Sizzle Pie Cycling presented by Veloforma

And some racing too. Recap of Zak’s trip to Trinidad and Tobago.

Trinidad is a pretty wild place. It’s like a party all the time. Loud music, beaches, good street food, big butts and when I’ve been there plenty of bike racing with great crowds. I was there for the Southern Games along with americans Danny Robertson and David Espinoza and Canadians Stephane Cossette and Gillian Carlton.

The first night was a Crit on the main drag in Marabella. The course was down and back with hairpins at either end. Not the best right after a long flight. We opened things up with a short 4 lap Crit. I kept the pace moving from the start and led out the sprinters for Stephane to win the first race. The final Crit was about an hour. There was a lot of action early and the sprinters got burned off pretty quick. A move got a way and I tried unsuccessfully to get across and had to call I a night. We got some doubles after the race (Trini street food, fry baked bread with Chana) and I was looking forward to some rest and an easy day to get settled.

The next day was quite chill. Easy road ride. Limin (Trini for chillin) at the pool (apparently the tides were to rough for the beach, I hate sand anyhow) and roti from a street vendor for dinner. Afterwards we were off to the VIP area above the stadium for a party for the athletes AND cyclists.

The next two days would be track and field events and GRASS track racing. It’s pretty much like regular track racing but on grass. It’s so hot in Trini that the ground is pretty hard and dried out and the grass is cut short. The runners didn’t party very hard and were drinking juice or soda. Meanwhile all the cyclists were whining (Trini dancing) and throwing back a few beers. We even had some dreamy bartenders.

That night unfortunately it rained really hard and the grass track went from hard and fast to gummy and really slow. It was like riding with the breaks on.

The first day I managed 3rd in the 1500m scratch, 3rd in the 4000m scratch and I won the final 8000m scratch with a wicked lead out from Gillian. Stephane and David qualified to move on to the sprint rounds the following day. Many more doubles were consumed that night.

The next day the track was quite a bit faster. We started off with a miss n out. And like most good miss n outs, it was quite sketchy but not wanting a repeat of my last trip to Trini when I fractured my back in 2010, I got out of the fray and went to the front but could only hang on to 4th from there. After that we had a 3k scratch and a 5k points I was back to 3rd for both if those.

In the sprints Stephane barely missed riding the old final and ended up finishing 3rd and David finished 2nd. In the final, Gillian and I nabbed up a bunch of primes early on before the rush come over the top and we called it a day.

One of the Trini riders arranged an after party for us. It was pretty wild. Whiskey, beer, whinin, big butts an lots more. Yup. Then some of us had to go to the airport still quite intoxicated. Luckily I had stashed some doubles in the mini fridge. And I was extra luck to have an empty row on my first flight for some rest. Can’t wait to go back.

I was super lucky to get the chance to realize my cycling dream this winter and ride some European pro six days. I was in Berlin this past summer learning how to do motor paced steher racing. You can see more about steher racing in this Cycling News article. From that I was able to get into one of two remaining sixes that have steher race events, the Berlin six. I was super thrilled to have the chance to experience the world of sixes but it got even better! My manager was also able to get me a spot racing in the big show at the Copenhagen six as well, right after Berlin.

I left Portland for sunny Southern California more than a week a head of time to get some training in. A little while in LA with good friend, good foo and good riding. Then it was off to San Diego. I had never been before but I was headed here to train with my Copenhagen sixday partner, Guy East, who is currently living in Tijuana. In San Diego I got to stay with my dietitian and awesome friend Matt! Ruscigno , you should all follow his blog. I really enjoyed San Diego. Great riding, I saw dolphins swimming in the ocean while I was riding on the road 150m away. Eating breakfast at the co-op is as awesome as Matt says it is but eating a giant seitan burrito with French fries in it, at the beach, after a good road ride, watching the sun set was the best. And the training with Guy at the quirky San Diego velodrome was good too!

After forgetting my wallet and having Matt rush it to me at the airport, I was off to Berlini got there the day before racing started. I had no time on the steher bike until the gun fired on night one to start the race. There is a race report here on the Met Helmets site. Being at the Berlin six day was awesome. Over 12,000 people each night. It’s quite a show and I was trying to soak up as much as possible ahead of my debut as a pro six day rider the following week in Copenhagen.

After a week of duking it out behind the big motor bikes, we had one day ‘off’ to travel to Copenhagen and start six more days there. We did our team introductions in a boxing ring in the middle of the infield. (On night 3 there were boxing matches)

I was super nervous heading into it and our first race was a 250 lap madison. At this point, the longest track race I had done was 200 lap madison at nationals. The rhythm was different than I was used to, the exchanges were really hard and fast and the tempo was quick and I was in a 90″ gear trying to stay afloat. It was hard, we lost a couple laps but as the racing went on, I tried to learn as much as possible.

The long chases (madisons) were hard for me because I did not have the fitness. Guy and I fared pretty well in some of the smaller races. Every night we did a flying lap, and placed well each time, one night we were 4th. I was gettin into the swing of things but I was getting pretty haggard from the relentless amount of racing. Day 5 we finished with a 75 k (300 lap) chase. I blew up pretty hard inside of the last 80 laps and developed a bad cough after that. I had never dug so deep in my life. Check out the Pez Cycling News article for some more info my experience an the Velo Veritas sixday diaries.

I really want to ride more sixes and this experience has provided me with the motivation to dig deeper to a new level. The six day riders are amazing athletes and the racing is super hard. I highly recommend taking a trip to watch a winter euro six. It’s amazing.

