Willow Time Trial

Danny, Devin, Eric, Kathy, Jack, Jake, Micah, Nate and Shonger represented Team Active Racing at Michigan's first USA Cycling event of 2009, the Willow Park Time Trial.
Jack's Recap:

This year's Willow Time Trial finished kinda strange. Last year I knew nothing about riding a TT other than sticking a pair of aerobars on my old bike and riding as hard a I could. This year I was on an honest to god TT bike (BMC) with some borrowed wind cutting whack em and stack em wheels that I borrowed from Daryn. I put in a couple training rides before the Time Trial and went to bed confident that I had prepped all I could.
I woke up, ate a good breakfast, and arrived at Willow Metro Park in advance of the rest of the team and shot out a text message to let Danny know where I had staked out some pavement for us to warm up. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I could do to warm up. I knew after a year to riding that I dont even feel right until we have been riding for half an hour...that was about the total amount of time it would take to ride the 20k TT. I essentially used the Carmichael Training TT warm up as my guide only I extended the time. But I had to do two efforts that would red-line my heart rate in order to get the lactic acid flushing and my heart and lungs ready...that really worked well. Half way through the TT I was a little giddy that my warm up worked so well, not that I wasnt balancing the pain in my legs and the inability to get enough air, but that I was spinning and picking off one rider after another. The wind was almost the same as last year, right out of the SE, it drilled you into the saddle and forced smaller rings for the last couple turns. I had a good ride, I cut 3:30 off of last year's time (a lot due to the BMC TT rocket), but the strange thing is that I felt that I would have finished higher (damn ego) I find it funny how I become delusional in what I am capable of doing until the results are posted...reality is a great motivator for extra miles. Next up is the LJ 100. Tonight, a glass of wine before I look at what Kucharski has in store for training. Cheers!

RESULTS

Spring is in the Air

The grass is getting greener, group rides are getting faster and weekends are being dedicated to fast bike riding across the state for Team Active's 2009 roster.

Last Sunday Daryn, Keith and Dan made the trip to Yankee Springs Recreation area for the first installment of the Michigan Mountain Bike Series. In year's past racers were forced to suffer one 12 mile lap at maximum effort in a race against the clock, off season goals and friends. This year the promoter decided on a new form of torture, TWO LAPS!

The squad had a great showing with Daryn throwing down some screaming fast laps in the Michigan pro category and Dan Frayer squeaking into the expert class top ten.

Keith Wilkinson also put forth a great effort.

Here is Keith's experience:

 I showed up in the cold rain today and rode the Yankee Springs Time
Trial.  Dispite the less than ideal weather conditions, it was a fun, fast
ride.  That trail is a tough challenge and good litmus test for
your own personal condition.  I passed one guy at the top of a hill puking
his guts out :-)  
 
I was 14th in my group which does not sound too great but I was somewhat
satisfied with my time.

In other racing news, Brad Doane and Bob Emery tested their adventure racing
skills at the Spring Fury 10 Hour Race.
They pulled together a great race finishing
7th out of 21 two man teams.

Great Harvest Energy Bars

Rumor on the street is one of our title sponsor, Great Harvest Bread Company, has come out with a new energy bar.

No pictures yet but here is Iron Man Matt Wright's impressions:

I stopped in at Great Harvest this morning to get a few bread items, while I was there I thanked them for sponsoring us. The manager was happy to hear that, and she even gave me one of their "power bars" to try. I tried it this afternoon before my mountain bike ride and was very impressed! It tasted kind of like peanut butter and honey with oats and it packs some serious carbs and protein. The serving size is 1/2 a bar which is 270 calories and 48g carbohydrate with 7g protein. I would highly recommend giving them a try!

Stay tuned for a Yankee Springs Race Report