SquadraOvest Cycling Team

CO Mt. Bike Hill Climb

Mark Mastoras takes a trip to the Rockies and reports on a tough Mt. Bike Hill Climb.

Race: MTB race (hill climb)
Category: Expert (cat 1) 40+
Field: 16
Finish: 12th
Course: brutal

While in Steamboat Springs I rented a MTB (an excellent Rocky Mt. Altitude) and entered the local town challenge MTB race. This race happened to be a serious hill climb starting at 7000′ and proceeding
up to 9000′ over 4.5 miles. I was nervous and as it turns out rightfully so, I went off with the 40+ experts and for a small town there was a serious amount of fit competition, old mountain men.

At the start they drilled it, and I’m like WTF? Thankfully after about 1000 meters the pace settled down some so maybe the start was for show or adrenaline. I was just trying to stay with the group and
managed to make it about 1/2 way up when the double-tracked turned into single-track switch backs after that it was just finding my own pace.

3/4 the way up a women on a single-speed went by me ! Don’t mess with the locals!

After a seeming eternity (49.21 minutes) it was over and I was treated to 2000′ feet of single-track downhill, yea!

Nevada City Classic - P/1/2

Teammates: Just me (Angelo)
Field: About 150
Place: Don’t ask

Lance beat me.

Actually, he and many others crushed me. It was insane how fast the Nevada City Classic was this year. I’ve done this race previously as a cat 3 and it was super-tough. Upgrade the category and add some of the best riders in the world and it gets a bit tougher…

I didn’t really plan on racing it this year, but when Lance, Levi and Horner announced that they were going to race it I changed my mind. Now I can say that I raced Lance. Even though it was short lived for me, I can still say it. Of ~150 starters, maybe 30-40 finished…most of which were lapped by Armstrong.

Even the neutral lap seemed to be a race to move up. Here’s a shot of me and Lance hammering it out on the climb: (Click on this to enlarge it and see that it really is me - ha!)
He utilized his call up to get great position for the start…the announcer couldn’t pronounce my last name and failed to call me up to the front.

I did get some fame (joke coming up courtesy of my teammate Jan):

“Look at the two guys in the background. The one guy is proud of his picture that he just took of Angelo, the other is texting his 10 friends about how Angelo is doing…”

This must be the part of the race where I was putting the hammer down on Armstrong because I’m in the big ring and climbing the steep pitch (the camera angle doesn’t give it justice.)

Anyway, it was awesome out there this year. The “Lance Factor” created a HUGE crowd that was totally into it. I felt very pro climbing and descending with that many people out watching. I was even asked for my autograph by a young kid before the race started…look for it on Ebay.

1st place: Lance Armstrong
2nd place: Ben Jaques-Maynes
3rd place: Levi Leipheimer

BIG Win the Madison Event in San Diego!!

The “Madison” is a spectacular track event. Beautiful to watch and tough to pull off.

Here’s a cool video that follows one rider around while the cameraman explains what’s happening:

And now…the full report from Javier:

Race: San Diego Velodrome Madison
Teams: 5
Former Pro’s in Race: 1
Number of Former National Champions: 2
Riders with International Racing Experience: 5
Distance: 20k (60 laps) with sprints every 10 laps.
Teammate: Brett Harnish (the other SoCal teammie)
Number of other races we both raced earlier that night: 3

Going into the 4th and final event of the night, Brett stated he was feeling good and had a nice snap to his legs. On the other hand, I was lacking the snap, but was feeling okay to ride a strong pace and put in some attacks. My only concern was the slow leak in my rear tire. It
would lose about 20psi every 10-15 minutes. Not being one that likes borrowing other riders equipment, especially so close to the start of the race, I decided to pump up the tire to 140psi and with luck, it would carry me through to the end of the 30ish minute race.

We start the race and are marking the blue team since they had one the madison held earlier in the season. For some reason they didn’t have their act together tonight and would end up being a non-contender.

First sprint of the night I get thrown in for it and while trying to come around for 2nd place, my rear tire is feeling a little too soft for the speed I was riding at (33+mph) and I just didn’t feel safe to push it. I take 3rd in the sprint and it gives us 2 points.

Next sprint Brett goes in for it and takes 2nd place while in the third sprint I also manage to take 2nd.

We’re half way into the race and my rear tire is feeling way too soft. I go into the infield and it turns out it’s hoovering at around 100psi. Not good. I’m offered a spare wheel but decide it would be faster to pump it back up to 150psi and not leave Brett hanging out with less than 30 to go.

