Give me your eyes
This time of year most racers are winding down their race commitments and looking for a bit more leisure bicycling. Most, but not all. For the truly devoted and hardcore there are still intense racing events to tackle. This weekend there's the Gateway Cup in St. Louis that offers four days of fast, intense and highly competitive criterium racing. The city of St. Louis loves the bicycle and supports racing all over town. If you visit this great city you will see cyclists all around downtown and surrounding areas.
The Gateway Cup draws top talent from all over the Midwest. Achieve a result here and it stands out on your palmares. There are a handful of us regulars from the Nashville area who make this annual trip, but there really ought to be more of you here. The experience you gain from racing events on this scale dramatically improves your skills and increases your confidence. If you can compete here then you can compete anywhere. If you can race in the top 10 to 15 spots here then you can compete successfully anywhere. You're too late for 2008, but I urge you to highlight Labor Day weekend for 2009 in St. Louis.
Next weekend there's the Oak Ridge Fall Velo Classic, and from what I understand it's shaping up to be a great event as well. The city of Oak Ridge is going to great lengths to offer their support, and the organizers are hoping to build this event into something on a grand scale over the next few years. There's over $10,500 in awards and prizes with much of that weighted in the overall omnium.
Moving on to random and not so random.....
It turns out we all should be thankful that I didn't hit a single home run last weekend. If I had the amount of money raised for Hope on Wheels 100 would have been much lower than the $1000+ we've raised so far! We are on our way to possibly reaching the $1500 level. Awesome huh?
I apologize for the lack of follow up with the crit series after the final race. Once that ended my entire attention turned to coaching responsibilities and campus meetings, but I also added one more title to my resume that has me quite busy - College Professor. That's right, yours truly is now teaching a college business course, and it's one of the more exciting challenges I have tackled in a long time. It's a little overwhelming considering I have 60 students in my one class, but so far I am enjoying it quite a bit.
Speaking of the crit series I am already looking to 2009 and how I can improve the experience. I'm going to try and incorporate a more efficient registration and results system, and I am going to tweak how points are awarded. To only award points 6 deep is not deep enough, and the actual points awarded is not a good numerical plan to follow. I will likely adopt the points system we encounter with an omnium. I also hope to get away from having to input everything in an Excel file because that is way too time consuming. Race results will only be posted with USA Cycling while I will only track the overall series. No more staying up late on Wednesday nights!
Have you ever noticed when you're traveling to a race far away that when you're flipping radio channels you hear music you haven't heard in about 10 or 15 years? It's like you're traveling in a time warp. In Nashville I never hear Huey Lewis and the News, but on the road I do all the time! This trip it was Ronnie Milsap with his classic Back on My Mind, "just when I think I'm through loving you, you're back on my mind again!"
You know times are tough when "Gas Prices Cause Sean 'Diddy' Combs to Ground His Private Jet" and fly commercial. Maybe if enough music moguls and Hollywood types complain about flying commercial then Congress will take action.
This is very thought provoking as the same argument could be said for cycling - A lot of guys in the minors got hosed by steroids. They should sue. Steroids was not something that was part of the baseball culture while I was there, but if it had been and I was getting left behind then I'd be pretty upset also. Just imagine how much cycling talent we missed out on seeing because they either left the sport or were drowned out by dopers. Which reminds me, let's extend the title of "doper" to all athletes and not just cyclists. Starting, now.....!
Let's all hope this guy is clean and remains clean - Feat of Clay: American wins gold medal in decathlon. I heard him say all he wanted was to be on a box of Wheaties, which if attained means you're one of the worlds greatest athletes. American Bryan Clay did just that and is now the World's Greatest Athlete.
By all accounts BMX was a success at the Olympics.
Our very own Frank Mackzum of Tennessee fell short in his bid to get re-elected to the USA Cycling Board of Trustees. A record number of votes were cast in the elections overall, but not enough here in the Central region went online and hit the send button for Frank. It's disappointing we won't have Frank working on our behalf at the national level, but we want to thank him for his service and commitment to improving racing all across the country.
The annual charity ride the Jack & Back is only about a month away, and country singer Clay Walker announces launch of Band Against MS Bike Team. I was unaware that Walker was diagnosed with MS in 1996, but it's exciting to see his involvement in such a wonderful event by starting his own team.
