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all blog post are now on the journal page at www.veloforma.com

Tuckerman… Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner

Photo Credit Mark Blackwelder

It seems like it was just yesterday that cross clinics were starting… now there is only one race left in the Cross Crusade Series with five more weekends before the season is over… WOW! Time flies when you’re having fun. And, if you’re Aaron Tuckerman, you’ve been having a lot of fun. Aaron Rides for Corsa Concepts/Veloforma and he’s been having a break out cross season. So far Aaron has won 5 Cross Crusades and he’s been in the top 3 in every race except for one. He also wrapped up the overall for the Cross Crusade series with the win at Barton Park! For me, being his bike sponsor is pretty RAD. Who could ask for more… I couldn’t! I understand he’s been racing sick since October 9th, but has managed to muster up the energy to race every weekend. Last week hit him hard. He just rested and didn’t get out on the bike much, and come race day he let it RIP! That says a lot about Aaron and his competitive spirit. The guy is tough as nails. The season’s not over yet, but I have to say Thank You, Aaron! Well played, mate!

For all the great coverage of Oregon Cross you can check out Pat Malach’s Oregon Cycling Action –

http://oregon.cyclingaction.com/2011/krasniak-tuckerman-win-cross-crusade

For more information on the remaining series:

http://gpmc.cx/

http://www.crosscrusade.com/

http://www.portlandracing.com/cx/

If you’re way down south - http://www.obra.org/flyers/2011/so_oregon_outlaw_cx.html

Images of Cross!

This weekend is Cross Crusade #2 at Rainer High School! To get the juices flowing here are some great shots of Aaron Tuckerman - Corsa Concepts/Veloforma.

First two photos by Mark Blackwelder
You can check out his great shots here - https://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.2350739681776.188264.1048621958&type=1




The weather has been wet and they are calling for showers on Sunday, so it's gonna be typical cross weather. Bring your rain boots and be ready to get wet. Don't forget to stop by the Corsa Concepts tent for treats and say HI to Greg and gang.

Alpenrose CrossCrusade

Cross season is now in full effect for Oregon. This past weekend was Cross Crusade #1 at Alpenrose Dairy. I didn’t race but was in attendance to watch our rider Aaron Tuckerman who hails from Blenheim, New Zealand, but resides here in Stumptown. Aaron Rides for the Corsa Concepts/Veloforma cross team. We are excited to have him on board, and I like Aaron’s style and he didn’t disappoint yesterday at all, it’s great to see Tuckerman or Tuckie as I call him back at it!



You can get full coverage here by Pat Malach and Cyclocross magazine on line.
http://www.cxmagazine.com/cross-crusade-1-alpenrose-dairy-report

You can get full results of all the cross crusade events on the OBRA page
http://obra.org/events/19722/results

Next up for those that want to race during the week – Blind Date at the Dairy http://www.crossseries.com/

This is a funny video give it time and watch the whole thing…
http://www.crossseries.com/videos.html

Wow! It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost 60 days since our last post. Time flies when you’re having fun, right. Or at least busy beyond belief… so what’s been happening you say? I’ll try and recap but I know I’ll miss something since so much has been going on.

We’ve been hard at work cranking out our new road bike, the STRADA SLR – we can’t seem to get them out the door fast enough, which is a good thing. But the bad thing is I don’t even have one underneath me cause I can justify building one in my size when I have to fill that same size order. Below is our new steed, we are super proud of it…



On the full custom front we have been working hard getting everything in place. We’ve ordered a new frame jig so we will have two, with the goal of having 3 in all. Each will be used for a specific purpose in our tube to tube process. I know I don’t have to do this but it’s something that I have thought about a lot of the last 2 years. I think it will simplify our build process, especially in the ISP front among other things. We have finished our plans for our new Studio work shop on our property in Banks. Which has been a long time coming, when we have to move from our current warehouse to the new facility it’s not going to be too much fun but it will be well worth it.



