Louisville Crit & Airforce RR

After the bad weather for the time trails Sunday arrived with sunny skies and warmer temps. It was a split squad day with some riders doing the crit in Louisville and others doing a road race down at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. CJ, Josh, Marcel, Jim and Pete lined up for the 35 Plus crit, which looked like a pro/1/2 race with at least 1/3 of the field being pro/1/2 riders racing as a warm up. There were lots of moves the boys covered, but nothing would work. Photo above is CJ in a strong looking move, but as we said, nothing would work.


Here is Jim Thies taking the lead and trying to make another break work, but again nothing. The race settled down for a field sprint and top 3 spots of the podium were all taken by pro/1/2 riders. Josh managed a solid 7th place, Pete came from way back for 14th and Jim slotted in at the back of the top 20.














Pete Lucke rolling in the group.



















The 45 Plus squad was small with only Larry and Henrik racing. With most other teams fielding a larger number of riders our guys were out gunned and missed the break. Here is Larry covering the front and trying to find a chance to get up to the break. No matter what the Mix1 guys did, they could not shake the field and get close to the break.







Henrik taking a flyer up the hill in the 45 Plus race and stretching out the pack in the process.

While we do not have any photos from the Air Force race, we do have 2 first hand reports. There were no masters events so Jimi, Pete I. and Kevin raced with the cat 3's, and Matt S., Matt G., and Marc raced in the pro/1/2. Here is Jimi's report of his race, where he took a strong 2nd place beating guys the age of his kids: the air force course is one of the best workouts you can find anywhere and it was a beautiful day. We had a few good climbers and a few very young goats in our race. The 1st lap felt the hardest, especially after the time trials in the rain the day before. By the 3rd lap it started to break up, with about 10-12 riders left together for the 4th and final lap. Unfortunately Kevin had a little mishap with one of the 5280 kids. he had to unclip from his pedals, and then chase back on. During this guys went up the road and I had to dangle a bit, then relaxed, and then I was able to catch back on on the final descent toward the uphill finish. In the finishes I came around 3 guys in the final 100m to take 2nd place, and Peter came in with 10th place.

And a 1st hand report on the pro1/2 race from Matt S: this is an amazing race on the grounds of the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO similar to the course used in the 1986 World Cycling Championships. There was a strong contingent of pros like Chris Baldwin, Phil Zajicek, Jonathan Chadroff and plenty more. First lap was tough as the large field was jockeying for position and Chadroff (Jelly Belly) went off the front in an early move and gaining45 seconds on the field. Chadroff's early move spelled doom for the peloton, as on lap 2 Fly V Australia put all 4 of its riders on the front and destroyed the field. Gaps were opening up everywhere in peloton. Matt G. and Marc H. rode strong and Matt S. made a very hard effort to nearly make the front group, but could only close to within 10 seconds of the break.

Matt S. settled back into the chase group together with Matt G. and Marc , as well as a dozen other riders. The chase group was not necessarily cooperative, with few guys working together, and riders getting picked up and drooped at the same time. Matt S. attacked the group on the climb on Lap 3 with Marc H. coming across near the top, but the field was not going to let two of the three Mix1 racers go, so the group came back together. The run in to the1 km long uphill finish was chaotic as usual for this race and Mix1 crossed line in succession for top 25 finishes. It was very solid riding from the Mix1 guys against a top level pro/am field.