Carroll (Dogfish Racing) hanging on for dear life, teeth firmly wrapped around her handle bars. Final lap, I had the advantage going into the final chicane, but in a deja vu of the earlier prime, the speedy Carrie came around at the line to take the win. I took second with Chris crossing the line in third. Definitely a good race to work the molasses out of my sprint. A weekend of good hard training accomplished. Thanks to Metro East Cycling for putting on a great weekend of racing.

Memorial Day Weekend Women's Reports

This past weekend the women's team filed a flood of reports from both the Quad Cities Weekend as well as Kristen's experiences at the ABD Memorial Day Masters Weekend. Click through to the reports below.

Jessi's humorous tale of going from her high school graduation to Snake Alley!

Kristen Meshberg's Memorial Day Weekend Report including tales from the ABD Master's Races and the Quad Cities Criterium

Sarah Demerly's Rock Island Report:Success or Something Like It

Sarah's Melon City Report: Apocalypse

Northbrook Report: ABD Women at the Track

Ed. note: A special thanks to Chris Mosora for filing this report.

Hi all!

Last night was another great night of racing for the ABD women's team at the Ed Rudolph velodrome up in Northbrook, featuring the Madison as the main event in session 2 of the evening. The 1st session was a point-a-lap (1 point only for first place), and the 3rd and final session was a scratch race --descriptions of these races can be found here; http://www.northbrookvelodrome.org/information/glossary-of-racing-terms/

In the point-a-lap race, things got off to a bit of a shaky start for team ABD as the girls are still trying to get "in sync" with each others racing style to race as a team having only formed this year. It was a 10 lap race and in the second lap Elena was aggressive and sprinted for a point with Kristen on her wheel. Kristen tried her best to sweep for Elena, but the rest of the field could sense what she was trying to do and started to charge around Kristen between turns 3 &4. Kristen had no choice but to try to get the point -not to beat Elena, but to keep points from the opposition. This had the unfortunately secondary effect of catching Elena in a bad place, as she had started sprinting nearly a full lap earlier, and got a bit gaped while she fought to catch her breath.

She was still a bit stunned for the next couple of laps, finding herself having to chase back on after every sprint while Kristen was mixing it up at the front, but then amazingly came around and found her second wind. Unfortunately by this time it was mathematically impossible for her to get a high placing, but rather the throwing in the towel --which most people would have done-- she instantly switched into "selfless team mate" mode for Kristen, by pulling back gaps and leading Kristen out, culminating in dramatic finish for the team as with 3 laps to Kristen was in a 3-way tie for 1st place, with Wisconsin powerhouse Beth Engwis, team (?) and another rider -who's name escapes me right now (I must do a better job of remembering names). Local elite rider Francine Haas, Alberto's sports, got off in a dangerous solo break at this picking up a point with Beth chasing -also with a gap. It didn't look good for Kristen, but in an impressive display of raw speed and team work Elena set a blistering pace for 2 laps with Kristen glued to her wheel. Elena single-handedly reeled in BOTH Francine and Beth(?) and launched Kristen for the win in the final lap and secured the overall! It was an extremely exciting and concerted performance by both of them! That was a nail biter of a race ladies!

Next up was the Madison -20 laps with sprints every 5. For those of you who know and or have raced this event, probably the biggest factor for success is just pure experience and skill (more info on the Madison at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_(cycling) ) You could easily tell Elena knew what she was doing, but this was Kristen's first time. The women's field consisted of 5 teams, including the super-duo composite team of Val Brostrom, team BTN, and Beth Engwis, team (?) who are both very experienced track racers, not to mention super-fast, making them a extremely tough team to beat for sure in this event.

Another team of note was Chicago Cuttin Crew's -or CCC from her on, Dahpne Karagianis, and her team mate (?)-again, I have to start remembering names better- tried to catch everyone napping at the start of the race with a first lap blitz, and it worked giving them an instant and dangerous gap, this put even the super team of Val and Beth in a bit of trouble as it took them several laps to reel themselves back up to team CCC. These girls where racing!

Again, experience and skill being so critical in this event saw team CCC miss an exchange which Val took immediate advantage of due to her extensive race savvy which now got her and Beth off on their own. Meanwhile Kristen and Elena were having a bit of trouble while Kristen became more comfortable with high-speed exchanges. It seemed for awhile they were destined for 3rd place, but miraculously started to get into a rhythm in the second half of the race. Lap after lap they slowly close on team CCC who were now showing signs of fatigue from their blazing first laps.

