Upgrading

I have raced as a Cat 3 for nearly four years. Of the four years I have been competitive in only one of the four. When it came to upgrading out of the Cat 3's, and into the Cat 2's, I had lots of reasons to upgrade and lots of reasons to wait. After waiting a few months, and getting very close to winning the Merco Road Race, I decided to send in my upgrade request to USA Cycling. It took a few days but I finally received the E-mail, confirming my upgrade request. Luckily for me I did not have to wait to receive the upgrade sticker in the mail. The new rules were that you had to print out a paper attached to the E-mail and tape a piece to the back of your current licence. Which meant that I could start racing as a Cat 2 as soon as I desired.
My first race was a Cat 2/3 race in Santa Rosa, a few hours after racing district Criterium. In the Cat 2/3 race my goal was to push myself to the brink of getting dropped and drill-it again just to stay in contact with the field. Then do it again, and again. All while trying to help teammate Jason Saltzman stay in position, and get some upgrade points. I was successful at everything but getting Jason the points, but that's racing. The Next weekend My dad and I went down to Modesto to race the Modesto Criterium. This would be my first actual Cat1/2 race, even though it was a Cat1/2/3 race. I was not able to get an ideal warm-up, so the first 20 minutes were a fight to get my lungs comfortable with the intensity of the race. As soon as that was fixed I started to move through the field to the front where I followed wheels for the majority of the race. With 6 to go I found my dad and followed him until 3 to go because I could see that the Masters race he raced earlier in the day had left him without enough to duke it out in the finish. I decided to make my way to the front. With 1.5 laps to go I found the only other junior in the field, Matt Schaupp. I was expecting him to move up to the top 5 but that did not happen. We ended up finishing in 13th and 14th.
 For this being my second race as a Cat 2, and my second race with my dad I was happy with my result, and am looking forward to the future of racing as a Cat 2.

Thank you for reading,
Christopher

                                                                  Lesson's  Learned        
                 Since the nationals are coming up, I thought it would be a good idea to go over the lessons and what I've learned up to this point in the season. I've been lucky enough to have some great people around me and guide me to this point. I've had Larry Nolan who teach's me tactics and help's me look at things differently. He's also taught me to think about what I've learned during the race and how I could have done things differently. He's given me training programs to help me prepare for big races.
               There's been Rich Bartlett whose been my training partner since I started racing BMX at the age of 7. Since then he has continued to help me train and get me stronger on the road and mountain biking. He's  also taught me to be humble and helps me push myself to my potential.
               And more recently Mike Bell and Roy Knickman have been giving advice when I'm at the races at Southern California. Both of them very accomplished athletes. The help and advice that these gentlemen have given me I hold in high reguard at every race.
               At Merco Stage Race it had appeared that everything had gone right, I got in a break away, got caught, then on the last lap coming to the finish I went to soon during the finishing sprint got passed right at the finish line. End up 3rd that day but knowing that if I waited a little bit longer, I would have won.
               Now at Madera Stage Race I ended up 4th in crit.,was just outsprinted by stronger riders. But more importantly in the road race, everything seemed to go right. All my tactics were going well, chased down a break away. But at this point there were only 8 riders left, including me with 5 miles to go I got two flats. I knew at that point my race was over. Lesson learned, you can't beat bad luck.
               More recently at the Sea Otter Classic,I learned how very important team work is. By working for my teammates we were able to finish 2nd, 3rd and 4th. We worked together to allow Jack and another rider to stay away to the finish, I was also able to lead out my other teammates on the last lap so that they could finish 3rd and 4th, it was very satisfing.
               So with all this good advice and guidance that these gentlemen have given me and the mistakes that I made and hopefully I've learned from them, and with hard work, the team and I should do good at the nationals. And one last thing that I've learned is that good sportsmanship and having fun is everything.

                                                                                                          Sean McELroy

Koppenburg Circuit Race

Dean here, a few weeks back, on April 28 I raced the Koppenburg Circuit Race.  The course is a 6 mile loop half of which is dirt.  There is a very steep hill in the middle of the course that goes to 22% grade for about 200m, the koppenburg.  The section after the hill is a fast dirt straightaway that has a very strong blowing crosswind.

