Thoughts after the Meeting

My mind was buzzing last night as some of us congregated at Chicora Alley. We will get minutes out soon. I would really encourage you to use the balance wheel in terms of your cycling capabilities. Put each element on one of the spokes. Be detailed. Instead of skills, give each skill needed to race, a spoke. Rate yourself......more importantly, get one or more of your team mates to rate you or look at the wheel with you. Remember, their perspective is often more accurate than yours. Unless you are currently a Tour rider, you will very likely have some flat spots in your wheel.

It is these flat spots that must be addressed for you to improve. Most folks want to work on the stuff at which they are already good. Champions train their limiters.

Two things came up last night that are heard very often:

* I am not a sprinter

* I am not a time trialer

Here's the truth. There are only two ways to win a race or even get on the podium. One is sprinting and the other is in a break away. If you get in a break, it usually requires sprinting to establish it and you must time trial to sustain it....either individually or in a multi person basis.

So if you can't do either, you might just as well go home! Or, hopefully practice these skills. We talked about clinics and embedding practice of these on TEAM training rides. It is imperative that we learn these skills.

After being in business several years I found that most people claim they have, let's say 20 years of experience. Really, they have 1 year of experience 20 times.

We are entering our second year. Our opportunities are to build on the tremendous success we had this year......in racing, 116 top finishes. This doesn't even count all the other great things we accomplished.

Let's make sure that in 2011, we create our second year of experience vs. repeating 2010!

We planted the seeds last night for great year.......see you on the podium.

Vista Grand Prix Crit Columbia, SC

My son Jeffrey wanted to do the race on Sunday. I thought what the heck, since I was already here, I should do the masters race and at least get a good work out. 1k 4 corners and a hill. I am not a crit racer and less a crit racer in pouring rain, so when the guy behind me nicks my wheel from behind in the third corner of the second lap and all I here is this crashing sound. I wonder at that point of the race what am I doing here? So there is this hill. No big deal, but when you have to fly over it 25 times (because someone had to attack almost every time) it starts to hurt. I bit my teeth together and finished the race. 4th overall (+35) and 3rd in my age group (+45). Even received a medal.

Tour of the Carolinas

After 6 days of premier Carolina terrain, we ended with a ride with George. Many of TEAM headstrong were along to celebrate the 26th for Wein.

Earlier in the week, we had the group out and Bird was back at a convenience store. G noted that instinctively the other headstrong riders waited back for him. Today, Mel flatted and Sam and Perry pulled over to stay with him. I guess it these little things that make me thankful for our team and each of you. Sam/Perry, thankyou for helping Mel!

The tour encompassed 400+ miles and 20,000 ft of climbing. Everybody kept the wheels down and had great time!

2010 Top Rider of the Year (IMHO) --- Team Headstrong

Giselle Weekes.... Nationals Podium 2nd, 3rd, 2nd, State Champion RR, ITT... Cover Girl.....

Awesome.....

The picture above appeared in Hincapie Sports annual Team Kit Brochure. The kits were designed by our own Mel Dias, Samantha Smith and Christina Maddox. We are proud Giselle and our kits were chosen by Hincapie for their brochure!

City of Greenville CYCLING NEWS update

Those of us that live and ride in Greenville will be very encouraged to learn of the undertakings of the city in promoting itself as a bike friendly place to live and ride. Please take the time to research the information that is covered in the following link. It speaks to the initiative, the bike friendly comunity and the bike friendly business designation. The Greenville Powers-at-Be have provided bicycle maps (roads, mountain and trails), as well as oportunities for training/development such as Traffic Skills 101 (learning how to ride on a road), as well as the legal side of driving and sharing the road with cyclists. There is also information on Greenville's mass transit move to incorporate bike racks on the city buses.