With every exchange Kristen's confidence grew, and you could actually see Elena and her pick up speed. They blew past the visibly exhausted team CCC which now put them in 2nd place, and started to close on the super team of Val and Beth who by now had won 3 of the 4 sprints to lock up 1st place. It's hard to say if Elena and Kristen, actually caught and beat Val and Beth in the final sprint or if Val and Beth sat-up knowing they had won the already won the race and didn't need to contest the last sprint (probably the latter), but it can be said that if the race was a bit longer, or Kristen had more experience Madison racing they would have given Val and Beth a run for their money.

I have to reiterate that team CCC do need to get recognition and mad props for their gutsy early race tactics that nearly worked. Keep at it girls, as sometime when you roll the dice like that they come up in your favor, but also racing like that makes it so much more exciting to watch!

I don't mean to ignore the other 2 teams in this race, but the Madison can be confusing to keep track of, and I was having a hard time just keeping track of the top 3 teams. I know for a fact that Madison racing for the women's field is relatively new to Northbrook and it takes a while to figure it out, and I'm sure that is what the other 2 teams were doing, so please ladies keep racing it as it is super fun to watch and participate in!

Directly right after the Madison, Kristen jumped in with the master men in their scratch race, but unfortunately I had to leave at that point and couldn't see how she finished. I also believe Kristen had to leave right after the master's race and couldn't stick around to race with Elena in the 3rd session scratch race so we'll have to hear from her how it went.

--This just in-- After a tough race of countering attacks on her own in the last session's scratch race, Elena sprinted for the win but a slight miss-timing on her part saw her just getting edge out to take 2nd! -Will have to wait for the results to see who else rounded out the top 3.

No word from Kristen yet on the Master's race, but I know she held her own despite jumping right into it with no break from the previous race.

On a side note, I have to say that the women's racing at Northbrook this year has really taken off this year. The fields are surprisingly large and these gals are getting fast! I highly recommend that if anyone who's reading this hasn't made it up to at least watch, if not race at Northbrook on Thursday nights should really try to do so as you won't be disappointed! A good time is had by all!

Again please forgive me if I forgot the names of some the riders in this report, or if I am a little off on my facts, as I'm feeling under the weather with a bad head cold so I was kind of foggy-headed last night and tried my best to keep track of everything.

-Chris

Memorial Day Masters Weekend Wrap-Up

Thank you again to all of the riders that joined us for this past weekend's Masters races. Summer came in with a BANG on Monday and we saw great fields and fast races. Thanks as well to the huge field that came out for this week's Wednesday night training race. It was a blast and hilarious to see just how hard some of you will sprint for just one BEvERage. 

Daily and overall results are posted for the Memorial Day Masters Weekend and we're also linking to photos over on our Facebook page.

As all of the participants at this past Monday's race know, we had a serious scheduling SNAFU on Monday (riders had printed out two separate schedules) and we would like to sincerely apologize to all of you. It was the first time it had happened to us in our 10 years of organizing over 120 races and we'll do everything we can to make sure it never happens again.

The backstory is that we always post the latest race information and updates at our own website (www.ABDcycling.com), and as a service to promoters and riders ABR also hosts many races flyers. A couple of weeks ago we updated the Monday race schedule to start at 9 a.m. instead of 10 a.m. and tried to make sure we announced the updated schedule across the internets (Facebook, Twitter, etc). However, an outdated link lead many riders to the old schedule and so on Monday morning several people showed up after their races started and were understandably upset. We started delaying races to split the difference and eventually pushed everything back one hour. The problem with that solution was that many of you had family and personal obligations and sitting around for an hour was not how you wanted to spend your Memorial Day. You were understandably upset. 

We were stuck between a rock and a hard place and did what we could- but we know there was really no happy medium. The lesson learned is that we need to make sure every base is covered and rest assured we'll do that. We've always thought of our events as "by racers, for racers"- so when the racers aren't happy, we certainly aren't.

Thank you all again for your support and your understanding. Enjoy the summer!

ABD

The Appelwick Report: Quad Cities Weekend

Whew what a weekend. 3 days off from work and I'm beat!;)--I actually couldn't wait to sit behind my desk and rest!

