BRC Real Estate Cycling Team

Tour of the Gila – Stage 3

Taylor Jung — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 05:06:36 +0000

Southern New Mexico is known for being windy in the spring. This spring it has been especially strong, at least according to our hosts (Bill and Caroline Baldwin) here in Silver City. We were lucky enough on the first two days to have what most would describe as a medium breeze to contend with as we rolled across the high altitude desert. The wind had its revenge today. On our plate was an individual time trial of 16.5 miles. While the distance is short compared to the road races of the past two days, it has the potential to really hurt your legs. Each rider races the course by themselves, starting 30 seconds apart. The one who is fastest against the clock wins the day. The time is added to your total from the first two days and the ranking is referred to as the general classification. I say that today has the “potential” to hurt the legs. For a guy like me, who has little to gain in the general classification and (as my friends would concur) who is not a spectacular time trialist, it makes sense to ride the time trial at a more moderate pace. This will save the legs for a full unleashing tomorrow in the criterium (my preference). I did exactly this and finished as the second slowest on the day. I consider it a success as several riders crashed (some at high speed) due to the 40+ mph cross winds that developed as the day progressed (my category raced last). A careful negotiation of the course did not prohibit me from nearing 50 mph on the final descent.

So on to tomorrow. The criterium is run in downtown Silver City on a course a little over a mile around. Its 4 corners, but has quite an interesting elevation profile. The best way to describe the back stretch is that its like a roller coaster. Up and down in rapid succession at 30 mph makes this one of the more unique courses I have ever raced on. My category will race 30 laps and this fast and technical racing is what I have been most successful at in the past. The race will be streamed live online at http://velonews.competitor.com/live I dont know how good the coverage will be, but if you care to take a look, my race starts at 1:30 mountain time and should last about 1:15. I will try to make some prominent moves in the race so you can see me (maybe I will even get my name mentioned by the commentators). I don’t know if racing numbers will be visible or not, but in case they are, I am 625.

It is not without some level of disappointment that I am not going to remain in NM to race the final day. My experiences here have quite clearly indicated that I am not of the climbing caliber required to compete successfully. The final stage is a true climber’s dream. On my best day, I would be left behind to ride a huge majority of the stage alone. I have some other items to attend to back in Colorado at the beginning of the week, and I have decided to get on the road after the 4th stage. I have included the map and profile of the final day so you too can appreciate the difficulty from a safe distance. 102.6 miles and 10,000+ feet of elevation gain. I will write one more race recap of the criterium when I return to Denver. Please check back Sunday night to find out if I was able to exact my revenge on the tiny climbers or not.

Tour of the Gila – Stage 2

Taylor Jung — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 05:59:25 +0000

I finished yesterday’s post with a hopeful plan to contest the finish of the race today. I couldn’t have been proven more wrong. But I am getting ahead of myself. The stage today called for 77.9 miles including 3 categorized climbs, though none of them as difficult or as long as the final climb yesterday. My hope was that yesterday’s stage would deaden the legs of the climbers a bit and the pace uphill today would be more reasonable for a guy like me. As I mentioned earlier, i was wrong. The leader of the race (who spent the whole day in the break away yesterday and still put time into the field on the final climb) seemed hell-bent on not letting a single person get away today. The pace was fast from the start and only got faster as we entered the first climb. I managed to make it 1.5 km from the summit of the first climb before falling off the back and facing a long ride alone. Luckily, I caught up with a nice chap from Pittsburgh and we negotiated the much feared descent to Sapillo Creek safely. This is one of the more dangerous descents I have ever negotiated with many steep switchbacks, one of which even took a life several years ago. We picked up a few more guys on the way to the finish and ultimately conceded 23 minutes to the winner. Naturally the strong guys maintained their positions and cleaned my clock. Someone email me if you remember the reason that I decided I should upgrade to Cat2. Adam fought hard on the stage to chase back on after being gapped on the descent to Sapillo Creek and then ran out of gas in the final miles to finish 3 minutes back. I have included a couple of photos I found. One is of my little group of stragglers from today (I am the one in the front) and the second is of Adam immediately after the finish of Stage 1 on Mogollon. I don’t know that exhausted quite describes it. So today was a big flop. I found out that I am in over me head worse than I thought. Tomorrow is the time trial (everyone races individually against the clock) and since I possess no particular ability in this arena, I will ride it at a medium pace and save my legs for the criterium on Saturday. It is being broadcast live on Velonews.com so check in tomorrow for the details. Off to bed!

Tour of the Gila – Stage 1

Taylor Jung — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 04:31:27 +0000