I jump back in the race, and going into the 4th spring, we manage another 2nd place thansk to Brett’s good sprint.

At 17 to go the announcer stated the Silver team is in 1st with 17 points and we are in 2nd with 12. There are two sprints to go and we need to win both and have them place 3rd or lower in at least one of them.

13 laps to go I tell Brett to wait for me in turn 1. I pull for two laps, mostly at the front of the group and with 1 to go, I throw him in pretty hard. The silver team was exchanging about 15 meters ahead of us and Brett was able to close the gap fairly quickly (in Madisons 15 meters difference is significant going into a sprint lap) and come around the Silver team for the win in the sprint.

Score is now Silver team 19, White team (meaning us) 17. The pressure is on for us to take the win and have them place 3rd, ideally 4th.

Five laps to go, Silver team is on my wheel. They are basically sitting on us and would try to come around. I take a two lap pull and throw Brett in with about 2.5 laps to go. At this point I am looking to see were other teams are exchanging and trying to place the Silver team in a position of traffic were we could open a gap and hold it till the end. With 2 to go, Brett throws me in as a red team rider attacks as I was coming down onto Brett. Brett yell’s go and I latch onto the red team. Silver team was making their exchange about 25 meters ahead of were Brett and I were exchanging. I then attack the red team and just power away for the next lap and a half and threw Brett in.

Silver team was caught off guard and unable to close the gap, however the black team was closing in on Brett. If he came around, we would tie for 2nd place, however Brett sprinted through and got 1st on the final sprint, with black team in 2nd and silver team in 3rd. We had
taken the win by 1 point.

By the way, the silver team consisted of Shaun Wallace and Allen Richburg, a former masters national champion.

Felt great to obtain a result especially considering my form is just recently improving, I had a flat and we were able to come from behind to take the win.

Dash for Cash: P/1/2/3

P/1/2/3
Team: Aaron, Angelo, Carmi, Dan, Gabe, Geoff, Jan and Murat (and Dino on the radio)
Course: Office park crit…almost rectangle, with a pretty good wind.
Top Placing: 9th (Carmi)

Being a 1/2/3 race, we had a very strong presence with 8 guys on the line. The Dash for Cash is a “prime-heavy” race…several $40 laps, a $500 gas card on the line and a $250 bonus for the person that could lap the field!

With 75 minutes of racing and all those primes this is typically a fast and competitive criterium. Well, it lived up to that. We played around a bit in some of the breakaway attempts, but nothing really stuck until late in the game. Once the race started to slow down a break of 9 formed and got 20 second on the field. Carmi ended up in a chase group 6 that wittled down to 2 (Carmi and a DBC Rider) bridged up to the break. Joel ended up attacking the break and won it solo and Carmi says, “I had nothing left in the tank and sprinted in for 9th.” Well done!

Jan mixed it up in the field sprint for a great placing as well…just outside of the top 10 due to the breakaway.

Good day of racing for sure. Everyone was working well together and sharing the workload at the front.

Photo Credit: Steven Woo

Rohnert Park Crit - P/1/2: 6th Place

P/1/2
Team: Aaron, Angelo & Jan
Place: 6th (Jan)
Course: Slightly undulating with gusty winds: 1.2 mile office park

The race got under way slowly but ramped up quickly. We had to do 75
min. Because of the wind, length of course and number of turns/curves a breakaway was bound to happen (almost every race before us was won in a break). After several attempts by us and others, one finally stuck and I think it was around 20 min into the race. Prior to that, we were all near the front taking turns going in breaks, but just missed this one that went away. Angelo tried to bridge up but the break was working too well together (Joel, Rand Miller, 2 other guys, one of which eventually got dropped). Angelo recalls, “I tried to bridge and they were almost instantly out of sight, after 2 solo laps I was back in the pack for some recovery.” So we tried with others to try and bring them back but no one was working well together at all. Jan tried several times to bridge and have some people come with him but it all got chased down by the pack. Angelo and Aaron continued covering attacks/bridge attempts. Jan finally made a move that stuck, “Then I (Jan) found myself on the front of the pack and I was like WTF so I attacked ala sprint and took a huge flier. Two guys came with me. So we started rotating well and got a great gap.” The break away had 45sec-1 min on Jan’s chase group, which eventually picked up the guy that was originally in the main breakaway and the 4 of them worked great together. So 3 up the road and Jan’s group of 4 chasing hard. With 40 sec or more on the pack this chase group was looking great. Jan’s group did not catch the main break, so they were racing for 4th. One rider attacked hard, Jan reacted and took 3rd in his group (6th overall).