It all started on Friday late afternoon when Chris and I loaded up the van with all the bike stuff, loaded up Elena and her gear, dropped off Jazzy with Donna Maday (thank you again Donna!) and hit the road for Burlington, IA. We checked into the luxurious (by circa ~1964 standards) Howard Johnson at about 11:30pm. We were beat from a long week of work and training, but ready and excited for the weekend of racing, especially since this was the first weekend with Jeannie Kuhajek racing with ABD back up here from her home in New Zealand! She and her man, Brian, aka Lami, had arrived in the States after the long difficult trip here earlier in the week. Needless to say, they were more than a bit jet lagged.

Snake Alley

We woke up on Saturday ready to attack the Snake. Unfortunately, Mother Nature wanted to make it tougher on us with frequent rain showers that moved through the area making the cobbles slick and the descent on the back side tricky. Elena, Sarah, Jessi (after her mad dash to IA from her graduation earlier in the day-congrats Jess!), Jeannie and I lined up toward the front. As you probably read in her blog, Kristen wasn't able to join us due to her husband Jason's knee surgery. Our team had some bad luck as both Jeannie and I had a bad clip-in and worse yet, Elena broke her chain right there on the line. We did the best we could and climbed the Snake 12 times. I was quite conservative on the descents and had Jeannie and the small group she was with in my sights the whole race. They'd drop me on the downhill and I'd make up distance on the flat so that I was just behind them on the climb every lap. On the last lap, an especially large gap opened up and I had to kill it to catch up. At the perfect moment, Jeannie, who was on the front of her group, sat up before the last turn and I came around the corner with some speed and out sprinted that group to end up 11th. I wasn't sure how many girls were up the road, so I figured since Jeannie set it up so perfectly, I'd try to increase the teams placing a tad. She came in just behing me at 13th. Jessi, after warming up during the first half of the race, finnaly got her "car legs" going ("car legs" are the heavy feeling you get in your legs from sitting in a car for too long right before a ride)and moved up from her understandably slow-ish start to garner 16th. Afterwards spectators said they could actually see Jessi picking up speed every lap, which is the reverse of what usually happens during the Snake. The podium consisted of Amanda Miller-Coumbia HTA 1st, Coryn Rivera-Peanut Butter & Co. 2nd and Kaitlin Antonneau-Peanut Butter & Co. 3rd.

Full results:http://www.usacycling.org/results/?permit=2011-1049

Melon City

It rained on Sunday. That's an understatement as you know, since the same storm that gave us a two hour delay for the Melon City Criterium in Muscatine, IA, came through the Chicago area too. After waiting the storm out at the HOJO's, we headed north to Muscatine about noon. Our race wouldn't go off for another 5 hours.

The course was super fun and was held in the beautfiful setting of not appropriately named Weed Park. It has a nice climb before the last few hairpin turns going into the finish line. The descent has a speed hump at the bottom that like Kristen, freaked me out for the first four laps. Jessi was nice enough to talk me down from my fear. Chris told me it was no big deal and he and Jess were right. I just started going over it without braking. What an energy saver. Ashley James from the Kenda team rolled off the front in about the 2nd or 3rd lap of the 20 lap event. She put in a massive effort to stick that lead for the win. ABD raced well together and attacked and countered and covered moves nicely. With about four to go, after a fast stretch, I put in a dig at the top and got a nice gap going into the descent. I only held it for a lap before Amanda Miller of Columbia-HTC and Coryn Rivera of PB&Co rolled up to me. I caught their wheel and we traded pulls for the remainder of the race until on that last ascent, Amanda put in a dig that I couldn't respond to. Luckily for me, my fanstastically gifted and smart teammate Jeannie had burned one of Coryn's matches earlier in the race by letting a gap open up that Coryn had to close. That was key to me dropping Coryn on that last climb and getting the last podium spot. Jess was just nipped at the line by Samantha Schneider of Team TIBCO and garnered 6th place. Jeannie, after a successful 4th place finish (she should have won, but that's another story) in the 2/3 race, put forth a fabulous team performance and ended up 22nd.

