Scary.

As everyone has probably heard by now, most of the Silverton were cancelled due to a pretty gnarly crash in the Men 4/5 race. Talk was that up to 20 guys hit the deck, several were hauled away on stretchers. Ryan McKnab got the worst of it and suffered some extremely serious head trauma. Updates on his condition can be found here. Best wishes to Ryan during his recovery and his family and friends through this difficult time.

I'm sure that there will be alll sorts of solutions to the crash problem discussed, but the reality is that bike racing is dangerous, there's no way around it. OBRA does an amazing job giving us as safe an environment as possible to get our race on. As amateur racers, we need to make sure we err on the side of caution.

On to the riding,


The Mt. Hood classic started tonight. Here's the prologue results.

Two teams got more than one rider in the top-10 Navigators and Team Rubicon (Harm and Tuckerman).

Glossy-media type Mt. Hood previews:
VeloNews
CyclingNews.com
Daily Peloton

K-man has lists upon lists of nothwest participants.


The weather forecast looks pretty good, guess we won't be seeing Decker sportin' his rain gear. (Pic by NWeventphotography.com)

There's been plenty of talk about doping with the big boys. I'd rather the clean guys that were racing in the late '90's just stand up. That'll be way less press conferences to keep track of.




















All this doping talk is overshadowing a pretty great Giro. Simoni attacking DiLuca through tthe streets of Bergamo was CLASSIC!!! Tomorrow is the Zoncolan. Watch it here, en vivo. Race ends about 8:15(usually). Cunego's gonna kill it.

Chad Hartley(BMC) has joined the chattering class.

Mt. Tabor tomorrow, better go fast, everyone's watching!!!!!!

I'll try and stay current with Hood.

NO OFF WEEKS!!!

So there aren't any NRC races on the calendar this weekend, and several of Oregon's fastest are back home before Hood, which means that this weekend's Silverton RR field will be STACKED. I'm just guessing here, but wouldn't be surprised to see Doug(HealthNet/Maxxis), Evan(Jittery Joe's), Hartley(BMC), Omer Kem(Priority Health/Bissell), Andy Fischer(Hagens-Berman) as well as Kenny Williams(First Rate Mortgage), Donald and the CMG/Alpine Mortgage crew, and Team Rubicon fresh out of the Tri-Peaks leader's jersey.

Zach Winter ended up taking the win in the Golden City crit, making him 2-for-2 last weekend. Watch out for the Captol Subaru jersey on Sunday.

John Leonard(Casa Bruno) won PIR, neither of the top-3 were Rubicon or BMC, wow.

King of the Mountain starts next Wednesday, that's right, the Mt. Tabor series. Bring it!!!!!

Not much to talk about this week, next will be busy Hood, Tabor, PIR, Philly Week. Locals should be at all of them.


Giro hasn't shown much yet. Aaron Olsen has been putting his time in at the business end of the peloton, defending the Maglia Rosa with a 6 man team (OUCH!!!!). I'm pretty sure that'e him sitting on Pinotti's wheel.

Here's my viewing guide/predictions:
Salvodelli wins tomorrow(Stage 12).


DiLuca will fade (that's a guarantee).







Cunego will only get stronger.













Simoni will do more ballin' than winnin'. He's a baller.







The Dark Horses: Ricco(Saunier Duval), Simoni already called him the team leader in a bit of pre-race gamesmanship; Andy Schleck(CSC)on the podium?; how well will Salvodelli climb?.

See you Sunday, I got rained on tonight. WHILE DOING MONSTER HILL INTERVALS, BOOOOYAAAAAHHHH!


For some reason comments were turned off for the last post, I'm not sure how. I didn't do it.
They're back on.

Motorin'!!!!(What's your price for flight)

Team Rubicon's wild ride at the Tri-Peaks Challenge has come to an end. After three stages defending the leader's jersey, Karl Menzies(HealthNet/Maxxis) took the lead after the Stage 4 TT. That left the penultimate Mt. Nebo climb to decide the GC.

On Mt. Nebo, Jelly Belly uber-climber Andy Bajadali managed to launch himself to the top of the GC, crazy fast skinny guy Chris Baldwin(ToyotaU) snuck into second and New Zealand-via-Vancouver/Portland's own Aaron Tuckerman(Team Rubicon) landed 3rd overall.

