Finchford Roubiax

This past weekend, a few of us raced at Finchford Roubaix over by Cedar Falls...Tracy, Finn, Will, Sean, Bryan, and Lee (not pictured).
The race was on a 5 mile loop for a total of 50 miles. The race started out pretty fast with lots of attacks going.Eventually on the 3rd lap, Bryan went on the attack after one of Sean's attacks was brought back in. Only Clark Priebe, Jarod Osterloh (All 9 Yards) and Paul Deninger (Zoom) went with and that was pretty much the break that would stay away.

Then with about a lap and a half to go, Sean bridged up solo! With two B2U/WOB guys in the group of 5, the attacks started coming from the other 3 riders. Bryan and Sean managed to follow the attacks and eventually Bryan launched off and only Priebe came with about 6 miles to the finish. With Sean sitting on Jarod and Paul's wheel, Bryan and Clark started working together and were able to stick the break.

In the end, Priebe had a little bit more left so Bryan rolled in taking 2nd place. Then in the next group, Sean (after bridging up solo the previous lap) came in for 4th place just behind Jarod.

Overall a great race for the team with two B2U/WOB riders landing in the top 5.

Winona Road Race

Yesterday I threw down in a local 65 mile RR so that I could represent the B2U/WOB shops here in Indiana. After the performance I am positive people will be making the trip to Iowa to patronize the shops. Anyway, the field of about 40 guys had some good teams in it - Texas Road House, Alderfer Bergen (the team is stacked with a lot of dudes from my collegiate conference and Indiana University...IU has a wealth of fast dudes), and some guys from the Bissel club team. The field also had some solo guys that had been hauling me around the midwest during the collegiate season. I didn't have high hopes going in, being that I was flying solo, but a guy can't win if he doesn't try.

To spare everyone the gory details, a break went from the field early in the race, and then halfway through the race a chase group, including me, took off from the field. The chase of 10 was powered by the Bissel and Road House teams. We (and by we, I mean them) shut the gap down from 2 minutes to about 30 seconds, and then the cat and mousing/fireworks started to happen. Bissel and Road House ended up getting guys up the road, along with a few crazy strong guys from other teams. That left me to chase the last 5 miles with 6 guys on my wheel. No one would work with me since they had teammates up the road or were "too tired", and I didn't want to sit up as it would let a lot of guys get back into the race, potentially pushing me out of the money. So, I put the hammer down and hauled into the finish. Somehow (perhaps by the grace of all performance enhancing drugs I've been injecting?) I rode 5 of the guys off my wheel before the finished. That left one Road House guy on my wheel that routinely houses me at collegiate races. I opened up my sprint late since it seemed he wasn't going to come around until I went. The powersticks almost came through, as I was edged out by only half a wheel (when I was expecting to get absolutely wasted) for 8th place.

All things considered, I'll take an 8th place. It felt really good, especially riding everyone off my wheel the last five miles. It made me feel like I was good or something. Next up Joe Martin...woo hoo! Thanks for reading...

Toodles - Tim