2008 began with the horrible accident that took Scott Matty's life and nearly crippled Jeff Davis for life. Jeff's progress in his recovery has been mind boggling in how well he is doing.
Our race season is dedicated to both Scott and Jeff. With that said - the year has started off pretty well. The road team has taken off with a great big bang!
Tundra Time trial saw the boys get two top 10's in a very competitive field with times that rival top finishes in previous years.
ALBANY - Georgia CupAs Georgia Cup is the series we typically focus on - 2008 is not different. The GA Cup started in Albany in early March. Georgia Cup is a stage race format - modeled after more famous races like the TdF. Each stage earns the rider a time and the combined times of a riders events determine how their stage race placing turns out. Albany started well with John Stowe taking the Cat 4 Prologue and Steve Murray taking second in the Cat 4 -35+ group. The prologue was a very technical course with 12 turns in just over two miles.
The criterium was a 8 turn technical course and John again performed well with a top three finish and more MAR points than his competitors. The other guys did okay, but not like John. Also racing were Matt Ragan (fresh off knee surgery) and Victor Karm- V-man, Jonathan Cook, Steve Murray & Ryan Crabbe.
The Road race was pancake flat and the temps were brisk. Ryan Crabbe put in a monster sprint and placed 4th, John got 8th and the rest of us finished. For the RR, there were the addition of Shane Irvin,Bill Swain and Kevin Adams to our group.
Perry-Roubaix Series 7 Weekend (TT, circuit race and the RR with "Georgia Pave")
The TT was a tough one - 12 miles on rolling hills with rain looming. Steve & John each placed 3rd with good times. Matt & Victor also had good rides with top 20 finishes.
The circuit race saw some bold, aggressive riding from the faithful crew. The under 35 crew rode first. John finished 12, Matt 18th and Victor 21st. Steve placed 5th in his circuit race.
The RR was a tough course with hills, wind and a two mile dirt road on each of the 4 laps. John did great with a 4th place and next was Matt, Victor, and Ryan Crabbe. In the 35+ race - I have an excuse- a guy hit me and took me down on the last lap - threw my wheel out of true and I chased for 9 miles and never caught on. I finished 19th.
Mountain Bike - Macon Arrowhead TrailI have no details of the course- but Nicki Sutherland placed 3rd in the women's Expert group and Jose Mendez placed 9th in the men's Sport group
Columbus RaceNicki Sutherland - 2nd place
Jose Mendez - 3rd place
Victor Karm - 4th place
Gabe Denes Jr. - FIRST PLACE
Dayton Preston - 13th place
Gainesville - Georgia Cup For Gainesville -it was just Matt Ragan and Steve Murray. The weather was horrible. On Saturday, we awoke to heavy rain and got to race both our TT and RR in it. Did I mention the temps were mid 50's. That may be fine for Belgium, but this is Georgia for crying out loud!
Poor conditions worked well for me. I won the Cat 4 35+ TT and had a good RR. I took a flyer off the front with a few hundred yards to go. I was leading until about 40 yards when 23 other riders stormed by. Oh well. I still got the same finish time, so I had a lead going into Sunday. Matt rode a good TT and RR as well.
Sunday the weather got better and Matt and I both had good crits. I got 8th and didn't loose much time. I ended the weekend winning the stage race by 1.4 seconds.
Chattanooga - Georgia CupMatt Ragan and Steve Murray were the only riders from CBR to attend. The weather was great, the courses were great and we had a good weekend. Kind of.
Steve missed first in the TT by .5 seconds. It was a 5.5 mile TT with 3.5 miles of gradual climbing. The last portion was fast. Matt thought the course was 9 miles and didn't crank it up until the very end.
The crit course had six turns and was blazing fast. Matt's group had just over a 29 MPH average for the crit and mine had a 28.6 - really fast. I finished 8th and was going into Sunday with a 4.5 second overall lead. The RR was in a beautiful valley just below Lookout Mountain. Matt had the misfortune of getting wrecked by a guy 5 miles in and had to ride the race in the wheel truck. I rode a solid race and with 3 miles to go got behind a big wreck. I chased the group in front of the wreck, but never caught them. I finished :19 seconds back. The final results have me placing 2nd overall and Matt is not listed since he could not finish the Road race.
So far - So good!