Aaron was going super-fast at this time last year, but this ride is above and beyond. Mad respect to all of Team Rubicon for not only winning stage but defending the jerey through most of the race. Watch out at Hood!

Unfortunately, media coverage at Tri-Peaks was scant at best. Aaron's stage-1 win was ahead of schedule and there was nobody there to get a pic. Results also barely trickled in over cyclingnews.com. We're used to seeing results of our amateur races an hour or two after the finish (OBRA is the best!!!).


So Zach Winter(Capitol Subaru) went off and does what he does best: start trouble one day and then totally throw down the next. Here he is taking his victory lap at the Table Rock RR way down south. Pic by theK-man, who has a bunch of 'em up over on his site.

Young'en Ian Boswell(Hagens-Berman) took the 3's.

Aaron Coker(CMG/Alpine Mortgage) took a great win on Swan island in the pouring rain Sunday afternoon. After Donald Reeb(CMG/Alpine Mortgage) attacked after the final prime lap, Aaron bridged up with a small group and took a great sprint.

Tuckerman wins at Tri-Peaks!!!

Holy moly, Aaron Tuckerman(Rubicon) took the first stage of the NRC Tri-Peaks Challenge over Karl Menzies and Chris Baldwin. Check it out.

What the????

The craziest thing happened at PIR last night. A small group of riders decided that they could ride faster than the rest of the field and, I don't quite know how to say this, broke away from the main bunch. Well, this "breakaway" managed to last, like, the whole race. It lost a few guys and Steve Holland(Finnegan's Toys/Discover Chiropractic) managed to bridge up to it. But in the end, PIR did not come down to a Rubicon driven bunch sprint, because Rubicon is in Arkansas, more on that later.

Steven Beardsley(CMG/Alpine Mortgage) did best Chad Hartley(BMC) in the bunch sprint, so good for him. Zach Winter was back in action and looking pretty strong. Apparetnly he did not pay so his top-10 result will go unrecorded.

Question for OBRA: Why record the "not signed in" guys at all. Why not just ignore them completely, offer points to the top 10 or whatever riders that sign and pay, and not give the guys that don't pay the satisfaction of being the NSI 7th place guy? Here's some pics.

Joe Martin ended up being fairly kind to local boys. Chad Hartley took 5th in the final day's hilly crit, Dan Harm(Rubicon) ended up 16th on GC. Tri-Peaks is this weekend so hopefully those guys can keep the ball rollin'.

The TTT State Champ's were a week or two ago and the CMG/Alpine Mortgage guys led by Seth Hosmer took that one with half a minute to spare. Carson Miller(Fred Meyer/Lakeside), Jacob Rathe(BBC), and Ian Boswell(Hagens-Berman) took the Cat 3's no problem. How long 'till they're all in HB kits?

The racing is spread far and wide this weeekend Table Rock on Saturday, Swan Island and Golden City crits on Sunday. Yes, an OBRA race south of the border, what is this world coming to? Enumclaw is also happening this weekend in Washington, it's an omnium instead of a stage race this year.

You should be able to watch the Giro over at RAI, I can't seem to get it to work on my Mac, but I could on my girlfriend's PC and the video qualty was great. Most stages finish up about 8'ish, perfect for watching the last 40k before you're out the door to work (or a ride if you're lucky). I'm calling it now: Cunego, Cunego, Cunego!!!!

Did anyone catch that Simoni was bitchin' about his younger, fitter teammate (Ricco) this year before the race even started?

Aaron Olsen(T-Mobile) is again riding the best bike race in the world. Hopefully this year he carries that over into a Tour appearance instead of mopping the floor with us this July.

Big Results at Joe Martin!!!

Stage 2: Donald Reeb(CMG/Alpine Mortgage), 10th, without teammates (WOW!).
Chad Hartley(BMC), 14th.

While I was out.......

So, it's been a little while. I'm finally settled in Portland more permanently, Comcast FINALLY got my internet hooked up, the mountain of moving boxes in my living room is now a small pile, and my fitness isn't totally gone.

