If we had all started at the same time during Sunday’s Team Edge Time Trial, it would have been quite a finish.  It would have been very tight three-way race until the last turn.  I started third and spent the day wondering what new training “supplements” Tim must have scored on his recent trip to Austin.    I had only made 17 seconds up on him at the turn-around point and I had to come to a complete stop to allow traffic from both ways to pass.  This dropped me nearly back to the original one-minute deficit and gave me quite a workout trying to close the gap on him into the headwind on my return trip.  I could see him as he passed David and he seemed to hold his high pace all the way until there were two miles left.  Suddenly, the gap I had been trying to close for six miles started to actually get smaller.  As we reached the last turn towards home, Tim seemed to reach the end of his ride.  Unfortunately, he hadn’t reached the end of the course. 
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OMG!  What a time to be a cyclist in Texarkana!  Team Texarkana has recently re-started their Tuesday/Thursday training rides from Crown Leasing at 5:45p and now Texarkana Bicycle Club has announce that they are also going to be doing weekly rides to prepare for their “American Heritage Classic” Criterium event!  The crit will be October 4th and so they are going to start hosting a training ride EVERY Tuesday night at the course in Spring Lake Park.  The start/finish will be by the airplane next to the small pavillion so get your crit on and come practice with us!  They will start riding at 6:30 pm and the time will be adjusted as sunlight permits.  This is a fantastic alternative for you if the format for Team Texarkana’s ride doesn’t fit your schedule.  The most amazing thing about this is, if you are an aspiring rider in Texarkana, you now have TWO options on group rides.  What a time!

Additionally, the Texarkana Bicycle Club is going to start a regular, scheduled Time Trial on the first Thursday of every month!  That means that next Thursday there WILL be a Time Trial on Highway 108 at 6:00pm.  Dee has just posted a Time Trial for this Sunday on the same stretch of road, so this is a time to really work on this discipline.  Hopefully, Team Texarkana’s Thursday ride will allow them to come join the TBC TT and make for quite an event.

To top it off, Jason Haak has announce a Friday afternoon ride from Timothy’s each Friday at 5:15.  This will be a high-speed, hammer-your-brains-out, toss-your-tacos ride that will be a challenge for anyone in attendance.  This type of ride REALLY helps you in learning to manage your effort when you’re working at LT and has numerous educational benefits, apart from the hard leg workout.  Come join in the  . . . fun?

Ultimately, this is a great time to be a rider in the ark-la-tex.  You now don’t even have to motivate yourself to get mid-week rides in!  Load up the bike and ride every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.  Now, you get to pick which group to ride with.  Wow!

I have received several suggestions to move the Sunday race to Saturday morning and the Saturday ride to Sunday either afternoon or evening. Please let me know your thoughts. I am, as always at your service. Please weigh in on this topic. ALSO LOOK at the info for Sunday’s ITT.

Thanks in Advance

Dee

Well, Sunday was a different kind of race than what we’ve had recently, but still turned out to be both exciting and educational.  With just six edge-ites in attendance, we decided to NOT have teams and just ride individually.  Arley suggested that we ought to practice riding in a high-speed paceline sometime and we all agreed to make Sunday that day.  To accommodate the different fitness levels of the group Jason suggested that he and I do the pulling and make sure we kept everyone together so everyone got a good workout and the Team got to spend more time in a paceline.

Oddly enough, that’s just what happened. 
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The day started with only Charles and I in the 43 mile race to represent the team. Jerry did the 53 miler. No problem, I thought, the two groups leave at the same time and follow the same route for 31 miles. That would put three of us in the same group, at least for a while.

I was wrong! Richardson Bike Mart(rbm) had a team of about12 riders and Rockwall Racing(rwr) had a team of about 25 riders. There were other smaller teams also ,but none that would play as big a part as the other two.