Stage 1 is over. Thank goodness. 94.1 miles with a really big climb at the finish. I am going to be a bit brief tonight as its getting late and we have to be up again tomorrow for stage 2. Adam and I started today with a couple of goals: 1. sit in for the race and make sure Adam is positioned well for the climb to Mogollon. 2. dont get dropped before the climb with the 10-15 mph winds that varied from direct head to cross-head. 3. stay in good position and avoid any craziness that may occur. Things went pretty much as planned, with a couple twists thrown in. The race started with a neutral roll-out that climbed fairly steeply out of town. Turns out it was done at ~400W. I’m thinking “what the heck did I get myself into?”. The main break away formed almost immediately and included Mac Cassin, a known time trial beast. Through several attempted attacks, the break eventually settled at 7 guys and maxed out at 4 minutes advantage. The field couldn’t decide what it wanted to do and varied from relative ease to full on attack, and back again, sometimes within a couple minutes. All the while I did what I could to keep Adam in good position. The bad decision of the day came right before the first loop through Cliff and Gila. Nate Llerandi and Adam decided they needed a nature break and pulled over on the side of the road. I stopped with them and then did my best to help chase back on. Unfortuantely, there were some attacks from the peloton about the same time so we were forced to chase a pack that was in full flight. This included some drafting of an 18 wheeler that was held up behind the rolling enclosure and a variety of other vehicles. We caught just before the feed zone and I struggled to recover through what proved to be a particularly difficult circuit through Gila and Cliff. All was better after that, aside from some difficulty getting fresh bottles that left me a bit short to get to the final feed at 83 miles. The rolling hills in the latter half started to wear me out pretty bad, but I hung on til the little climber guys hit out on the steeps. At that point, I just rode it in, trying to save something for tomorrows stage. It was a brutal climb, especially after so many miles. It looks like some of the guys in the break away managed to stay away (very impressive). Adam finished a very strong 23rd @ 5:57 back and I finished a not-as-strong 49th @ 13:01. Tomorrow’s plan: Adam may try to get in a break early. Both of us need to survive the kamikaze decent of Sapillo Creek. I am hoping for a headwind on the last climb so I can make it to the finish, hope a breakaway doesn’t succeed, and sprint to sweet victory.

2011 Frostbite TT

Chad Totaro — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 15:30:11 +0000

March 5th kicks off the local race scene with an 11.4 mile mostly flat time trial which is on the east service road between exits 288 and 281, completely exposed. Last year the TT had relatively warm weather for an early winter morning and also saw some wicked southern winds. The southern wind provided a wicked tail wind on the way out. I was close to spinning out a 55/12 gear. This non-technical TT is a great way to kick off the local season and for any time trialist this is a pure power course and one that I personally liked. Just put the head down and bury yourself.

Registration

2010 Results

Death March

Taylor Jung — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 02:58:56 +0000

And so the routine continues… Team BRC Real Estate spent another weekend on the eastern plains putting the miles in our legs to prepare for the season. After a week of heavy snow and frigid temperatures, the warming trend was more than welcome. Saturday was a smallish group some of whom spent 4+ hours and some who spent less as a process of rehabbing injuries. Sunday was warmer and a larger group of ~10. The wind was strong out of the west, so our ride out to Deer Trail was took well under 2 hours. The slog back rated as one of the most brutal in my memory. No matter where we went, a strong crosswind buffeted the group, sending us into echelons led almost entirely by two nuts in our group who wanted to spend the 4.5 hours on TT rigs. I am both in awe of their strength and perplexed by their seeming insanity. Hats off to you Mr. Burton and Mr. Marshall. All of this riding left me with a valuable lesson learned (reminded): it is vastly important to fuel properly after a big ride if you intend on executing a bigger one the following day. I felt good and strong on Saturday, and for the first 3/4 of Sunday. The last portion of the ride can only be described as a complete and utter implosion. My legs quite simply would not provide any more power than wet noodles. For those of you not intimately familiar with the cycling world, I had a full blown version of what us racers call “the bonk”. I was in such caloric deficit that my muscles were on their way to complete and utter shut down. For me, the bonk is also accompanied by a general annoyance with anyone and everyone around me. When one of the other guys in the group referred to the last portion of the ride as a death march, I could have wrapped his head with handle bar tape. Ultimately, a kind wheel of a good friend brought me home to the cars and then to a Starbucks where I ordered a veritable cornucopia of calorific delights. So ended a major weekend of training that I am hoping to high heavens will put me in the thick of things come race season. Now where’s my Totino’s Party Pizza!?!?

Mead Roubaix Race Preview

Chad Totaro — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 02:34:48 +0000

A few weeks back a few of us from the team rode out from Boulder to preview the Mead Roubaix road race course. The race isn’t for a couple of months but it was a good way to get in 4+ hours of riding while also getting excited about the first big road race. This road race is replacing the Boulder Roubaix race and it is actually a very different race, so in my opinion it is just taking its place on the calendar. The only similarity is that there are some dirt sections but very different terrain.

The course is long and after 2 laps I was getting a little confused as to where I was in relation to the start finish, it all sort of looks the same. The dirt sections are going to be very hard, they are very open and exposed and straight as a arrow with some elevation change – think of Deer Trail Road Race but on dirt ( for those whom know Deer Trail). It will for sure be a hard mans race, a serious power course, no where to hide and pure power. Although I am not sure we got the finish totally right but we were close as Mead only has a few streets in the downtown. It will for sure be a super fun finish with a real fast downhill dirt section that transitions onto pavement while still heading downhill for a 2k into a right hand turn and then onto Main Street for the sprint. Big open race course with a nice little downtown finish.

I think this race will blow to bits and the race will be decided from a select group, good handling skills on the dirt and the ability to suffer up the first dirt hill will for sure help the racer make the decisive move.

Koppenberg

admin — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 03:15:53 +0000

The Primal Ardennes

admin — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 03:14:26 +0000

Groove Subaru Spring Classic

admin — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 03:12:29 +0000

Louisville Criterium

admin — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 03:07:53 +0000