On the Oregon tip, the biggest news seems to be the carnage at PIR. The first 1/2 PIR in May had a nasty wreck going into the last turn of the first hot-spot lap. A couple Rubicon guys went down, one from Hagens-Berman, a French(?) guy who I'd never seen before. Mark Duff(Guinness) apparently got the worst of it with a broken collarbone and collapsed lung, hopefully he's recovering.


The May 7 Masters' race also featured a nasty wreck, captured here by Shane Young at OregonVelo.

It seems as though guys might be keeping it a little too tight on the curves for a Tuesday night series. Yeah, PIR can be fast, but the sprints are like 500 meters long. It's not exactly one of those course where the first guy around the bend wins the race. The Monday crash was apparently caused by a seam in the pavement, so that might be a different issue all together.

For some reason, the OBRA schedule experiences a big drop-off in road races when May hits. Meanwhile, the Washington schedule remains lively:

Vance Creek Road Race - It was a while ago (April 29), but deserves a mention. How's this for a stacked field: Tyler Farrar(Cofidis), Ian McKissick(BMC), Doug Ollerenshaw(HealthNet/Maxxis), Evena Elken(Jittery Joe's), and David Richter(ItalPasta), just hangin' out at the weeekend amateur race. Maybe someone established a regional pro championship that nobody else knows about. Add those guys to a full Hagens-Berman squad and the Rubicon boys who are riding out of their skulls these days and we've got a race on our hands.

On a windy course with all that horsepower, the field shattered into a select 12-15 rider group containing most of the Rubicon guys and about all of the pro's. Doug, Tyler and Aaron Tuckerman(Rubicon) managed a gap which Doug eventually dropped out of. Farrar was the not so surprising winner and the rest of the results are right here.

Washington also settled their State Championship last weekend on a course in Longbranch, WA near Tacoma. The course was fairly difficult. It was seven laps of a 10 mile with one extremely steep(12-14%) climb of about 800 meters toped off with a rolling section before the descent whipped us back around the course to do it again.

A break got off early, and much to everybody's surprise, stayed away for about 6 of the seven laps. Chris Daifuku(First Rate Mortgage) took the win, ageless fast guy Dave Zimbleman(Z Team) was there to help the break motor along. Hagens-Berman put in a couple laps of serious chase, but the obvious contenders Russell Stevenson(BRI), Jamie Stangeland(Wines of Washington), and Lang Reynolds(Axley) seemed pretty OK with the break and just settled in to finish the race. Pro's in attendance included Richter, Brandon Crichton(Symmetrics), and Ryan Miller(Toyota United). Mike Hone's got all the pictures you need to see. WSBA's got results.

The month of May also means that the NRC really heats up. Hagens-Berman sent a team to Gila. Sam Johnson looked to be their strongest rider finishing with the main pack most days. Former Broadmark rider Tom Peterson(Slipstream/Chipotle) took a HUGE win in the stage 3 road race.

The Joe Martin Stage Race kicked off on Friday, a bunch of NW riders are in attendance: Chad Hartley(BMC), Team Rubicon, Hagens-Berman, Donald Reeb(representing CMG/Alpine Mortgage solo), Omer Kem and Morgan Schmitt(Priority Health). Bend's own Andy Fischer(Hagens-Berman) put in a very immpressive 14th on the first stage.

Bits of team news to wrap it up:
- Chad Nikolz has stepped back from a spot on the Hagens-Berman Elite squad and is now racing for Axley Sunglasses, where he'll also work.
- Mikkel Bossen(CMG/Alpine Mortgage) is apparently a Scientologist and has decided to try out for some Scientologist conflict diffusion team. Now that's an experience you don't get on a bike. Apparently we won't get to see him go crazy fast when crit/track season is in full swing.
- Ian McKissick(BMC) is over in Europe where the BMC squad won the TTT at the Giro del Friuli Venezia Giulia. That's a long way from winning Elkhorn.

Keep the rubber side down.
I'll try and post more.

A bit busy.

I've been moving this week and don't have a computer to sit down at and do a full report. I should be back up on it in a day or two.

Elken(Jittery Joe's) killed the Roubaix. Donald and Seth(CMG/Alpine Mortgage) followed him in. Sounds like a good race.

Big wreck at PIR last night, several guys went down HARD on the last turn of the first Hot Spot lap. Sounds like Mark Duff(Guinness) got the worst of it. Rubicon won, again.