NorCal Cycling News – Cycling and Racing in Northern California

Junior Nationals … Andrew Lanier (Sr) reporting in 100+ degrees

WOW it’s only been 1.5 days of racing but with temps from 102 to 105 it just drains you. We (Hellyer) have:
13/14 Boys: Adrian Costa, Justin Leong – (Omnium = 500m TT, scratch & points)
15/16 Girls: Shannon Bhatia – (Omnium = 500m TT, scratch & points)
17/18 Girls: Fiona Winder, Taylor Meilahn
17/18 Boys: Alexander Freund, Ryan Gadow, Garret Hankins, Andrew Lanier Jr

Wednesday saw the 17/18 do an international omnium for the first time at junior Nationals: flying lap, points race, then elimination (miss-n-out), pursuit, scratch, Kilo. Taylor, Alexander, Garret and Andrew all participated. Registration is really low for the 17/18 this year, so the girls had 4 riders and the boys had 10.  First event flying lap, Taylor came in 4th (19.727) Alexander took 5th (14.974) Garret 7th (15.19) and Andrew 9th (15.86). all were PR’s, but right out of the gate the heat got to the riders.   Garret took it the worse and was close to going to the hospital. The first place boy and girl both set national records, 14.392 and 16.842 respectively. Second race was the points race.   Taylor was up and represented Hellyer well and came through with 4th place.  Alexander 3rd place, Andrew jr 5th and Garrett 7th.  Miss-n-out was next, Taylor got 4th Andrew jr 4th, Alexander 8th and Garrett 10th.

Thursday: 105 degrees!

International Omnium had the 2 and 3km pursuit, Scratch race and Kilo.  I don’t have Taylor results and will post them tonight.  For the Boys, Pursuit Andrew got 3rd, Alexander 4th and Garrett decided to drop the remaining events and focus on the individual Kilo.   Scratch race was next and Alexander and Andrew rolled off the front and worked well together, got half a lap, then 2 more bridged up and those 4 stayed away for some 25 laps.  Alexander nipped Andrew jr at the line to take 2nd place and Andrew got 3rd.   Final event the Kilo, I don’t recall the placing but I do know that Alexander and Andrew both had PR’s.   Final results for the Omnium: Alexander get 3rd place and the bronze medal! Andrew jr ties for 5th place, but loses the tie breaker (add all the timed events 1 lap, 3km pursuit and kilo), so he goes to 6th place.

Garrett does the individual Kilo and does a 1:12 and change good for a top 10 and is feeling much better!
Adrian and Justin ran their 500m TT.  Adrian runs a 41 and change and Justin smokes a PR of 42 and change.
Fiona did the 2km pursuit 6th place and a PR of 2:59
Shannon does a flying 200mTT for sprint seeding and comes in 12th.

All Hellyer kids are doing great and representing Hellyer well!  There is live video I understand here: http://www.livestream.com/superdrome

Pics: http://www.usacycling.org/gallery3/main.php?album=track/Richardson-Bike-Mart-USA-Cycling-Juniors-Track-National-Championships

Cheers Andrew sr.

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TVC: Swiss Miss Champion, East Coast Brawlers, and the rise of Newell

Anyone who saw Pascale Snider earlier this year on the NorCal road circuit knows that she is a big, strong, super smart rider.  The Swiss Miss recently won national titles in both the time trial and road race … and at the TVC, she showed that she is going to be posting some serious results on the world track circuit coming this fall.

SPRINTS
Dana Feiss … hotness incarnate … took the sprint title over Cristin Walker.  It was a long, hot day of sprint matches and the superior fitness and drag-race mentality of Feiss was what made the difference over the incredibly explosive Walker.  Walker had won the Keirin the night before in what had to be one of the strongest displays of kick & nerves out at Hellyer in a long time.  Trapped behind riders until 225meters to go, Walker went ballistic and absolutely stampeded her way all the way over the top of a very, very fast field.  Feiss was 2nd, with Washington rider Jen Triplett posting a superb bronze.

In the sprints, it would be another northwestern catfight with Seattle’s Tela Crane taking bronze over Portlandia’s Jen Featheringill.  With Feiss, Walker, and Crane … the US has some seriously fast youth talent.  The men’s side has a Project 2012 thing going on … with Kevin Mansker et al being a kickass investment – but, we need to be doing the same thing for the women.  These women are fast, and will get faster.

Speaking of Mansker – the crowd favorite, the hero of all locales … KM took an incredible win over Michael Blatchford in the Sprints.  It was some super intense match sprinting, getting the crowd hyped and psyched about the growing strength of sprinters in America again.

POINTS & stuff

The Women’s Points race was the best race of the weekend.  Beth Newell went on a rampage and tried to snap in half the Swiss Champion Snider and the east coast brawlers, Erica Allar and Colleen Hayduk.  Allar has been a longtime presence on the track and is probably one of the smartest, craftiest riders out there.  Watching her race a bike is like seeing a training manual for racing put in action.  Hayduk is a young sprinter who has just exploded in fitness this year.   Hayduk is going to be very, very strong at the US Nationals this year.  What a talent.

But the class of the field was Pascale Snider.  She never let the super aggressive Beth Newell out of her sight, and would bounce back no matter how many times Newell would attack her.   And Newell attacked … a lot.  In the Points Race, it would be Pascale, Allar, and Newell lapping the field and finishing on the podium in that order.  Great race – and you can catch the video of it and a lot of other races at:

http://www.ridethetrack.com/archives/arch_res11/tvc/2011tvc_photos.html
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The Men’s Points Race was won by Daniel Holloway – showing a lot of skinny speed and looking like he might have the gas to defend his US Pro Criterium jersey in a few weeks.  He finally stopped the powerhouse known as Jame Carney – who had been the victor in all of the mass start events up till then.

Carney’s win in the Win-n-Out was bordering on the epic … as the entire sprinter contingent locked horns with the ‘endurance’ riders to try and take the race.   The London 2012 (http://www.projectlondon2012.com/) team went absolutely apeshit to keep the race together for a field sprint.  Kevin Mansker was the last man standing, ramping up the sprint from 333meters out, but it was the endurance and desire of Carney that powered him over the top for the win.  Hellyer’s Steve Palaez would take 2nd in a long effort, and I would suffer in for the bitchpoints in 5th.  It was really, really hard.

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There were lots of other riders out there carrying on the hurt and showing the goodstuff … local Kira Prokopakis looked very fast and is developing into a hardnosed suffermonkey, for sure.  Mary Glen Carrasco was sprinting fast again and will be super strong for US Nationals this year in the 500m and team sprints.  Look for a big result from Carrasco at Natz.

SuperHero Rob Evans was stellar all weekend and pushed the best to the limit every chance he got out there.  He was on the podium all over the place.  And it was pretty rad to see big Sam Milroy rocking the podium in the men’s Keirin … holey shit, that race was fast.  It was a thousand pounds of man-meat rumbling down that finishing straight.  Hide the women and children.

In the masters events – Joel Robertson was awesome and got himself some podium action.  Dan Smith won the Miss-n-Out in style, and Legend Larry Nolan took the Scratch with seemingly effortless power.  Pat Briggs was working towards his goal of winning the masters US crit jersey by dinking around in the masters races all weekend … if only Rand Miller would have been there to make fun of him.

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