In racing news our athletes have been doing amazing, which always makes us proud. Please forgive me if I forget something (I know if I would just stay on top of post) I’m just going to cover the women in this post and later this week cover what the men have been doing. So here goes…

Eugene Roubaix – Brianna Walle 3rd Ironclad Performance

State Road Race – Anne Usher 1st Upper Echelon Fitness, 4th Brianna Walle Ironclad Performance, 6th Anona Whitley Ironclad Performance

Bend Don’t Break – Tina Brubaker 3rd Upper Echelon

Special note Bend Don’t Brake was the first stop in the Veloforma Norman Babcock Cat 4 Women’s series. Top 3 riders in the first race – Sandra Clark 1st, Suzanne Girard Eberele 2nd, Kelly Sandow, you can follow the series here - http://obra.org/cat4_womens_race_series although the standings are not correct as the state tt has not be compiled.

Mt Hood Classic stage race. This is an Oregon must do stage race, not only are the courses killer, but the scenery is just out of this world. In the Elite women’s race Anna Christiansen Finshed 15th overall, which impressed me a lot. Especially because she finished ahead of two riders who used to race for me and I know what they are capable of and how strong they are… so my hat is off to you Anna you are riding amazing and developing in to an excellent racer.



You can check out all the results and see what world class riders showed up to do this fantastic stage race - http://obra.org/events/18429/results.

Sublime Sublimity – Anona Whitley Ironclad Performance 1st

Elkhorn Classic - http://obra.org/events/18400/results this is what I would call Oregon’s epic stage race, it is without a doubt a tough one. To do well is one thing to win it, takes some luck and your best A game.

Ironclad Performance once again has proven to me that they are a team on the way up. They know how to race as a team and they proved this at Elkhorn. It was really cool to get race reports from this race, the final stage was one I wish I was able to see from a moto, especially the women’s Elite race. More info and race coverage can be found at Oregon Cycling Action. http://oregon.cyclingaction.com/2011/reynolds-koch-win-elkhorn-overall/

Nature Valley GP - We want to wish Hilary Billington as well as all the others who went down in the stage 5 crash at the NVGP a quick recovery -
http://oregon.cyclingaction.com/2011/billington-recovering-from-nvgp-crash

NRC racing – Whitney Schultz is our only pro athlete this year, she has been traveling all over and it’s been tough to keep up with all that she has been doing, she just finished NVGP and is now in Augusta GA for the - USA Cycling Road Nationals.

You can follow Whit on twitter and on her blog.



Whit’s blog - http://whitneyschultz.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html

Whit on twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/WhitSchultz

We want to wish Whit all the best for Nationals! Kill it Whit!

Ok that’s it for now, more in a few days. It’s gonna be a busy week with work, the Six day and covering what the men have been doing the past 60 days.

Cheers

This Sunday is Liege Bastogne Liege also known as the La Doyenne – translation means the oldest; this race is run in the beautiful region of the Ardennes in Belgium. It goes from Liege to Bastogne and back… hence the name. This is the southern French speaking half of Belgium and the race began back in 1892. It was won by Leon Houa an amateur, because at the time it was an amateur race run from Spa to Bastogne and back. It wasn’t until 1894 that it was for professionals, but again Houa won. Actually Leon Houa was a three time winner. The Great Eddy Merckx has the most victories with five, Moreno Argentin was close with four. Since its inception Belgians have dominated this race with 57 victories. If you look at the list of winners they are part of cycling burly boys, those who are aggressive and willing to take chances, but yet calculating at the same time. This race is probably the toughest classic IMHO: the climbs are long, most of them are pretty steep, and they come up with depressing frequency in the final kilometers, so you’ve got to have the legs in the end. I think Moreno Argentin said it best: Liège is a race of trial by elimination, where it's very unlikely that a breakaway can go clear and decide the race before the final 100km. You need to be strong and at the same time clever and calculating - in this sense it's a complete test of a cyclist's ability. Who will the winner be this year? Any guesses? My money is on Philippe Gilbert especially after his performance at Amstel Gold. But who know? That’s the great thing about competition you never know until the race is over.

Castelli

The images above and below are copy right material of Castelli USA and its partners.

This photo is property of Castelli. All Rights Reserved



A few weeks ago Veloforma, & Corsa Concepts and a few of our rider ambassadors took part in the 2012 Winter/Spring Castelli photo shoot in Antelope, Oregon. It was a whirlwind weekend of riding in new High tech garments from one of the coolest, most technically advanced cycling clothing companies in the world.

You can check out the weekends action on flicker here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/castelli-cycling/sets/72157626456052724/

You can also follow them on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Castelli-USA/111414615538672



“Motor Moon” aka Miranda Moon-Duff in action on an amazing descent outside of Antelope, Oregon.