As one of the smaller teams in MABRA, we like to think we make up for that deficiency in racing and training as a team. We’ve removed the sometimes seeming barriers between our experienced rider’s and younger rider’s to foster growth and an enrichment toward feeling positive about the personal and team accomplishments we realize on race day. At the end of the day, it’s the relationships you build and the camaraderie you gain through blood, sweat and hard work which makes bike racing so rewarding.

In the off-season, during our goal setting, we challenged our membership to begin transforming ourselves from a widely viewed “club” to a “racing” team. We adjusted various pieces of our membership and enrollment requirements to align with our new mission. Needless to say, our team rallied around this calling with a renewed enthusiasm and drive to make things happen.

Our Masters squad garnered some early success which we were all thrilled about. We definitely started out on a good note. Our Cat 4 & 5’s quickly took over the momentum and started achieving result after result. The train was rolling!

As we entered the mid-late season races, we were really gelling as a team. One of our bright up and coming stars, Nicholas Taylor, was absolutely on fire. We again set some lofty team goals with eyes focused up the road.

During the period of July and August, our 3 and 4 squads produced some incredible individual and team performances:

MABRA Crit Championships: 3^rd Place Cat 3, Nicholas Taylor

Giro di Coppi: 1^st Place Cat ¾, Nicholas Taylor; 4^th Place Cat ¾ Peter Warner

VA & MABRA Road Race Championships- Page Valley: 1^st Place Cat 3, Nicholas Taylor (And Yes, we are thrilled to have the C3 RR Jersey(s)!); 5^th Place Cat 5, Ed Patrick

Luray Crit: 3^rd Place Cat 3, Nicholas Taylor; 7^th Place Cat 5, Ed Patrick

Tour de Millersburg: 2^nd Place Cat ¾ TT, Peter Warner; 2^nd Place Crit, Peter Warner; 6^th Place RR, Peter Warner; 1^st Place GC, Peter Warner (HUGE team effort here!)

MABRA TT Championships: 1^st Place Cat 3, Peter Warner; 2^nd Place 40-45, Chris Gould

VA TT Championships: 2^nd Place Cat 3, Peter Warner; 7^th Place Cat 3, Chris Gould

Dawg Day’s: 1^st Place Cat 5, Ed Patrick

South Mtn Hill Climb: 1^st Place W4, Melissa Goldbold

What a way to end the road racing season! From a team perspective, we couldn’t be more proud about the sacrifices and dedication it took to end the year on a high note!

Folks are already dusting off their cross bikes and the listserve is booming with excitement over the cross calendar looming on the horizon. Watch out for the Red and Black! The rest of us will be there cheering them on with beer in our hands, packing on the much needed lbs for a winter of off-season training to come.

**If you interested in learning more about racing for WWVC during 2011, please feel free to direct your interest to wholewheel@gmail.com. We will be setting our roster for the 2011 year during the Nov-Dec time period.

The 2010 edition will be part of the GamJams Cat 3 Cup, p/b Mountain
Khakis, the Proteus/MABRA Cat3 and Cat4 Women’s Race Series and the
MABRA BAR. This year’s Kids Fun Race is again sponsored by Autism
Outreach, Inc.

Held on Sally Ride Drive, the course is super smooth, wide open and
fast. With entry fees of just $20 and a discount for multiple events,
it’s perfect for a day of racing!

Along with prizes, premes, medals and cash, we’ve upped the ante this
year with two-foot tall trophies for 1st place finishers in all races.
So come on out, enjoy the day, and win a big red trophy to display at
home or in your cubicle so others can bask in the glow of your
first-place-ness!

Registration opens Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 8:30 p.m. online at
www.Pre-Reg.com.

Registration: http://www.pre-reg.com/Users/RacerMain.aspx?Type=1&EventID=489
Race Flyer: http://wwvc.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/RSR2010-Flyer.pdf
Directions: http://www.tinyurl.com/wwvc-rsr
WWVC: http://www.wwvc.org

Test: 5 minutes of shoveling all-out. Start out hard and hold it. Try and clear an entire driveway covered in two feet of snow in this five minutes. This will get rid of that “fresh” feeling to be sure the FTP test is accurate as well as stimulate the lactate clearance systems (in the shoulders and back.) Follow this five minutes with five minutes of easy shoveling. Then, do a 20-minute shoveling-trial. Try and clear an entire neighborhood in those 20 minutes. Really dig deep (literally).

Cooldown: 10 minutes of zone 2 shoveling.

Your shoveling FTP will be 95% of the volume you cleared during the 20-minute shoveling trial. Oh, and at this point you should probably have someone drive you to a hospital.