Alright, I have to get going and get involved with my booth here at the Gateway Cup. You're reading this only because I lucked out and found a wireless signal in the middle of downtown. The racing action is about to start, but stay tuned for more updates over the weekend.
The Gateway Cup draws top talent from all over the Midwest. Achieve a result here and it stands out on your palmares. There are a handful of us regulars from the Nashville area who make this annual trip, but there really ought to be more of you here. The experience you gain from racing events on this scale dramatically improves your skills and increases your confidence. If you can compete here then you can compete anywhere. If you can race in the top 10 to 15 spots here then you can compete successfully anywhere. You're too late for 2008, but I urge you to highlight Labor Day weekend for 2009 in St. Louis.
Next weekend there's the Oak Ridge Fall Velo Classic, and from what I understand it's shaping up to be a great event as well. The city of Oak Ridge is going to great lengths to offer their support, and the organizers are hoping to build this event into something on a grand scale over the next few years. There's over $10,500 in awards and prizes with much of that weighted in the overall omnium.
Moving on to random and not so random.....
It turns out we all should be thankful that I didn't hit a single home run last weekend. If I had the amount of money raised for Hope on Wheels 100 would have been much lower than the $1000+ we've raised so far! We are on our way to possibly reaching the $1500 level. Awesome huh?
I apologize for the lack of follow up with the crit series after the final race. Once that ended my entire attention turned to coaching responsibilities and campus meetings, but I also added one more title to my resume that has me quite busy - College Professor. That's right, yours truly is now teaching a college business course, and it's one of the more exciting challenges I have tackled in a long time. It's a little overwhelming considering I have 60 students in my one class, but so far I am enjoying it quite a bit.
Speaking of the crit series I am already looking to 2009 and how I can improve the experience. I'm going to try and incorporate a more efficient registration and results system, and I am going to tweak how points are awarded. To only award points 6 deep is not deep enough, and the actual points awarded is not a good numerical plan to follow. I will likely adopt the points system we encounter with an omnium. I also hope to get away from having to input everything in an Excel file because that is way too time consuming. Race results will only be posted with USA Cycling while I will only track the overall series. No more staying up late on Wednesday nights!
Have you ever noticed when you're traveling to a race far away that when you're flipping radio channels you hear music you haven't heard in about 10 or 15 years? It's like you're traveling in a time warp. In Nashville I never hear Huey Lewis and the News, but on the road I do all the time! This trip it was Ronnie Milsap with his classic Back on My Mind, "just when I think I'm through loving you, you're back on my mind again!"
You know times are tough when "Gas Prices Cause Sean 'Diddy' Combs to Ground His Private Jet" and fly commercial. Maybe if enough music moguls and Hollywood types complain about flying commercial then Congress will take action.
This is very thought provoking as the same argument could be said for cycling - A lot of guys in the minors got hosed by steroids. They should sue. Steroids was not something that was part of the baseball culture while I was there, but if it had been and I was getting left behind then I'd be pretty upset also. Just imagine how much cycling talent we missed out on seeing because they either left the sport or were drowned out by dopers. Which reminds me, let's extend the title of "doper" to all athletes and not just cyclists. Starting, now.....!
Let's all hope this guy is clean and remains clean - Feat of Clay: American wins gold medal in decathlon. I heard him say all he wanted was to be on a box of Wheaties, which if attained means you're one of the worlds greatest athletes. American Bryan Clay did just that and is now the World's Greatest Athlete.
By all accounts BMX was a success at the Olympics.
Our very own Frank Mackzum of Tennessee fell short in his bid to get re-elected to the USA Cycling Board of Trustees. A record number of votes were cast in the elections overall, but not enough here in the Central region went online and hit the send button for Frank. It's disappointing we won't have Frank working on our behalf at the national level, but we want to thank him for his service and commitment to improving racing all across the country.
The annual charity ride the Jack & Back is only about a month away, and country singer Clay Walker announces launch of Band Against MS Bike Team. I was unaware that Walker was diagnosed with MS in 1996, but it's exciting to see his involvement in such a wonderful event by starting his own team.
Alright, I have to get going and get involved with my booth here at the Gateway Cup. You're reading this only because I lucked out and found a wireless signal in the middle of downtown. The racing action is about to start, but stay tuned for more updates over the weekend.
posted by NashvilleCyclist.com at 8/30/2008 11:16:00 AM
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