We raced well today and we had fun. Granted, we should have been in that first group, but we are learning and getting better….

The (not-so) bad news of the day is that Jan’s placing earned us a box of Clif Bars, the winner got a case of beer. Personally, I (Angelo) think Jan should have rode harder and won us some beer.

Photo Credit: Mark Nakamura

Squadra 3’s Were ON Last Weekend: 1st, 6th, 7th, another 7th and 8th.

Photo courtesy Rozel Tupaz, Team Luzvimin

Not sure what to say really…Our Cat 3 team had a stellar weekend with 5 top tens in just 2 races. Gotta love it when your team is working well together.

Here’s Gabe’s write-up from the weekend (btw - he just came off of a 4th place the weekend before!)

Santa Rosa Crit:
We had Dino, Murat, and myself (Gabe). Fusion had five guys there, some San Jose team team had a handful of guys as well. Having Murat there made all the difference. Instead of covering breaks and trying to figure out which to chase down, I could could concentrate on position, save energy, and watch the other teams chase Murat around. There was a good headwind coming through the start finish so I made a note to come out of the last corner in maybe 3rd wheel. Fusion was super active as usual and with 1.5 to go lined up their whole team and drilled it. There was some pushing about to get on the train and I got the sweet spot as caboose. With half a lap to go Fusion had four guys left and Murat came up next to us. I let Murat slide in front of
me, one fusion guy swung off before the last corner. We were going pretty fast so I up-shifted going into the corner which I usually never do. Coming out of the corner the fusion guys spread out a bit and were all in front of me. I clicked it one more up, stuck my chin low and jumped, got it by a bike length. Dino pulled in for 6th and Murat 7th. Totally my kind of sprint, stretched out field, wide
open, and fast.

Livermoore Crit:
This time we had Dino, Eric, Matt, and myself. This was Jr. Championship Crit so there was ton of those little guys in the field. It was super windy and it was pretty funny watching these eighty pound guys just giving it their all into the head wind while the elite’s cruised comfortably. For the first few laps breaks went and came back, six or so laps in I got into a break of around five but there wasn’t much team representation and we weren’t getting it together. I sat up a bit and another break went with Dino. For the rest of the race Squadra did a kick ass job controlling the field. Although it was pretty easy, other teams with guys in the break were happy just to let us do the work. The break got out of sight and they even cought our tail end as we came across the finish. Dino pulled 7th and I won the field sprint for 8th.

A great day for the team. (Yes, this was all done on Saturday)

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Throwing Down Watts in Rhode Island

Lloyd Ranola’s on vacation in Rhode Island…he brought his bike and his A-game with. Here’s his report from the East Coast:

I brought my bike on vacation w/ me like I’ve done in years past. This week though, rather than bringing the bike to train, all my riding was planned to be spontaneous, and a bit of a break from the training and racing I’ve done so far this year. Vacation riding, with no ‘epic’ rides planned either. But throwing in a local group ride sounded like a good idea too. So I checked out the calendar for this area, and it turns out NEBRA (New England Bicycle Racing Assoc.) has a pretty busy little calendar with crits as early as the 1st week of March, every weekend, and often double booked just like our calendar. So, with the exception of winter base training on the bike, they’re just a month behind our calendar. Basically, another good part of the country for bike racing.

Knowing I didn’t have time on the weekends to do any local races, I stumbled upon a weekly training criterium. The course is in the middle of a large park/recreational space called Ninigret Park in Charlestown R.I. where on an old airstrip, they built a 9/10th of a mile paved course specifically for criterium racing.. imagine that? well here’s a POV video I found of the course (funny thing, a team Spine rider shows up a few minutes into it)

There’s an A and B race. B is cat 4/5.A-race is open to Cat 1,2,3 and 4. It’s $8 bucks to enter, and the promoter is super cool. Lot’s of beer and coffee primes. When I got there I chatted up a few guys and they said usually the race is about 60 to 70 riders, mostly cat 2 and 3. Local regular ‘fast guys’ include Mark McCormack (ex Saturn Pro, now Team Fuji/Clif Bar). I asked if breaks stay away, they said it’s about 50/50. Excited about the fast race, I didn’t even bother w/ the Cat 4/5 race, but sat in a few laps to warm up and get used to the course… well unfortunately, the weather sucked (cold and damp), and only 30 riders howed up for the A race.

