Psimet2001 

So I was slated to do a "power test" yesterday but was not liking the idea. The weather was warmer than it has been and it was ridable, but super wet. Then MJH2 sent me a link to an indoor TT series that local coaching/club/team Vision Quest was putting on. It sounded a lot better to do a power test in an actual "competition", and it sounded like a whole heck of a lot more fun.

Vision Quest is the coaching company that is owned by Robbie Ventura (Of 7-Eleven/Postal fame). This was to be held at the "new" Highland Park facility. We walked in and were shocked. I was balking at the $25 entry, but that went away quickly. This was a nice facility. Our local USAC official was there...this was a "legit" event.

As I walked in there was a class/morning ride that was finishing up. I looked to the back of the room and saw what looked to be Robbie Ventura in full kit packing up to head out.

The stage to the side with the computrainers set up on it was nice. 25 or so in total I believe....



They took your bike for you when you came in and hooked everything up. You were directed to the locker room to change (nice....I'm used to sub-freezing temps with bare butt in the car from the recently ended cross season). The walls everywhere were coated with cycling memorabilia. WAY too much to take in.

I knew it was my kind of place when I entered the locker room and saw this...

I was all...OMFG!

So we did the TT. Yay. Big whoop right. So...back to the big guys...

We hung around for a while after it ended waiting for their new attached bike shop to open. It looked to be like a new uber high-end Trek shop. Big whoop right? I've seen a ton of Trek shops and knew all I would see in there was over-priced run of the mill Lance alters.

Well I was right.

....but some of the alters were kind of cool.
A display of 7 "real" (we were trying to figure out what a "fake yellow shirt was") yellow jerseys from each tour signed by Lance:


Some of "Lance's" rigs from tours:


A Hincapie Disco rig. Wonder if the steerer tube was still in one piece...


A shrine to some of Robbie's early achievements as well as 2 of his junior track bikes.


...and my favorite, tucked in the corner....podium presentation jerseys from Landis from the Tour of Georgia and France. MJH2 is modeling for the snap.


"To VQ Thanks for the help!"-Landis


The rigs were well worn out. most of the components you could tell had been swapped out at one time or another. The dropouts were beat so they looked to be "authentic" race frames. In general the shop was really nice. They did it right. The center is awesome. If I lived closer and had some money I would be enrolled.

The people working the shop (who BTW had just ridden the TT with us before opening the shop) mentioned that Robbie and Lance were going to be showing up for the official "Grand Opening" and signing autographs in the spring.....FWIW....

judkins1970

Great pics..thanks for sharing!

botto 

I Floyd.

furiousferret

That's pretty cool. I wish I lived closer.

BigSean

cool stuff

JohnKScott

That looks way cool! ALMOST makes me wish I still lived in IL.

I lived in Crystal Lake and worked in Northbrook. HP would have been an easy stop to work out for me

BikesAreCool123

Flip it.

Allegheny Jet

Cool stuff!

Someone should tell that chick that she doesn't need to loose any more weight.

JPradun

The new VQ kits look nice. I wish they wouldn't have modeled them so much off Garmin/Chipotle.

Rutnick

how much for the Rocky Poster and what were your results?

patentcad

Stylin' sweatsuit Psimet. You're a ladykiller aren't you?

gfrance

I could have sworn his 1999 used a quill stem

botto 

good call, that's a 2000 trek.



1999.



2000.

Psimet2001 

You need to read that caption....that's MJH2. I'm much hotter.

FWIW we then hit the high brow streets of Highland Park in all it's North Side glory looking for some food. MJH2 got a lot of attention in that getup.

Psimet2001 

MJH2 actually said, "Can't be Lance's. He's 'too cool' to ride un-flipped."

She kicks ass and takes names. I have seen her at a lot fo events and it seems like she always does well. I looked over her shoulder....well...can't do that she's like 3 ft taller than me....and saw her power output on the screen. I want to say it was in the 4-5 w/kg range everytime I looked.

They do look nice. That guy beat us. He's a 4 as well, but just missed upgrading by something like 2 points before the end of the year. Said VQ has ahd them doing something like 40 minute threshold intervals for over a month now. Our fat asses didn't feel so bad about losing to him.

I noticed Rocky first thing. All I could hear in my head as we started was the Chicago Cutting Crew weak sauce cyclocross superfan horn version of the Rocky theme song.

We don't know results because they had sessions going on through 4pm that day and you were racing everyone. They put our bank of 8 together by rough category/"skill" it seemed and after flirting with 2nd and 3rd for most of the TT I slipped to 4th and ended in 5th. We'll see.

The bike seemed "legit" in terms of it having been a pretty heavily ridden/raced bike, but the sign on it says a lot about the model, but never actually says that the bike it is attached to was used in any race, let alone the tour and let alone by Armstong.

ravenmore

I saw one of Lance's rigs today too. Lance was on it though, and Taylor Phinney was on the one next to him.

botto 

you're in the wrong forum. try here.

ravenmore

hmmm - so you think Lance is stalking me? Geeze, guess I should look into a restraining order or something.

Rutnick

George's bike doesn't have a cassette
the bike behind it has a dork disc
Lance's 1999 bike must have been a "no chain" day.

Flatballer

A few of them were also "no pedal" days. I must have missed those stages, but I bet Lance would still have won.

Coming from a triathlete background, he could probably outrun most of the other riders.

bitingduck

Yeah, I have the '99 that I bought in 2000 as a closeout and it's a quill stem. The '00 was the first year they came with threadless.

Psimet2001 

I noticed all of that myself while there. The bikes were a real mix of "whatever". You could tell they had been worked over. Most, if they had components, were Ultegra.

The Dork Disc was one of the Armstrong Livestrong $10,000 bikes....which I remember laughing about when they first came out (because of the price tag). Until it dawned on me that they had some "Astana" team bikes in there for sale in the $9k range. Actually most of the high end Madones with DA or Red were all between $9k and $10k.

I must have missed the memo when cycling announced it was losing all grip on reality.

SushiJoe

Psimet2001 

BTW - MJH2 mentioned to me that he was thinking about asking where all the LeMonds were.

jonestr

I think he was a duathalete.