Sunday, August 8, 2004

Hines Drive Time Trials

Stop number 9 of the 2004 Michigan Challenge Series was the Cycling Saddlemen Hines Drive Time Trial in Dearborn, MI.

The event consisted of a 20km individual time trial followed by a 20km 2-person team time trial. The course used the same course as the state TT, except it was only 1 loop.

Some big guns were on hand and the winner of the Men’s Category 1,2 race was Jon Card with a time of 25’ 59.77”. I’m not great with the metric conversion but I calculate this to be 28.2mph on a rolling course with some wind. Gary DeAngelis laid down a smokingly fast time of 27’ 8.23” to take 3^rd in the Cat 1,2 race.

WAY TO GO GARY!!!

Steve Geerligs and Matt Siebert rounded out the Cat 1,2 field in 12^th and 13^th place.

In the Category 3 field Brian Kozeliski crushed everyone with a time of 27’ 20.97” which would have placed him in front of ½ of the Cat 1,2 field. There’s some debate as to whether Brian raced Saturday night or not and just how fresh he was for this TT, at least that’s my line. Randy Hermann slammed home a time of 28’ 49.12” for 7^th place and Gary Seelhorst turned in a great time of 29’ 54.98”. Of the other TBLFAAVC Cat 3 riders, well, did I mention Gary DeAngelis placed 3^rd in the Cat 1,2 race!!!

For the 2-person Team Time Trial, John Rigdon and Joe Lekovish paired up for the only TBLFAAVC team to enter and laid out a respectable 10^th place out of 15 teams. Team Rigdon/Lekovish started 2 minutes down on 9 time Tour de France veteran Frankie Andreu and Ford/Giant rider Nate Griffith. Rigdon/Lekovish put in a great effort to catch these guys and at the turn had closed within 25 seconds, visibly panicking Frankie and Nate at the turn around when they saw how close we had pulled them back. This punishing pace was too much for the extremely fatigued Rigdon/Lekovish team who were riding their 3^rd race in 18 hours. They blew up spectacularly over the last 5 miles, conceding 2 minutes to Andreu/Griffith, who ended up in 4th place at 26’ 45.56”. It was still a fantastic effort for the riders who were cheered on loudly by many of the spectators as they sprinted across the finish line. Rigdon/Lekovish were also awarded the most aggressive team award as well as the top Men’s Category 3 team award. Later, Frankie Andreu congratulated the team and said “Those guys were really flying. When Nate and I saw just how close they had come we really had to start hammering, it was really painful. The only other team TT I’ve race which was harder was in the 2000 Tour de France”!

Take care all and keep training!!!