Pan-American Championships

Bausch wins continental pursuit title

Montevideo, Uruguay (May 6, 2008)—Dotsie Bausch (Irvine, Calif.) gave the United States its second medal at the 2008 Pan American Road and Track Championships on Monday with a victory in the women’s 3000-meter individual pursuit.

Bausch clocked a winning time of 4 minutes, 2.91 seconds to win the gold medal by five seconds over Ana Rocio Bernal (COL).

The 2008 Pan American Road and Track Championships continue through May 11.

Anniston Crit

Post victory Glow in Anniston after Tina put her stamp on the Sunny King Crit!! We had a great race, and we would especially like to thank Patty King for her southern hospitality and yummy bread from Birmingham.

Speedweek Wrap-up

We won 6 out of 8 races! yay! This was a very hard week because of the driving transfers from race to race all over the Southeast. The races were all evening races which meant that we would finish at night and then have to drive to the next city, usually arriving past midnight. The sleepers on the team (and there are many this year - double yay!) were having a separate competition for most amount of hours of sleep squeezed in before having to get up and do it again. Tina wins the gold medal, followed closely in second by Nikki and I believe Bronze is a toss-up between Tiff and Iona. Shontell is off the back in the sleeping competition as she only requires about 5-6hours!

So, the gist of the race series was that we had Tina in the overall competition and we wanted to keep it that way, so we decided after Walterboro that we would prefer to keep the field together most days. It was just much simpler than having to figure out if the composition of a break would be good for us or not. Not that we mind breaks, those are fun, and we were always represented in them, but within this series there were all sorts of mini-tallies going on: most laps led, team GC, individual GC, primes every lap, best under 25 rider - seriously, it was getting a little complex figuring and calculating in the blink of an eye if a break composition was good.

Cheerwine and Aarons seemed intent on doing the opposite and forcing a break, so we had our work cut out for us to cover those moves and neutralize them, then get up there for the lead out for Tina! But, happy to say, most of the time we managed it and we are tired but happy.

So, next up for us: Mt Hood, and Joe Martin.
Mt. Hood roster: Iona, Tina, Dotsie, Tiffany, Andrea, Kristin
Joa Martin roster: Nikki, McKenzie, Sam

Tina and Dotsie have been selected for the US National Team for Continentals in Uruguay this week, and Iona is also going but will be representing Jamaica.

Pictures to follow....we have many!

Mt Hood...Here We Come!

Andrea and I consider ourselves 'more fit' after this week racing the Tour de Gila. I did my best to defend my second place on GC, but much to my dismay, my legs would not pedal any faster on the last day. After originally making the break on the climb on stage 5, I eventually had to drop off and go my own pace. 15 miles alone in the Gila national forest helped me sharpen up my fitness and mental toughness. I finished 6th on the day and dropped to 5th overall....Disappointing in the long run yet this week was a great learning experience in stage racing. Andrea was having a great week until she was struck with the revenge of Silver City, ie the stomach virus going around town. She delivered me safely and as fresh as possible to the base of the Gila Monster climb and then proceded to suffer up the climb as nobody in the caravan really believed that she was puking and would like a ride in a car....I think she sharpened her mental toughness today as well. All I have to say is watch out everyone at Mt. Hood, after some R & R and another week at altitude in Boulder, CO, Dre is going to be flying at Mt. Hood!

Hello from Windy Gila

Well Andrea and I have been a little slack on blogging as we are in a place of mucho wind, limited internet, intermittent cell service....well you get the picture. So just a brief update for now.....Stage 1 was point to point 77 miles from downtown silver city to the top of Mogollon. We managed to stay out of the wind and out of the crashes (one sent Kris Keim from Kenda to the hospital with a sacral fracture). We started the climb in great position and continued to climb at our own paces. At one point I found myself leading up the climb with a significant gap on Leah Goldstein from Valuact....she eventually caught and passed me to take the win while I held on for second and Andrea finished a strong fifth while still adjusting to the dry altitude.

