SinGate

I had an amazing opportunity this past week. I was going to race in a time trial with the president of Trek bicycle and Gregg Lemond. John Burke (President) was to ride first, I was to go 3rd and Gregg Lemond was to ride 5th. As it turns out the race was called due to a severe thunderstorm. Wow! What a missed opportunity that was; I would have loved to see Gregg fly past me in a race. I’m hoping for a rescheduled race in which John and Gregg can again both attend.

Who have you raced / rode with?

Kev

hahaha how often do you say that in a race "I would have loved to see" someone fly past you.

Laggard

When I raced I'd try and imagine what would happen of a LeMond or and Indurain showed up at one of my Cat 4&5 races. My guess is that if they wanted to, they could drop everyone within the first 5 miles and ride the rest of the race solo.

BikeInMN

Laggard,

Did you race the Sogn Valley RR on Saturday? I noticed you're local...

What groups do you ride with in the city?

Laggard

I moved here from Eau Claire, WI a few years ago and haven't raced since. I got caught up with school, family, etc.

When I was in EC all I had to do was ride for 5 minutes and I'd be in the country and wouldn't see a car for hours. Now living here it would take me 45 minutes and dealing with a whole lot of crappy city traffic.

By the way, there's a pretty strong racing scene around Eau Claire/Chippewa Falls. I used to do weekly training rides with a couple cat two riders and a guy who had a top 10 finish in the Ironman triathlon.

BikeInMN

If you're in the southern metro and are looking for rides, let me know. Excellent rides are going pretty much every day of the week if you know where to look. Lots of great riding in the city and plenty of great riding south where I live.

Let me know if you're interested and I can give you details.

I'm pretty sure I've raced with guys from your old area. I don't remember any names but it seems like a few always show up for the larger road races south of the city. One guy who everyone called Charlie (I'm pretty sure he raced senior 4/5) seemed like a pretty good guy.

F1_Fan

I've been in club rides with Brian Walton, Scott Goguen, Alex Stedia, Roland Green (when he was *really* young), Alison Sydor and Sara Neil. Pretty well all the late-80's early 90's national/world-calibre British Columbia riders.

To answer Laggard's question... I once witnessed Brian Walton ride a local Cat 1,2 crit (IIRC, it wasn't a particularily fast 1,2 field either). He lapped the field at will.

The first lapping was solo, the second and third ones he took his buddies for a ride so they could lap the field as well.

Laggard

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I've got one question that I hate to waste a new topic on. On a flat road, with no wind and on a normal road bike, what type of speed can someone like Lance or Jan maintain. My guess is that they're capable of 27-29 mph for an hour or two. Ideas?

Laggard

I was trying to explain to my wife how much of a difference there is between different levels of riding. The difference between a Cat 4 and a Cat 2 rider is much greater than it sounds. The same goes for a national level amateur rider and a pro. The mechanic who used to work on my bike once told me that the jump in levels is almost exponential.

roadbuzz

Look at ITT times. Or better yet, Tyler's solo breakaway. Riding a normal bike, helmet, and clothing, he covered the last 40 miles at an average speed of 28.7 mph. That was with rolling hills. (Don't know about wind direction or speed.)

don d.

Giuliano Macadama, Mark Ballanger, Alan Marcosson, Don Cernanec, Joe Huth, Benny Rienzi, and my ridin buddy, Shiftin Jon Dooley, all my clubmates back in the Cleveland Wheelman. Alan a State Champion and our club coach, Don a Junior National team member in speed skating and the fastest sprinter I ever saw, Giulano was a good climber and a great spitter(yes spitter), Joe was the strongest rider in our club and almost broke into the national class, and Jon had more potential than them all but went in a different direction. Great bunch of guys.

Cipher

I was out with Greg a week ago this past friday for about 40 miles. (I showed up at his place about 8 AM with a bunch of Bruegger's bagles, and with hin and his wife Cathy, watched the tour). Our plan for that afternoon was to fly his plane over to Wi. for a little business, but we got too late of a start.

pgreene

my regular riding partner has placed in the top 3 in the world in her age group for the past few years.

oh, and i once got passed by george hincapie. he lives in greenville, s.c. where i am right now. probably two months before the tour when he was still recovering me and my buddies were coming back from a long ride. george came by with a group going up parris mountain. we tried to get on the back, but i had no legs at that point. would've been fun to ride with him though. rumor has it he rides in the regular tuesday group ride sometimes during the offseason.

vadimivich

Greg Lemond's TDF record speed for an ITT was 33.8 mph over a 15.19 mile course (of course he infamously beat Fignon by 58 seconds to win the Tour that day).

Figure that the truly 'great' time trialists of the last 10-15 years (Botero, Ullrich, Armstrong, Millar, Indurain, Lemond, Olano, etc) on a flat course could all probably push 30mph+ for an hour, and figure out how fast you'd get passed as their minute men. Also remember that the recent rule changes have slowed down ITT's - no more super man positions, and the return to double triangle frames in an effort to keep down some of the insane speeds people were reaching, especially on tracks.

caadman

Back when I was racing last year and the year befor that, I would do this training race across the border in windsor canada, it was a race that a lot of our club's members would go to, and since Frankie Andreau is a member, he would show up at it when he could...So I've been in races there where he was in the field, and yeah I've ridden behind and beside him, so that's about all I can claim...He is really amazing, done and completed 9 tours de france, and we were coming into the last corner of this circle that we raced around there, in the middle of the race Frankie decides to use that corner and dive inside and just put this hammering pace down!! it was just amazing what he could do, I mean the way he could turn it on and turn it off, just incredible what he could hold, I mean he came thru that corner and we were doing like close to 30mph, and he made us look like we were sitting still and then just went off the front, and it was a big peleton!!...And they call him a domestique over there in europe! just amazing what those guys can do!!..

Benjamin

Laggard

Great story, Ben. I'm guessing that we can't really appreciate what they do since we've haven't seen it up close like that.

caadman

Well sord of Laggard, your point is somewhat correct, I mean being there in the race and seeing it, is different that watching it on TV or just imagining it, but yeah it really hit's home when you're in the race and it happens..It's just incredible, I mean we're all human beings gifted my our maker God almighty, but just trained differently and built differently and with different paths to our lives, and to know that we're both that, and then to see him do it, it's just awesome!! and what a testement at least to me, of the amazing ability that God has givin to us in our bodies!..

Reason I say your point Laggard is partly correct, is because we being cyclists can understand somewhat what a hard effort requires because we've done it, and when we see like Lance or tyler or even when I saw Frankie A race in the classics or those races, we can appreciate the hard effort and see when they are really working..So to that degree we can appreciate it, but you're right it's best appreciated when you see it in person right there.

Benjamin