This site has many downloadable forms and brochures for you to utilize and/or share with longtime cyclists and beginners.

http://www.greenvillesc.gov/ParksRec/Trails/bikeville.aspx

A big THANK YOU for Andrew Meeker, Urban Designer for designating many roads with "Sharrows" (graphic of Arrow and Bike--sharing of the road between cars and bikes).

Farewell, but Not Goodbye

As a few of you may already know, the State RR was my last race for Team headstrong. I have decided to ride for Kenda next season. This has been an awesome year for me, you guys have pushed me to do things I never thought possible. Although we will be on competing teams next year (watch out G), I will always consider every member of headstrong a friend. I will miss being your temmate. How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.

State RR Congrats

I just wanted to congratulate everybody on their awesome performances on Saturday! I especially wanted to thank all the cat 4 woman who really sacrificed for me out there. I only regret that I couldn't win it in the end, but I have a bone to pick with Courtney in future races--I'll get her next time or at least make her work for it =-)!!!

p.s. I apologize for seeming melancholy at the awards. I was actually felling really bad (blood sugar low and dehydrated)--I promise I was not mad or upset (you guys will know if on the rare occasion I get mad--lol)!

CAT 4 WOMEN CLAIM TITLE BUT FOCUS ON STATE RR

The Cat 4 TEAM has dominated the WE Racing Series this year and is so far ahead going into the State RR Championship that the lead can not be overcome.

Emily Wood and Elizabeth Brady have accumulated the largest point totals with 210 each and have good shot at individual placement. Christina Maddox, Lara Shaw and Kristi Stratton have racked up solid points, as well, to make it a team accomplishment.

THEY ARE NOT TAKING THE STATE RR CASUALLY THOUGH!!! The whole group has been feverishly preparing.

It will be war on Saturday, as the team pursues the State Championship Jerseys in Cat4 and several age group categories. The team looks for stiff competition!

Jerseys will be awarded on stage, Sunday, at the US Pro Championships.

TEAM headstrong gets it done in the dirt!

This past Sunday was Team Headstrong’s first (and definitely not last!) mountainbike skills clinic, held atGateway Park, behind Sunrift Adventures in TR. What a blast! We’re sorry that more members of the team weren’t able to make it., but we’ll do it again.

Deb, Jon and I met at the park at just after 8am, to set up the obstacles borrowed from Upstate SORBA. It’s amazing what you can carry in one hand when you just can’t let go of your coffee mug.

At 9am, Headstrong team members began to arrive and set up their bikes. Kristi borrowed a bike that Deb managed to score for her, Randall and Christina were on their own bikes (though Christina had bike envy by the end of the day. There are worse afflictions to have, we decided!), Perry showed up on a snazzy Specialized Epic, Bird on a ‘niner (you can climb trees on those things), Emily on something yellow and heavy which did not slow her down a bit (sorry Em, I don't remember what it was!) Deb on her very fast, very flashy Trek, and Steve and I on our Giant Anthems; a real motley crew of bikes.

Sam gets the fun started while Deb is fixing Kristi's pedals

We started working on basic balance on the bike, learned the skill of “ratcheting” which you don’t really use on a road bike, but is essential to staying upright in tight spaces on the trail. We had a “slow race” where we had to keep moving, towards the same end of the field, and the last one to get there was the winner.

From there we moved to wheelie-lifts, learning how to un-weight the front wheel to clear obstacles, and we practiced lifting our front wheels onto a box about 3 inches tall and then progressed to one about 6 inches tall. When everyone had mastered that, we moved onto the bunny hop, which is a lot of fun on a bike with some kind of suspension.

Emily crushes the Teeter-Totter first time around

The “teeter-totter” seemed to be the most intimidating of all the obstacles, but after two or three times, everyone was ready for a much bigger one. Piece of cake!

We spent some time moving through each obstacle on the field, teaching the correct way to shift body position for maximum traction and a smooth ride. Without exception, everyone mastered every obstacle there – it was great to see the confidence levels rising, and the “aha!” moments.