In the pro race we did 8 laps.  Some really fast riders were there including Lachlan Morton of Garmin, Lawson and other Livestrong riders and a few Cal Giant riders.  The pace was fast from the start of the race and I was doubting if I could even stay with the group.  Riders were getting dropped every single lap, especially the first half of the race.  The race started to settle down a little bit and I got into more of a rhythm.  I got into a breakaway going in to the dirt section, which is mostly uphill, with 2 laps to go.  We were caught by a chase group.  The next lap we were in the breakaway again with just four of us up the road.  We had a 25 second gap going into the dirt section after the hill.  On the road leading into the final turn two riders, one of which is Jesse Goodrich who is racing with the U23 National Team in Europe right now, attacked me and the other rider I was with didn't follow and I couldn't go with them.  He later attacked me after the hill even though he wouldn't pull through to chase.  I ended up in 4th but I was still very satisfied because that matches my best P12 result.

My Garmin file: http://app.strava.com/rides/7524757

Video of the Pro Race, skip to the last third for action of me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEE5M8hUp6U

Strava Motivation

It's May and I have been training for the past 6 months. I enjoy riding, but after 200+hrs of training on the same roads and memorizing every bump it's nice to get a change. Strava has given me this change. It's fun to upload my rides and see if I have set a KOM or PR. That has given me motivation, but now Strava has increased the amount of challenges they offer.

Last week I saw a Tour of California Diablo Challenge.  The challenge is basically who can ride up Diablo fastest in the three weeks before the Tour of California (3 other climbs in the TOC have similar challenges). To add to it, there are physical awards for the first three places in fastest time & most attempts (both female and male categories). I planned to do it on Wednesday and watched as the times steadily decreased.

For the past two days I have had AP testing all day during school. My mental relief  was knowing that I was going to "race" on Wednesday. I headed out after school today and did the climb. Side Note: they repaved the bottom section which had horrible potholes for the past years. I killed myself on the climb today and finished in third place about a minute behind the leader. I am in the prizes, currently some socks. I think that my time will get knocked out of the money and I look forward to going back and trying to  improve my time. I had a blast riding and Strava was a major part of my motivation. Thank you Strava for sponsoring us.

http://app.strava.com/challenges/amgen-tour-of-california-mt-diablo-2012

- Marcus Smith

Never Give Up

            I’ve given some thought on the many experiences I’ve had in my cycling career. Some were good and some were bad. One of the lessons I’ve learned is to never give up on anything.

            This years Madera Stage Race was an eye opener for me and my team. For some reason, I wasn’t able to finish the road race. That day I quit on myself and my team way too soon. That was a true wake up call.  After I gave it good thought about why I quit on myself that day and had a talk with my coach, I was determined to give it my all from now on.

The following weekend was the San Dimas Stage Race was a true test of my will. After fighting and pushing myself all weekend, I ended up finishing that stage race with a top 20 finish. If there was ever a weekend to test my determination, this was definitely the weekend. We raced under epic weather conditions….a cold, windy, and rainy road race. I pushed myself during the road race to make it to the crit with my team on Sunday. That was a hard target for most racers on that day.

The next test came about a month later at our 2^nd team priority race of the year, the Sea Otter Classic. In the Circuit Race I was stuck chasing for 2 laps because I had a mechanical, dropping my chain. I didn’t give up chasing because I knew my team needed me at the end of the race for extra help. After I chased hard and caught the group, I then lost contact again with my team race captain, Matt. I knew that I had to keep going to get him back into the race. We worked together and caught back up with one lap to go. He ended up getting a solid 4^th place and I finished in 8th. I’m so glad we didn’t give up.

The following day we had the road race and I was positioned in a chase group of 4 for most of the race. I pushed myself to keep going because I knew I had 2 other teammates with me who could do well in that race. I didn’t give up because I knew that my teammates counted on me there for extra help. I finished 6th behind Diego (5th) and Jack (3rd). A solid result for the team.

My lesson from Madera Stage Race was quickly learned and seems to have paid off in the long run. This was a real mental boost and confidence builder. It has brought me and my team good results, team recognition, and displayed good teamwork among ourselves. I encourage all who read this to just keep going and not to ever give up on yourself or others so easily. Fight to the end and finish the race…all you have to do is believe.

With that, I leave you with this note that my little brother wrote recently…

Thanks for reading,

 Nicholas (Nick) Castellano