NorCal Cycling News – Cycling and Racing in Northern California

This last weekend was a transition of sorts.  Cross, track, and crits all happening at the same time.

Sacramento Grand Prix

The exciting news is Mary Ellen Ash (Metromint) uncorked a big one (YEA!) to take the win at Projects Sport’s latest party for cyclists.   The bummer of it all is we got SoCal’d again by former US crit champion Rahsaan Bahati.  Podium Insight covered the action and has a great article up on the event

CCCX #1

Pro’s Andy Jacques Maynes (Bissell) and Devon Gorry (Rambuski Law) showed up to the first race of the season and used their road fitness to teach the early season hopefuls a think or two about how to prepare for early season cross.  The trick is apparently ride a lot of stage races…

Randoms

UCI Criterium Rule Changes

Looks like the UCI will start allowing criteriums in 2.2 stage races which could mean and upgrade for the big US events like Cascade, Mt. Hood, and Nature Valley Grand Prix.  While this is a great start, and will surely help move the needle on getting more UCI events in the US, there are some financial hurdles that will limit promoters like waving registration fee’s and providing housing allowances.   Still… at least it’s a possibility now so events like Utah can raise some more money and stay in business.  See full story on Cyclingnews.com

Single Speed World Championships

This freak show is going to be in Golden Gate Park.  What do you get when you mix Folsom St. Fair with a cross race?  You get The SSCXWC!

Best Press Release Ever

Sterling Cross, run my local coach Matt McNamara sent out a release with their cross roster.  It is well written and a nice write up but i gotta call out this great Rand Miller gem…I really wish he, Rand, was riding Cross Vegas.  That would be fun.

…the mens team includes talent and depth in the form of standout road riders Adam Carr and Rand Miller, both of whom made successful transitions to ‘cross last fall and look to be even stronger this season.

This weekend is the beginning of the end for the roadies.  We turn the corner from Crit Season to Cal Cup this weekend with roughly six weeks of racing left in the NorCal Cycling News seasonal racing calendar.  There are a few races after Cal Cup in September and early October but the complaints of burn out, over training, and general desire to stop racing have already been escaping the lips of the more delicate NorCal road racers. As a result, those races remain of unknown stature, though the Sacramento Grand Prix, Henleyville RR, and Folsom Cyclebration could make for a good fall classic season.  While some road races (i’m talking to you Steve Reaney) will just roll into cyclocross most racers have stopped thinking about results and started planning their winter training in order to prep for Snelling.  And yet, we still have all of Cal Cup and a handful of Fall Stragglers that will earn points for the various seasonal competitions underway.

Crit Season Wrap Up

Crit Season wraps ups with the Strawberry Crown Crit. With Dave Towle showing up to add some legitimacy to the event the Cal-Giant hosted event looks like it might be an exciting way to spend a few hours in the fine burg of Watsonville.  This should be an exciting race with the event taking place in the Jacque Mayne’s back yard, and yet hosted by the Cal-Giant powerhouse team led by Steve Reaney and James Mattis.  Add in the random area pro’s and ex pro’s like Roman Kilun and Erick Wohlberg, and the perpetual bridesmaids of Webcor and the Strawberry Crown Crit could be a fitting finale to the season.  For the true NorCal crit monkey’s the Pleasonton Fast and Furious Festival looks like a promising event that will have both crowds and a big purse for both men and women’s fields.

Cal Cup

The only people that win Cal Cup are those that protest they don’t care if they win it.  I love the event since it takes place in what is ordinarily a dead spot in most racing calendars.  There is barely any money, and it is mostly fought for prestige, but the roster of past winners is impressive.  If there were mid-week races to accompany this series it might rival the mid west omniums like Superweek or  Tour of America’s Dairyland given it’s broad range of courses and events.

Women

If the Webcor team shows up the Maroon/Werner duo will be hard to contain.  Vanderkitten probably doesn’t have the climbing strength to keep up with these two but can probably do some damage in the crits.  The odd pro’s like Starnes and Rachetto will snap up some individual races but my pick for the overall is Susanah Breen.  Breen will be able to manhandle most of the hilly road course and place well enough in the crits to put her point total in the front.  Assuming she get’s some help from Newell, she should be able to distance herself from other perpetual contenders like Jane Despas and Annie Fulton.