540 Cycling Crit Series #3, Cat 4 from Brian on Vimeo.

Warner captured his first criterium win in the 540 Developmental Series.  Knowing that he was supported by Brian “Now in HD” Stefanish, Warner said his strategy was simple.  He “wanted to attack the p*ss out of the first few laps … to get the guys tired of chasing.”  The strategy eventually worked and Warner found himself in a small breakaway group.  Once the field gave up the chase with about five laps to go, Warner said that “was all she wrote” and he “simply played it smart and took the sprint.”  Stefanish, who had spent his energy disrupting the chase in the peloton and thinking about his new helmet camera, said he “was toast and just pulled out to watch” Warner manhandle the breakaway group.

Tom Draffen took the Whole Wheel show on the road to capture second place on GC at the Tour of Lancaster (Cat 3/4).  Draffen started his assault by working hard  in a small breakaway group during the road race.  Notching a fifth-place finish for the day, he moved into first place on GC after his stellar time trial performance.  Going into the final event, the criterium, Draffen said “I was keeping a good eye on the #2 and #3 GC guys.  Finally a break went up the road that was going to stick … [it] didn’t look like anyone close was in it, so we let that ride.”  Unfortunately Draffen’s math skills aren’t quite as sharp as his riding and one rider from that break was able to edge him out for the GC win by one point.  Draffen, who did recently graduate from college and normally ciphers pretty well, took second overall.  Unfazed by the surprise ending, he summed up his entire racing philosophy by saying “Ahhh… c’est la vie.  For a race I really expected to just kinda roll up and do a TT, I’m pretty stoked.”  He will, undoubtedly, be even more stoked when he grabs the final point necessary for his Cat 2 upgrade.

In the Cat 5 event, Phil “The Phunk” Bracken simply wanted to test himself in a road race featuring gravity as a main competitor.  By positioning himself well on the climbs, however, and staying focused on maintaining contact with the lighter climbers who were setting the pace, Phunk found himself able to make up a lot of ground on the descents where he says “I wanted to use my weight to my advantage.”  It was mission accomplished for Phunk as he found himself making the selection and, in the end, “sprinting as good as a big guy can on an uphill” to take 6^th place.  He looks forward to upgrading by the end of the year and working with the Cat 4 squad very soon.

The Cat 4 squad of Chris “ISO Volunteers” Gould, Michael “The Director” Randers-Pehrson, and Gus Grissom also found success at the event.  The teamwork started early as Gus Grissom, having been given permission by the team director to “attack on the first climb,” leveraged Gould’s steady climbing tempo and forced a significant selection at the top of the first climb.  Grissom said “Gould was setting a solid tempo upfront and I heard a lot of gears shifting and heavy breathing, so I jumped hard on the steep part to see what would happen.”  Though the attack broke the field apart and forced a solid selection of competitors, Grissom admitted later that his attack was mostly due to fear.  “I really suck at going downhill and mostly didn’t want anyone around to see how white my knuckles would get on that screaming descent.”  Regardless his motive, the damage was done.  With the field broken apart behind him, Grissom worked hard in the break and captured another top-10 finish in his quest for a Cat 3 upgrade.

On Sunday, Gould was joined by Brian “Bantamweight” Stefanish in the 540 Developmental Series criterium event.  Both riders agreed that the event was a great opportunity to hone their racing skills and used the course to the their advantage, by maintaining their position near the front of the field and staying alert for opportunities.  Though Gould said his “44 year old body didn’t have much left from the Lost River,” he was able to secure a top-10 finish and Stefanish called the day a solid validation of his recent nutrition and fitness improvements.

Other categories at the Giro saw Peter “Water Boy” Warner and Gus “That’s Not My Bottle” Grissom working together in the Cat 4.  Though they were supported in the early portions of the race by Chris “USDA Approved” Gould, Dan “Big Wheel” Dineen and Mike “My Tummy Hurts” Flanagan, the pace and hills had whittled the peloton down considerably by the final lap.  As a lone rider broke away from the pack, Warner turned himself into the sacrificial lamb for the rest of the pack and, while trying to give Grissom a long leadout, led the group on a successful chase.  His efforts, however, were for naught as Grissom could not follow up on his blistering pace and the pair were swarmed by the sprinters who, in the end, enjoyed the fruits of Warner’s labor.

Though this weekend was not filled with Whole Wheel podium results, it was filled with good times, safe racing, and great camaraderie among the Whole Wheel crews.  The team collectively wishes to thank Squadra Coppi for hosting such a great event and securing such perfect racing weather.

