TAI riders shared first and second place spots on the Men’s B podium at the conclusion of this year’s Alpenrose 6 Day track event. On the last day of the event, Jeff Standish and Casey Deck ” were able to gain a lap on the whole field and so our teams moved into first and second place.” Nice job, and it’s worth noting that Jeff started this immediately after finishing Elkhorn, so he’s been racing for 9 days straight!
Baker City may seem like an unlikely spot for such a cool bike race, but the Elkhorn Classic really is one of the most fun stage races around because of the support from the community. We’ve been sending a team to Elkhorn for 5 of the 7 years and this year we had 7 riders in the cat3 race, and Andrew Boone riding solo in the 1/2’s. I’m sure he was wishing he had a teammate when he was in a 95 mile break on the last day, but Brandon Dyer will soon be joining him as a cat2 after his 3rd place overall finish this weekend.
Congrats to the whole cat3 team for riding smart and helping Brandon finish the weekend as the only Oregon guy on the podium! A cool side note: the trophies were made by Chris Cole, from Bend, who used to work for Bend Bike N Sport and is a good friend to the TAI Team.
Above: Spencer Bushnell leads the 1/2 race on the bell lap at the 1st ever Albany Criterium (photo: Ivar Vong)
Jeff DeWolf - Kings Valley Road Race cat4/5 3rd place
Ericka Luckel - Deschutes River Valley TT Festival cat3/4 - 2nd place: Stage 2; Stage 3; 2nd place GC
Carl Hoefer - Estacada TT Sr. Men 4/27 - 2nd place
Jeff Standish - Eric Kautzky Memorial Track Race cat4 - 2nd place
Spencer Bushnell - Mt Hood Cycling Classic Hood River Criterium cat3 - 2nd place
Spencer Bushnell fought hard for a good win and upgrade to cat2 at the Eugene Roubaix!
Casey Deck was patient with his weekly sprints until he finally won the last two Downtown Hood River Criteriums!
Ericka Luckel sure can time trial and won the opening stage of the women’s 3/4 Deschutes River Valley TT Festival!
Brian Mack had an awesome bike toss at the line to win the cat4 race by a hair at the State Road Race Championships!
Pam Archer won the 19-39 sport class at the Mudslinger!
And some special mentions:
Derek Stallings was on his way to [most likely] win the final stage of the Mt Hood Cycling Classic in the cat2/3 Hood River Criterium but took himself out with 2 corners to go. He can’t be disappointed because he and the others from the team all put in fantastic rides in the hardest race on the OBRA Calendar!
And then there’s Brandon Dyer finishing 5th GC in the cat3’s at Mt Hood in his first year with a team. We look forward to a lot more good results from Brandon!
Scott Gray is back to riding his bike after a serious fracture of his lower leg while alpine skiing this winter!
(finish camera photo: Brian List, OBRA)
Bill and Brenna were in Shandong Provence, China, for a couple weeks and came home just before the earthquake struck Sichuan. When we were there, the mood of the country was celebratory in anticipation of the Olympics this summer. “Beijing 2008″ and “Go China!” were the cries everywhere we went. Being cyclists, we fit right in with the masses and bought some bikes for $11 each and set off riding all over Qingdao on our single speed cruisers.
We were visiting a former TAI Cycling member, Turner Gutmann, who’s teaching at a university with his wife, Sara. Turner was invited to participate in a cycling tour from Qingdao to Beijing ahead of the Olympics to promote cycling, awareness of cycling and the main sponsor — a milk company. The ride organizers put on a Bike Talent Show Series over a few weekends in various locations and the winners of the talent show were put into a lottery to win a spot on the 7-day bike tour, along with a new road bike. (Read on …)
We’ve had lots of high quality racing already this season and it’s only April!
Piece of Cake, Kings Valley and the Icebreaker Criterium all saw excellent turnouts of TAI riders in the fields and our riders have been making key moves in the races — the winning results, however, are still proving elusive.
A new addition to the Bend team for 2008, Jeff DeWolf, scored his upgrade to category 3 after placing 3rd at Kings Valley. Congratulations, Jeff!
Adam Blanchard was on the podium with a 2nd place finish in the 1/2 race at the first Estacada Time Trial of the year.
Casey Deck was on the podium at the 1/2 opener of the Port of Hood River Criterium series.
For full results, check www.OBRA.org.
Congrats to Pam Archer for her 3rd place finish in Sunday’s Banana Belt #2. Check out this photo from the line:
We train very scientifically with the newest equipment and technology. To help the team better prepare for Mt Hood this May, Ryan shared his PowerTap file from last year:
Race Report from Adam Blanchard:
“Good work to everyone today… let’s go into next week with the confidence that we can win one of these [Banana Belt] races. Here’s my report of how the race went down…
“Near the start of lap 3 either Seth Hosmer or Evan Elkan attacked up one of the smaller climbs. I remember seeing both those riders plus the top 2 from cherry pie getting away, so I dug in and bridged up thinking the race was probably being decided right there. Our group of 5 worked hard for a lap, and then Doug Ollerenshaw and Jacob Rathe bridged up right around the start/finish to make us a group of seven. CMG had 3 riders out of 7 at that point, but they didn’t launch a single attack before the sprint. Having a 2 man lead-out, Rathe took the win, and I couldn’t get around Evan Elken for second. If only that sprint had been another 100 meters (or I just started sooner!) I think things might have been different.
“Here’s a good picture showing exactly how I felt about that sprint,
and if you look closely you can probably tell what I’m about to say to
myself!”
Nice job to Duncan Oliphant for winning the field sprint! We’re looking forward to the TAI Team’s showing next week!
Oh, the drama of ordering clothing! With our order from Santini finally here and being distributed, I figured I’d share two things really fast:
Derek Stallings of Bend proved his bulk was good for something when he won the Clydesdale Category at the Ranier HS CX race on Sunday. This was the 3rd race in the Cross Crusade Series and we have to mention that Tim Jones is tearing up the single speed competition this year! He races for TAI Cycling on the road and Webcyclery on the dirt. Tim has won each of the 3 Cross Crusade races in the single speed division and looks on track to win the series overall. He also has his eye on the “official unofficial” CX singlespeed world championships in Estacada on Nov. 11th.
Jeff Standish moved up to the Mast. B’s and finished very well with an 8th place.
Spencer Bushnell and Ben Thompson are fighting away in the men’s A races and doing rather well. Their overall series standings should look very good.