After every obstacle was checked off the list, we set up a continuous course, the idea being not to touch a foot to the ground, even if we had to wait for the person in front of us to keep moving. Everyone did a fantastic job, and made it look like they’d been doing it for years.

Teenie doing the shimmy on the skinny (real mountainbikers really talk like that.)

At about noon, we packed up and had some lunch, and then headed off to Paris Mountain State Park to put our newly-learned skills to practical use, and to learn some more that aren’t really teachable until you get to real situations. In the trails we learned skills like correct gearing and body position on short, steep, rooty power climbs, body position on tight descending switch-backs, and correct position for steep descents with some obstacles. It was great fun encouraging each other, and everyone did really well.

Perry getting his "dirt" on

It was a fun day, and I think, without exception, every one of us learned something new. The skills used in mountainbiking translates over to road cycling, and will help us all become better skilled road cyclists.

Powerbar : Power To Push

Thank you to Powerbar for providing nutrition for our event.

WILD FIRE STRIKES BOULDER, CO!!!

Our friends, Joe and Joyce Friel are in Boulder for the summer and have had close call with a fierce wild fire that took more than 50 homes in their area. You will find this link interesting: http://www.dailycamera.com/news/ci_16032818

Please also enjoy Joyce's perspective on the events of the week:

Life is a White Board

Every once in a while we all experience something in our lives that puts things into focus. Something that helps us rebalance our priorities and reassess our world. A flood, a fire, an accident, a death, a near miss or some other unexpected calamity. For me right now, it is the Four Mile Canyon fire burning just west of our home in Colorado. The water-bearing helicopters and retardant slurry bombers haven’t stopped for over 2 days and the air is full of acrid smoke and ash. We are focused on the positive in that we have no direct harm and there have not been any injuries reported from this fire. I heard one of the victims who lost his home say in a newspaper interview that Life is a White Board and his had just been erased clean.

It seems to me this is an apt metaphor for those times in our lives when we are caused to stop and reevaluate. Rather than focusing on the life that was there a second ago that just got erased, maybe we should focus on ensuring the white board always has written on it what is most enduring, most endearing and most valuable to us.

As this gentleman went on to say, it wasn’t the ‘stuff’ he would miss, it was the memories. His family was fine and he could rebuild, but he would always long for the ancient Mayan ruin items he found in South America and he would always long for treasures he brought back from Egypt. Now he will concentrate on the treasures he has with him that are dear and enduring which are his family, his health and his life.

I’m wondering what is written on your White Board of Life. Is it something worth preserving through your actions and deeds or is it something more fleeting and less substantial. I know I sometime get caught up in the day-to-day scribbles on my own White Board and lose sight of the messages I most want my family, friends and colleagues to know and always remember about me.

Now is a good time to assess as the clouds are moving in and we have a 30% change of rain to help the fire fighters get the Four Mile Canyon fire under control.

Joyce Friel

Let's give thanks they are OK!

One Mo Time

Fork Shoals at 9 am Friday the 10th to pre ride the State RR course! Should be several TEAM headstrong riders there!

State Course Training Ride

Sam, Mel, Wein, Teenie and I hit the course this morning pretty hard. We worked on pace line, 30 second pulls, pulling thru and powering the hills.

We studied the course for opportunities and challenges. When to sit and when to stand. We talked tactics. We launched attacks.

We all agreed our skills were much improved from when we came together as TEAM headstrong. We all showed very strong fitness for the upcoming race.

Teenie and I met Perry later for lunch at Chicora Alley. We talked racing and TEAM stuff. Perry is focusing on the USAT National Long Course Tri Championship in Myrtle Beach on Oct 2.

I feel very fortunate to have you guys in my life and be associated with the TEAM. This is a big part of my life and a continual source of joy. I think it has helped me race better but that shrinks in comparison to the happiness it all brings. As LA once wrote, "It ain't about the bike."(or something like that?)