Men

If he was going tot show up I’d be inclined to tilt my money towards Nate English.  After several strong finishes with the pro’s up in Oregon his fitness has to be pretty high at this point.  Of course, like all Cal Cup contentions, it will have to do with what his schedule is like.  English has had a long season and since rumor is he will be racing for Kenda p/b Geargrinder soon, about freaking time somebody picked him up, he might be ready to call it a season… or to show NorCal who is boss.  Depending on how the Crown Crit goes, Cal-Giant could decide they want to put one of their boys in the money.  Evan Huffman has been sneaking into the top spot and national level stage races and with support of riders like Reaney, Mattis, Swedberg, Hunt, the list goes on…. he would be a rider to watch.

My only hope out of all of this is that we don’t get SoCal’d at any of these races.  Don’t let the monkeys win people.

Hashtags

- #ncnca

- #nccn

- #calcup

- Strawberry Crown Crit #strawcrowncrit or

- Warnerville TT -#warnertt

- Paterson Pass RR – #pprr

- Fast and Furious Crit – #furiouscrit

 

Ren and Stimpy Kill It at Watsonville

Weekend activities kicked off Watsonville, a classic Velopromo course, that draws a small but elite mens field.  For a good re-cap of the race you can catch up on the exploits of Big Pink and the Mole Rat, a Ren and Stimpy like duo, on Counter Attacking Reality.  Steve Reaney and Rand Miller lapped the field and Reaney nailed the sprint.  All kidding aside putting Reaney and Miller against each other in a remote criterium has a cool Thunderdome kind of feel to it.  Two of NorCal’s best crit riders going head to head against each other in a dusty, Northern California coastal town screams Hollywood movie to me.  It should be a great race at the Strawberry Crown Criterium if Big Pink can dig up a team that will be ready to party with the Cal Giant squad.

The women’s field was light, but it nabbed Emily Thurston a much deserved win.  Thurston has a fearless attacking style that animates a race and makes it easy for announcers and a crowd to get excited.  Interesting to note, Webcor rookie, and former mountain biker, Holly Liske, slotted in for second, showing an affinity for crits and hilly road races that should make Cal Cup an interesting event if she comes out to play later this summer.

Ren and Stimpy Repeat at Berkeley Bicycle Club Crit

Sigh…it was easier when it was just called the Albany Crit.  Still, it’s a classic four corner 1 KMish course that weeds out the faint of heart, who are not willing to rail it in the thin corners of this residential neighborhood.  Apparently not learning his lesson at Watsonville, Big Pink again found himself in a break with Steve Reaney again, and proceeded to come in second, again, to the former National Crit Champion.  Big Pink might want to get some lessons from Brooke Miller on image score, or at least read our attempt to apply game theory to crit racing, before his next race.  Either way…it will make for a great grudge match next time Rand and Reaney square off.

Mary Ellen Ash (Metromint) continued her domination of the local crit scene with a win over Michelle Melka (Red Racing.)  Melka is off a hot run at the Tour of Dairyland where she managed a few top 10′s against some of the best in the country.

Like competing weather fronts the riders tackling the NorCal Crit races are going to run head first into the riders that will be rocking it at Cascade later this month.  Hopefully their increasing fitness levels will make for an exciting Cal Cup this August.

Colavita GP

No word on Colavita GP yet… will update soon as i get the goods.

Crit season is the time for the late bloomers.  The late bloomers have experience from years of racing, but have passed up life on the road, for a normal, adult like existence.  The late bloomers have real jobs, and use the extended daylight hours of summer to get in the necessary training required to burn down the finishing straight of a big money crit.  The late bloomers might not be able to win a stage race against the likes of riders named Armstrong, but dump the late bloomers into the hot city streets of a four corner crit and they will take you to school like it’s the first day of kindergarten.  The late bloomers take a while to get started,  but if you are a local NorCal rider you are probably willing to settle for second when you see them at the start line.

While our NorCal men have been getting schooled by the muscle bound hollywood wannabe crit monkeys of SoCal, Martina Patella and Mary Ellen Ash have stood on the podium of pretty much every race since Crit Season kicked off at Burlingame. Patella and Ash both have been around the cycling scene for years and know the ins and outs of training and racing.  Patella took down Burlingame, a race she had dominated over time, in a tight sprint,  while Ash over powered a dominant Webcor squad at Davis.  Both riders hung onto the big shots for a podium finish at St. Rafael and Lodi Cycles fest.  Looking at podium photos from recent criteriums it’s hard to tell which race you are looking at since they appear so frequently in first, second, or third.  Patella and Ash have fine tuned their speed in the long hours of our cool summer days, but they rely on their wits and past experience to out gun the full time racers.

Crit Season continues this weekend with several local crits for the late blooming speed freaks amongst you…

• Colavita Grand Prix  #colavitagp
• Watsonville Criterium #watsonvillecrit
• Berkeley Bike Club Criterium #bbccrit