Quad Cities Criterium

Monday morning we rose to very warm and windy conditions. Yes, summer was here! Jeannie, Sarah, Elena and I decided to double dip and do the morning 2/3 race. Jessi was smart and studied for a college class she's taking. The race was a short affair at only 13 laps and after a very botched attempt at a leadout on my part for Jeannie(sorry Jeannie) that I won't go into right now, she was able to salvage a 7th place finish and I sheepishly rolled in behind her for 9th. I've got work to do!

The afternoon race was set to go at 2:30. It would run 33 laps. It's a flat course, but the wind added a difficult dimension to the race having kicked up a bit more since the morning. Kristen, being the defending champion, got her call up as did Jessi. I wasn't paying attention when I got mine for being 3rd the day before. I wasn't expecting it and had to be told twice. OOPS! It was my first call up! COOL!

The race started out hot and heavy with Kristen covering the first dangerous move and was in that group! I was relieved, since I'm on a roll of kind of starting out slowly. I had to bridge a gap to get up to Jeannie and she informed me that I could sit up since Kristen was up the road. Being that Kristen had won this very race the year before, and also being pretty much a local legend, this tactic forced the other teams that hadn't made the break to chase, saving the rest of the team from having to work too much early on. WHEW! Thank you K!:) --Kristen has a TON of experience and has alot to bring to the table and we all very much appreciate having her on the team!

Jessi and Jeannie put in attacks once Kristen was caught though, and Jeannie ended up in a nice break of 4, again taking the pressure off Jessie and me. We did our best to slow things up but the field was still fresh enough to reel the break back in over the course of the next several laps. Once it was caught, I found myself out of position to counter. Honestly, I was struggling to hang on while they chased, and they chased hard! I needed another half lap to move up. Two girls attacked into the head wind and I bridged up to them solo. When they sat up, I attacked them into the headwind section past the start/finish dropping them and after taking a quick look back I saw the field sit up! I couldn't believe it, they were going to let me go! --Well at least for the moment as they must have started to tire out a bit after so much hard racing. So, I went into "time trial mode" --which Chris has taught me so well! I'm not sure exactly when I got the gap, Chris thought it was around lap 15, others put it more like 12, I dunno, all I knew it seemed a LONG way to go by myself, so I just had to pray it would stick. My prayers were answered in the form of Jeannie Kuhajek and Jessi Prinner! Thank you ladies for being great actresses --Jess to field "is that a Kenda girl up there?" in order to maybe throw off team Kenda so that they might shut down any chase attempts since they seemed to have the most riders in the field. That's some fast thinking Jess! Then Jeanie and her held the pace just high enough that when attacks were made, there wasn't enough of a speed differential for anything to get away, but not so high as to roll up on me.Those long lonely laps by myself were tough, but it's all worth it when you know you've got a team backing you and cheering you on! Huge thanks to Mike Ebert and Sarah for giving me splits at important spots along the course! Thanks to my Moso Man for saying the perfect thing along the way. And Kristen and Elena, thanks for screaming your brains out for me! I couldn't have done it without you all! So, on the last lap, I was just trying to stay upright and get my skinsuit zipped up for the "post up". I was so exhausted coming into the finish line that I was afraid I would fall over with the big headwind so I kept one hand on the bar. Better to do that than go down! :)

Coryn Rivera came in 2nd and sprinter Holly Matthews of IS Corp came in third. Jessi and Jeanie's HUGE efforts to help ensure I stayed away of course didn't leave much energy left for them to contest the finish but did finish up very respectfully in 17th and 22nd respectfully due to their incredible natural ability.

Full results: http://www.truesport.com/rzone/racereports/report.asp?recid=3059

I was so happy to head home after a successful weekend of racing for ABD. I couldn't wait to pick up our team dog, Jazzy, at Donna's house. She took awesome care of her and I hear Jazzy even had the pleasure of meeting several ABD members at the Master's race, including celebrity announcer, Todd Busteed. Jazzy says "HI Todd!" Donna you're the best!

Thanks to the ABD Club, Farrell and Ebert for everything you do. Chris, thanks as always for making my sweet Trek Madone run like a top so all I have to do is concentrate on racing and for always listening to me! :) Lastly, thanks for my amazing teammates. I can't wait to see what we can do together once we really get to know each other! :)

We have a weekend off from travel, but we're off to Minneapolis next for the Fixed Gear Classic and Nature Valley Grand Prix.

Have a great week!

Stacy