The Cat 4 squad, bolstered by Ryan “Not In Front of My Girlfriend” Callahan and Chris “Horn Tootin’” Gould, was focused on one goal heading into the weekend: protect Warner in the RR so he could take charge in the TT.  To that end, Grissom posted himself near the front of the peloton and marked all the breaks.  Though a few potentially promising groups got away on the short climbs very early, nothing was sticking on the flat, windy sections.  Once the field realized this, the squad became content simply to drive the pace on the climbs and bleed off as many racers as possible.  This tactic worked well as several riders from Bike Rack pitched in to shrink the peloton down to a more manageable level.  As the final lap approached, Warner was well positioned to finish strong with a fairly small group of GC contenders.

Warner took control by dominating the TT and posting a 27:35 to seizing the GC lead by over thirty seconds.  Moving from the TT to the Crit, the squad’s plan again was simple: protect Warner and contain his main GC threats.  While Gould and Grissom patrolled the front of the pack during the opening phases of the race, Warner was able to relax and focus on staying out of trouble.  When the time bonus primes came along, Warner said, “I didn’t need to contest any of the bonus points throughout so I bowed out of the Bike Rack rampage for those.”  Going into the last turn of the last lap, Warner seems to have lost his head for a moment and took a bad line which resulted in a quick trip to the pavement.  Though he said he “was embarrassed, sad and absolutely ripping myself up for the stupidity,” the officials consulted the rule book and awarded him the same time as the field.  His well deserved GC lead was protected and the team could not have been more excited to have been a part of his success.  Grissom, even after working for Warner all weekend, moved up to 8^th overall and called the weekend his “best ever.”

The Cat 3 squad, consisting of Draffen, Chris “I Hate TT’s” Hall, Rusty “I Hate ‘em More” Williford, and Dave “Hey, That’s My Mom” Harrell, didn’t experience the same level of drama and was able to rely on their higher experience levels to relax and keep Draffen out of trouble on the RR.  Posting a 27:28 in the TT, Draffen moved up from 26^th to 6^th in the GC.  He was able to ride comfortably in the Criterium, confidently supported by his team who did what was necessary to keep him out of the wind.

Overall, Whole Wheel Velo Club enjoyed a solid weekend of team racing.  Every member of both squads played a part in securing three top-10 positions in two categories of this tour and, as Gould noted, the team’s performance was “proof-positive that it’s possible to work hard to help a teammate get a win and still do quite well in your own right.”

At Church Creek Warner and Draffen took first and second place in their respective categories.  Warner rode the course in 57:23 to post the best time among the Cat 4′s.  Calling the event “a good mental test” he complained that his power data was not as consistent as he had expected but would help him prepare better for his next time trial.  Draffen, on the other hand, worried that his numbers were much lower than his previous best efforts.  The effort, however, was solid enough to put him in the second spot on the Cat 3 podium.  His self-assessment shows what he called a “very rookie mistake” in his ability to pace himself.  But, “all things considered … I have a great benchmark to work for the next eight weeks going into Church Creek #2.”  Yes, both Draffen and Warner are already looking forward to improving their times and distancing themselves even further from their competitors.

Melissa Tallent took her soigneur “Twinkle Pete” Custer to test her fitness at the Eagleman Half Ironman.  Though she was plagued by jellyfish stings on the swim, Tallent put in a solid effort on the bike, the longest effort she has had in recent memory due to her injuries over the winter, and “pulled sub 9:00 miles the whole way through, never blowing up, just steamrolling through the half-marathon.”  To understate the obvious challenges facing her, Tallent gave these words of wisdom: “I definitely recommend many more miles on the bike (and not breaking your pelvis) before you attempt this race.”

The master’s racing combo of Gould and Grissom took a road trip down to NC to participate in that state’s Road Race Championship Weekend.  Racing 80 miles on Saturday in the Master’s Championship and and additional 50 on Sunday in the Senior’s Championship, Grissom felt that he definitely got his money’s worth but was only able to get 15^th in the 35-39 category.  Gould, whose 40-44 age group raced  67 miles on Sunday found himself wishing he was a bit older.  When the results of the combined 40-44/45-49 field were posted he realized he would have taken second place in the 45-49 field but had to settle for his top-20 finish.  He plans to contest the details of his date of birth.

Overall it was a solid series of performances for Whole Wheelers in several disciplines.  As the summer begins heating up and big events like the Tour of Washington County approach, Whole Wheel Velo Club seems to be well poised to capitalize on a long early season of building fitness and gaining experience.

In the Cat 4 race, a horrible crash led to the race being neutralized. The officials indicated the race would end early due to medical equipment being on the course, but the equipment cleared in time to restart the race. Some racers left the course so we have published the neutralized and final results.  Bar points will be split between the two results. Upgrades can use the best finish.