I told Charles that it woud be fast from the gun, but neither of us was prepared for how fast. The first three miles were covered at over 30mph! I looked at my comp. and saw 36mph, I decided that I really didn’t want to look at it any more. At four miles into the race an attack went hard. I had been in the front half of our group, but that attack left me at the back of what was left of our group(about 35 riders). I quickly realized that I needed to move up to the front, but it was too late! Some guys in front of me had let the gap go and it was getting bigger fast. I AM NOT A TIME TRIALIST! I HATE to close long gaps. Fortunately for me there was a long line of stragglers off the front group, so in stead of looking at it as one long gap, I took it as several short ones to the individual riders. After four long miles of chasing I was nearing the back of the front group again. I wanted so bad to just get on the back and get a draft and rest. I knew from experience that the back was a bad place to be, but my legs and lungs were burning!! As I came into the group, there was a slowing, so I used that to move up through toward the front. It is a real good thing too, because about a mile later all @#ll broke loose as a rider from one of the smaller teams put in a huge attack to try to get off the front. The group seperated again, but this time I was near the front. It was then that I found out that a rider from RWR had gotten off the front at mile 4 and had not been seen again. The other smaller teams had tried to send riders to chase, but each one was marked by a rider from RWR or RBM. They were working together!!!! We reached mile 29 with most of 20 riders together when five riders went off the front. A rider who had been countering attacks for another team said “let them go they’re blue bands” which meant that they were in the longer race and of no concern to us on the shorter route. HE WAS WRONG!! When the turn came only one rider turned for the longer distance the others went straight . Time to chase again. We Chased hard again for about five miles before catching the leaders about five miles before the finish. Now we were down to about ten riders. As we neared the finish the speed really sterted to pick up again back over 30mph. we hit the 1/2 mile to go marker and it was on. everyone sprinting with all that was left. I saw a rider move off to my right and he was really moving so I went across to his wheel. Two more riders came on my left and that’s when I realized that I had fallen for the old 1-2 trick. RWR had sent one rider really hard a little too early to have all the others chase and then their two best sprinters went after everyone reacted to the first rider. It was too late to do anything, but get third. It was Fun and fast. We avg 21.8mph, but it was a wide range of speed from 17 to 42mph. The speed changed continually. I sure look forward to the next race when I have some other teammates with me. Then we can show them who TEAM EDGE really is!

Hi guys,

If you are heading to B&B this Saturday, have fun. This is an amazing ride! Try to stay with the lead group as long as you can. If you fall off their pace, recover and try to catch the next group coming along. You will find a group your speed.

If you are going to Sulphur Springs PLEASE e-mail me at montana_vista@yahoo.com to let me know to look out for you. I would like to meet with all our riders before the race. This is going to be one fast ride!

Both groups, do not forget the Sunday race. This will be a great chance for us to talk about what went right and wrong at the rides. It is also a great chance to get in two hard rides in one weekend!

On a side note, I am looking for a new route for our circuit races on Sundays. I am looking for one that is about three miles in distance. If you know of one please let me know.

Most of all HAVE FUN this weekend!!!!!

Dee

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .  Sunday’s ride was certainly yet another great educational experience, and hopefully everyone learned something that will help them somewhere down the road.

Ten riders showed up Sunday and so once again, we divided up into teams.  Team A was Tim Loving, Charles Allen, Randy Schmidt, Kale Magness and Antoinette Riley.  Team B was Dee Bell, Steve Campisi, David Magness, Mike Riley and David Cox.

I wasn’t privvy to Team A’s strategy, but Team B cooked up quite a little plan for the day. 
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So what did we learn Sunday during Team Edges most strategic practice yet?  Apart from a serious wardrobe malfunction, we had an absolutely great real-life scenario training session.

Any time I make a tactical decision in a race that affects how it turns out, I like to stop and consider my decision and debate what I could have done better.  I’m going to write a brief (at least it is intended to be brief) recap of Sunday’s ride and hopefully illicit some responses.

We split up into two teams and set pre-race strategies.  Team A was Jason Haak, Arley Smith, Eric Smith, Charles “in charge” Allen and David Cox.  Team B was Dee Bell, Steve Campisi, David Magness and Randy Schmidt.  Team A’s strategy was
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T3 is meeting at Crown leasing at 5:30 – 5:45pm to ride a high intensity 1 -1.5 hour ride. I think it would be a great idea to join them. I can’t make Tuesdays, but I’ll be there for the Thursday rides. These high intensity rides are exactly what we need to get ready for racing. Hope to see you there!!!

In lieu of having a schedule ride, we need to at least have a tentative plan for this weekend.  The Beauty and the Beast ride is March 21st.  This is a fantastic ride that features a couple of really nice climbs.  Unfortunately, the Spring Fever ride in Sulpher Springs is also that day.

The Beauty and the Beast ride is one of my favorite rides each year and so I am pretty sure I would prefer to do it, given the choice between those two.  There should be a LOT more riders at the B&B than there are at Spring Fever, which will give our less experienced riders a larger range of competition to ride against.   The team can pick whichever ride they want, but I am pretty committed to the B&B.

Along those lines, unless we hear differently from Dee, I am going to ride to Garland City on Saturday morning in preparation for the climbs that the Beauty and the Beast ride presents.  I normally head out early in the morning,  but I can wait and go at 9 if anyone wants to join me.  The ride is 64 miles round trip from Crown Leasing, so we may want to leave earlier regardless.

Once again, Dee may announce a team ride for Saturday and so I am not trying to take away from that.  I just need to ride a lot of hills between now and B&B and so I’m gonna “head for the hills” Saturday.  Any takers?

Steve

P.S.  The pace is entirely negotiable.  There are a couple of climbs on that route that I always like to do a couple of times, so we can use those to pick up any dropped riders.