State Road Champs

Yesterday was the State Road Championships for the Senior women in Oregon. Veloforma was in attendance. We had a small team but they raced hard, with well earned results. It, like all races was a learning experience and we came away with new knowledge and this helps us grow as a team. Congratulations goes out to all the VF ladies with special note to Tina for a Silver and Steph a bronze. Way to go ladies.

Coach Cree with two of his VF ladies.
Myself, Miranda, Dave and Laura meet up with Tina, Steph, Elise and Heather after to celebrate.
I had my cake and a stick of butter too.

Testing, Testing...

So I spent a week in Colorado doing some product testing after Joe Martin Stage Race. Here are a few shots. It was a great trip and a needed re-charge to the batteries.

what you see here is a VF proto, that I spent a week on in Colorado.

It's full carbon and FS too, yes this is all your gonna get to see. Maybe you might get to view one at short track later this summer.

This shot is of Blue sky... an awesome single track that goes from Ft. Collins to Loveland.

Me with the Devils back bone and the wonderful blue sky of Colorado. Yes I am wearing road shoes. I know... but I forgot to pack my mtn bike stuff. LOL :)

Having some fun, all in a days work.

Devils Back Bone,. Loveland, Colorado.

Single track leading into the Devils Backbone.

Ironclad in the house. Never leave home with out them...

It was so hot the deer made sure they stayed cool.

Max getting ready to ride the Blue Sky to Loveland with me.

Paul doing the same, doing blue sky on a uni-cycle is tuff, especially when it's your first time. But really this is what we did on our rest day. Paul nailed it, I on the other hand did not...

New Belgium Lost Arrow of course... new brew and very tasty. This was my recovery drink after most rides.

Rest day also included some golf with Max and Paul.

Max enjoying a beverage after a hard day of golf.

A big bull snake I ran into on one of my rides. He was a big boy!!

My old Fort Collins house, man I miss this house, wish I never sold it. 20/20 hindsight, right.
All in all it was a wonderful trip and I got to see friends that I have not spent time with in a while. Thanks Paul, Di, Max, Gus and Ruffy. It was great spending a week with you.

What is the story behind these VF photos?

Over there.. what is stephanie doing??


Just another Saturday morning VF ride!

Joe Martin Final Day

Well it took me a day longer than expected to get this up. Getting Alice to the Airport at 4:30 am was tough. Christina was nice and took Robin later in the day so I got on the road early. :) Landed in Colorado last night at 6:30pm to stop by a friends place and say Hi. Any how back to racing!!!

Results from the Crit can be found here - http://www.joemartinstagerace.com/Results2009/Stg04Women1-2.pdf

The Final Stage of the 32nd Joe Martin Stage Race was the Criterium!! FAST was the word of the day. Only 20 made it to the finish from the 52 starters and 8 high level pros just didn't finish, but sometimes they just lay it out there and do there job to make it so fast they can't. The Course was AWESOME, Fast and technical. Rain at the beginning set nerves on end a little. But all in all no crashes and everyone raced like a rock star. Alice and Christina made the Front group. With Christina finishing 10th. The start finish hill was a whopper and made for recovering on the back portion of the course tough, as Value Act and Tibco keep the pace high all day.

Here is some more from Cycling News - http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2009/may09/joemartin09/joemartin094

Special Thanks has to go out to Scott Warren for helping put all the logistics of the race together. Scott help with lot of extra add support. THANK YOU Scott!! Anna Sanders our guest rider was super solid both as a racer and a person. I now know why... as we had the luxury of staying with Anna's parents as host housing. Tom and Barbra are awesome!! The southern style of making people welcome and feel at easy is so nice when you are on the road. We have found our home away from home when we are at Joe Martin. Anna also found out she has a home on the Veloforma squad too, if she wants it. More on that later. So all in all it was a great week of racing. We meet new people learn new things about ourselves and came away knowing why we love this sport so much.

Joe Martin Day 3

Results can be found here...
http://www.joemartinstagerace.com/Results2009/Stg03Women1-2.pdf
more later as I am tired, need to clean bikes, talk to the ladies...and so on. So I know the girls are too...

Joe Martin Day two.

Results can be found here -
http://www.joemartinstagerace.com/Results2009/Stg02Women1-2.pdf

The Day of the Break aways...

Today was great racing. The ladies where active and racing hard. The race featured 5 major break aways. First one of the day was big. And consisted of 8 riders with our own Alice Pennington, other riders in the break included Tibco's - Tamyo, Jazz Apple ( NZ Nat) Pryde and Roorda, Leal - Team Type 1, Van Gilder - Mellow Mushroom, Cannondale's - Dallaire and one mystery rider I could get the name of... sorry With out Webcor and Value Act present they started chasing and it eventually came back.

Break #2 Featured Sabrina Savage - Veloforma, Tibco's - Rickards, Value Acts - Pattella, Jazz Apple - Corset and Tibco's Carroll. I thought this might stick but since TT1 had no one in there the casing began. And eventually the break came back. Not sure how this happened as TT1 had a small team and it looked like it might be tough for them to protect Powers lead.

Break away # 3 consisted of Tamayo, Pennington, Allpress - Value Act and one other rider. At this point it was Taymao and Pennington that seemed to want the un-official aggressive rider jersey as they both have been very active on the rollers and in two breaks in the last 20 miles.

Break #4 had Nicky Butterfield - Webcore get a 10sec gap and Ruth Corset - Jazz Apple joined her and put 16 secs into the field. But webcore didn't like these odds and brought it back mostly to set up a counter and make sure Corset wasn't in it. As she was sitting 8th after the TT. So all back together again.

Break #5 was a three rider break that had Kristen Lasso who was 4th in the tt. Sharon Allpress of Value Act and Lauren Ellis - Jazz Apple. This group put 30 sec into the field and with Lasso sitting 4th. THIS Got the field pretty busy with a lot of active chasing. This group stay at 30 to 45 secs for a long time, all the way thru the 9 mile climb and into the feed. Finally after the Feed zone and a long descent this group was brought back. Allpress got the un-official aggressive rider jersey today being in the longest break.

After the decent it was mostly flat or what we call rollers here in Arkansas. :) The field was now whittled down to about 25 - 30 riders. This lead group stayed together until the end. Kiesanowski beat Van Glider to the line for the win. Veloforma riders ended up 17, 27,31,44 and 49.

Pennington finsihed 17 and moved up on GC. Smith and Savage did the same and all finished in the front group.
The team is sitting 7th on team GC and I hope we can move up a few spots but it's gonna be hard. Until tomorrow. Good night from stormy Arkansas.

Joe Martin Day One - Devils Den TT

Results are here - http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2009/may09/joemartin09/joemartin091

The ladies did good today! Results are listed above. Tomorrow is a road race. Stage 2 Start 2:30. Point to Point from Cedar Ville to Fayetteville.

Sabrina was fastest of the VF riders today. All the ladies did awesome. Here a a few shots of the day.

More tomorrow...

Joe Martin

The team is at Joe Martin Stage Race in Arkansas. TT is tomorrow 4pm. The girls are ready to rock. We did openers on the tt course today, the course is demanding and country side is beautiful. More from the tt tomorrow as its 1:30 am and I would like to get some sleep. I'll leave you with a parting shot of Robin winning last weekend. All the girls have won a race in there prep coming into this race. Until tomorrow...