Once we got rolling.. it was a hour long race. And right from the gun riders attacked. Not knowing this field at all, I followed every threatening looking break for the 1st 20 min or so. That hurt. Plus, they didn’t know me for at all, so I didn’t want to be a lazy *ss, and took my share of pulls to show I was willing to play. Single file racing was a hoot but I’m used to 40 minutes of sitting in til the finish, so my back was starting to kill me (need core work!). Everyone’s bike handling was great out there too.

With 8 laps to go, I stopped playing in the wind knowing there had been some guys now sitting for an end result (there were lot’s of 12 packs of beer and prizes the top 5 finishers). They didn’t like the cat and mouse too much with me pulling off quickly when I got to the front, but I wanted to save some legs (guys were like “pull threw” in their New England accents). Last 3 laps, the teams started to do their lead outs.. great racing. Last lap a couple guys go for it. They stuck it for 1st and 2nd.It’s a field sprint for 3rd, and I get schooled on the long head wind sprint for sixth of that group, finishing 8th place.

That was easily some of the funnest training/racing I’ve done. It’s like the Port ride, only organized with prizes (and no semi-trucks). And w/o the ‘real’ fast guys showing up.. I’m sure it was slower than the Port, but no where to hide, and much much faster than any Cat 4 races I’ve done too. I thanked the promoter, and he thanked me for showing up..
.. damn good time!

More Ridley Pictures!

As promised…more bling and where to buy one of these Belgian masterpieces (or Belgian rockets…I couldn’t decide which description fit better, so you pick.)

Lloyd’s Excalibur

Eric’s Orion

Matthew’s Damocles

If you live in the Bay Area (like most of us), you really should make a quick stop over to A Bicycle Odyssey in Sausalito. They are proud to carry Ridley Bikes and Tony and the rest of the team there is super-knowledgeable…they’ll get you rolling on the perfect bike for your style.

Pay them a visit…even if you are not in the market for a new ride, you will have a blast just looking around at all the bike bling everywhere…from old/vintage to today’s hottest Ridleys, they got it.

A Bicycle Odyssey (ABO)
1417 Bridgeway
Sausalito, CA 94965
(415) 332-3050

Get Directions

Bicycles Plus/Sierra Nevada Criterium (Folsom Crit)

Folsom Criterium
PRO/1/2
Team: Angelo, Carmi & Jan

The day started off with a LONG & SLOW car ride up to Folsom, CA…at one point we wondered if we would get there in time for our race at 4, but luckily we made it with time to spare…phew.

The field wasn’t too big, but the race was still pretty fast. Carmi covered a lot of breaks which meant Angelo and Jan just sat in. Then Angelo and Jan moved up and covered a bunch of break attempts. There a couple big guns in our field, Mike Sayers and Chad Gerlach. If one of these guys were in a break, the entire field felt compelled to bring it back in, so nothing seemed to stick.

Coming into the last 5 laps the three of us were in good position and we were all feeling pretty good. The pace was good and coming into the last lap at the start/finish line Carmi brought Jan and Angelo up to the front. It was two Wells Fargo guys in front of Jan, Angelo, Chad Gerlach, Mike Sayers and Dan Martin on our right. Perfect! Sayers went with Chad on his wheel and Jan on Chad’s wheel. We took the turn hard and fast. Sayers got up to sprint and Chad after him. Jan waited just a bit and then started his sprint. Once Jan shifted once more (into his after burner) he passed Chad and crossed the line in 2nd place a wheel down from Sayers.

What a great race. Our team work was amazing. We had this one down perfect and it worked to our advantage. Not bad for a team of three for the day. This was an awesome result and a good team effort.

We expect more results like this to come soon!

Unfortunately, the race promoters did not do any sort of podium shots, so this is all we have of the 2nd place finisher.

The Bikes of Squadra Ovest

Most of us roll on some pretty hot bikes. Our team sponsor Ridley Bikes makes some amazing bikes and we have several of these puppies transferring our power into pure speed.

Which Ridley bikes do we rock? The beauty of Ridley’s line up is that several of their bikes are suitable for top-level racing, unlike some other frame builders. Therefore, you’ll see us out on the road racing and training on 2009 & 2008 Noah’s, Damocles, Excaliburs, Orions. Outside of pure road machines, we also have a Dean Time Trial bike and an X-Fire cyclocross bike.

Here are a few of our race machines…keep an eye on the blog for more pictures over the next few weeks.

Dino’s Noah