Zak, Al and Erin made a trip up to Vancouver, B.C. to attend a 4 Day event after Christmas. While the Men’s Pro/Elite field was slotted to do Madisons, the Madison for the Men was canceled. However, there was no shortage of hard racing. In the first night, Zak took 2nd in the Scratch race just ahead of Tyler Farrar who later almost crashed out Zak. Luckily he managed to keep his bike upright due to some skilled bike handling. On the second night, Al dominated the dreaded Antioquena which was a point-a-lap, elimination race to a 5 person scratch race and got 2nd place. Al having not been a track in over 4 months due to an injury, did a stellar job at riding consistently throughout the event landing many 5th place finishes and a few primes along the way. Zak won the points race on the third day which was followed up by a nasty crash of 5 racers including Zak and Al. They got right back up on their bikes and raced on. Finishing up the last day of racing, Zak won the finals sprint of the feature points race, securing his 3rd place finish in the Omnium. This event is sure to get Zak’s track legs ready to go for the Copenhagen 6-Day!

Fortunately for Erin the Women’s Madison was still on the program. Erin was partnered up with Vancouver local Claire Cameron who together as Team Light Blue, raced hard against the Canadian Olympic medalist Gillian Carlton and Pan-Amercian medalist Steph Roorda. Erin and Claire definitely made some good moves to stay on even laps with Team Red and lapped the field in order to secure their 2nd place finish overall in the Women’s Madison. There weren’t just Madison’s for Erin. She also raced with the B Men in 3 other races each night and got 5th place in the Scratch Race on the last night.

The team looks forward to heading back up to Burnaby again soon.

The 2012 season is pretty much in the books, except for a couple of our cross minded team members. I think it’s safe to say that our first season was very successful and yet there is so much more we are aiming to accomplish in the coming seasons.

At Nationals in LA the team racked up 7 medals and another National Championship! Erin was 3rd in the scratch, 4th in the team sprint, and 5th in the pursuit and madison. Zak won the Team Pursuit with a last minute composite team as well as getting 3rd the scratch, 5th in the madison and securing the Men’s Endurance National Track Calendar title.

If you haven’t heard, the team kinda cleaned up at Elite Omnium Nationals in Rock Hill, SC. Here’s a link to the USA Cycling article.

http://www.usacycling.org/news/user/story.php?id=7877

I can remember vividly back in 2008, before racing bikes, walking up to Mt. Tabor one day and stumbling onto a bike race. Amazed by the fast paced climbing circuit, more specifically James Ceccorulli’s classic early off the front moves, I recall saying, “Yeah I can do this bike racing thing.” Four years later, I took the overall series win in the Senior men’s field. It was a long six weeks of battles won, glory on the top and all that competitive drama. But thanks to my team in the final race last night, I was able to seal the deal and further my points lead. Here’s how it all panned out:

After the race, we all rolled over to Hungry Tiger Too for $1.25 corn dogs. Post race food is quite possibly the best food, regardless of what you’re eating. Now I have 1 year to gloat, and reminisce.  

I have been in Germany for a week now and it has been quite an experience. I came here to learn stayer racing from the living legend and eternal UCI Stayer World Champion, Carsten Podlesch. In short, stayer racing is a motor paced track race. The pacemakers are on big motorcycles and and basically standing to make a bigger draft and the bikes are more upright with a 24″ front wheel and backwards fork. At my first training session on Wednesday at the amazing Berlin Velodrom. This is a great article on stayer racing y Ed Hood. http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=3798

I was riding Carsten’s bike which won the Worlds, was being paced by his uncle Karsten, and coached by both Carsten and his father Rainer also a 2x World Steher Champion.  It was hard to get right up to the roller on the back of the motorcycle because I couldn’t see the front wheel with out looking down,It almost feels as if the front wheel is behind you and at those speeds you want to keep your head up.  After about 10 laps they pulled me off the track and told me to go up next time and just hit the roller. I wasquite nervous. The strange bike almost felt lke it would flip over if I hit the back of the moto. By the end of the day I was almost able to relax be hind the moto but I think we oly hit about 65 kpm.

The second session was the next day after a hard road ride with about 20 masters riders that I think were all over 60, including Carsten’s father, Rainer 67,  and Werner, the 83 old man who is one of the sassiest dudes i have ever met. On the track I was feeling so much more comfortable.  We did a lot of technique work and after that session Rainer said it was ‘perfect.’ I don’t know about that. Thats a big word rom such an authority in the Stayer world, but I felt about ready for the races.

We departed for the small town with rich track cycling history of Forst on Saturday morning. My first day of racing was a derny criterium in downtown Forst. Its lke a regular crit but every rider has there own derny pacer. The course was really hard and mostly cobble stones with narrow corners. The front stretch was nice bricks and small smooth cobbles. The first turn was an almost hair pin corner on very short stretch of smooth asphalt, but hay from the bales had scattered across the road. This lead directly into the long strech of rowdy cobbles and hurt a lot every lap and the derny accelerated out of the corner on to the pave’. The  2nd and last corners were very narrow 90 degree turns on the cobbles back to the front stretch. It was hard to keep the traction to the rear wheel while trying to accelerate out of the cobbles, especially on the last corner.

I came in 2nd on both 20k  runs for 2nd place over all behind Robert Bartko in 1st and Marcel Barth in 3rd.  In the second race i hada pncture but got my spare wheel quickly enought to recover. Then on the cobble turns with one lap to go I was two wide with Bartko on the inside. I was very nervous as I suddenly realized how crazy this whole race was and how I really didn’t want to crash into Bartko. So like a nervous nelly, I tensed up, my front wheel jumped across the cobbles and I shouldered the hay bales. I lost one spot to 3rd before regaining my composure and making it back to finish 2nd. I cant figure out how to post photos from this german computer yet so please check the link for excellent photos, and note my pacemakers awesome helmet.

http://www.niederlausitz-aktuell.de/artikel_287_21413.php#

More from the Steherrennen soon