Stage 2...Inner loop stage
Wow another day of broken bones and tons of wind (like 50 mph gusts). We again stayed out of the wind and climbed strong to find ourselves in the lead group of 19. A satifying break of 3 rolled off the front and stayed off the entire race. Our GC positions were never threatened so we stayed protected and safe. As we entered the finishing straight, a brief thought was given to leading Andrea out for the fourth place sprint, but since we had pulled the entire group for over a mile into a head/cross wind, we had to settle for 11th (AD) and 13th. We maintained our GC positions for another day! Tomorrow is the time trial and they are forcasting the wind to be only 10-14 mph...horrah!!! Shout out to Tyler Wren for taking the sprint in the men's field. The men maintained their overall GC positions with Anthony Colby sitting second.

Peace out from Silver (middle of nowhere) City we hope to supply photos tomorrow!

Beaufort Crit

Last night was the second race in the Southeast Crit Series. Nikki and Iona flew in to join the squad this week. We weren't super offensive, it was more just being attentive on the front and that worked out well as moves were covered and finally one move contained Tina in it that was trying to stick. It was Tina with Rebecca Larson (Aarons) and Laura Van Gilder (Cheerwine) so that gave the peloton pause as 3 big teams were represented. The hesitation was enough to get them a little space and from there the 3 teams monitored to see who would try to bridge across, just to be ready to go with a move and make sure numbers were always in our favour. The race was pretty mellow overall. In the final laps, the speed picked up a bit and the gap was coming down, but the trio managed to get to the line before the field did and Tina got the upper hand over Laura and then Rebecca.

The goal was to get the win and start moving riders into the overall lead as well as placing in the top 5 overall.

We poached on the Cheerwine train and tried to get as many of us over the line in the top 10 as possible, which worked out. So we have Tina now first in the overall, as well as Tiff in the best young rider jersey.


We also had a chance to get a picture of the mens podium, where Kyle Wamsley took second. From what we could see of the mens race, the boys worked well together and set up the train at the front with Davide, Luca, Anibal rotating on the front protecting Sebastian and Kyle. It worked out perfectly, as Seba took 4th and Kyle's second place was very close, he sprinted on the right side whereas Hilton Clarke of Toyota sprinted left and as it happened, the left side worked out better.

Athen's Twilight Crit!!!!!!!!!!

Athen's Twilight well what can I say.... CRAZY to say the least and the first crit in the US crit series, also known as speed week!

The squad for Athen's was Tina, Shontell, Tiffany, and guest rider Sam Schnider who also rode with us in Redlands. Shontell, Tiffany and Jack flew in to Atlanta on the day of the race after avoiding storms then finally landing collecting baggage hit traffic then finally arrived at the race 45 mins before the start meet up with Sam and Tina and ready to roll!!!!

Collage town the sun is setting and it was party time, they had the standard call up's everybody pushing for front row start then 3-2-1 goooooooo! Preme on the next lap! great way to warm up and get going it felt like there were preme's almost every lap and as it got darker the crowd grew larger and the atmosphere was builing and it was insane. Tina covered a number of things early then Shontell got across in a break and it was a perfect break all the strong teams were represented and Shontell has a good finish so we were happy but coming around for the mid-way 5 deep preme a crash happened in the break-away and Shontell went down!! That break was brought back then counters went and Tiffany got into a break of 5 girls and the field almost sat up at that point and the gap grew eventually getting half a lap on the field once again each of the strong teams were represented and as the laps counted down and more and more premes were thrown at us then at one point confusion happened as 3 girls who crashed a number of laps previous were put into the break and then nobody knew what was going on then the break kept working through and tried to ignore they were there however they raced hard got the count downs the race went super quick and one-lap to go the action started in the break with Catherine Cheatley (cheerwine) attacking with two corners to go with Rebecca Larson (Aarons) on her wheel and Tiffany was right there next however Tiffany was caught off guard and Larson and Cheatley were off sprinting and Tiffany tried to hold on but ended up 5th then Tina took out the bunch sprint on the flood light lit crazy streets of Athen's Georgia!

The result was ok for the team however we always like to get onto the podium, lesson were learnt, lungs were opened, craziness was achieved on the short 1km 4 corner course and it was lots of fun with an amazing atmosphere!!!

Now the girls have two days rest to chill at Tina's house as we say goodbye to Sam and Say hello to Iona and Nikki in a couple of days for the next race of Speedweek, Beaufort, SC in the deep south!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Until next time keep it rubber side down!

P.S sorry for the lack of photo's we were a bit slack with the camera however next time promise to have plenty more!!!!