Tour de Leelanau

Pista Elite was invited to race the Tour de Leelanau up in northern Michigan, in what essentially would be the pinkie finger of the peninsula. It was the first time for most of us to get to know each other since the majority of the Elite team was up there to race. Thursday night Jack and I went up to see our coach, Rich, in Chicago and get some power testing done. All I can say is that Jack is a beast and he's definitely a rider to watch in anything requiring brute power and strength. If he can learn how to relax and handle his bike a little better I would not be surprised to see a great results list coming from him. Friday I went to Midway Airport to pick up Ryan Sabga while Jack went to pick up Matt Waite at O'Hare. We met up with the rest of the team at a tiny grocery store about 10 miles from the race, Northport. Brian Nieport used to be a teammate of mine back in the day when Airborne had a decent team (or a team at all) and Adam Szcech is a track and crit racer from Toledo (now Cincinnati). The best part of the whole thing was that we got host housing and instead of staying with a family, we were told to contact the "Caretaker". That was puzzling as we had no idea what that was all about but it turned out we stayed in a Jesuit retreat center and it was an awesome cycling house with 2 floors and rooms for everyone. The guys went out for a short ride but it was getting cold since it was past 8:30 PM and I ended up staying in, riding the trainer since I did not have any knee/arm warmers.
Saturday, Jonesy, our courageous directeur sportif, boldly went where few have gone before. He bravely rode a Greyhound bus from Indianapolis, departing at 5:50 AM and arrived in Traverse City at 8:15 PM where I went to pick him up. Needless to say, it was EPIC! In the morning, Ryan, went to the bike shop since he is so buff and strong that he broke a stem bolt while putting together his bike at the grocery parking lot while surrounded by local townsfolk and assorted hecklers. Many hilarious stories stem from his trip to the shop. Among them are the new hire who said, after seeing Ryan buy 8 GUs, "stocking up for the season, eh?" And when he was told that the amount would cover him for the following day, the kid, staring wide-eyed, saying "really? How far do you ride?" Ryan coolly said he was racing 110 miles, and the kid replied "wow! the most I've ever done was 40 whole miles in one day! wow!" Apparently he was told that if a subsequent customer with a nice-looking bike walked in, he was to hide in the back and read something besides Bicycling magazine, something more along the flavor of Cycle Sport while dressed in full Castelli kit, sip espresso and try to appear less ignorant.

Which brings us to coffee. While everyone seemed to be drinking coffee, Ryan could not find a single coffee shop with to-go cups in the entire town. He finally stumbled upon a full-on liquor store that had a hidden coffee shop (with Solo cups) in the back side of the store. While graciously getting the entire team coffee, another native walked in and asked for pad thai. Almost startled, Ryan, saw someone emerge from an even deeper recess of the establishment and bring out a piping hot tray of the aforementioned dish. Liquor store, coffee shop, Thai restaurant. Possible sweat shop in the basement. That's how they roll up north.

Adam then had to go to the shop because he broke his crank bolt. Apparently we are full of strongmen in the Elite team. Of course the shop people had no idea what to do with his massive BB30 Cannondale set up but they were extremely helpful and machined a bolt to fit and it seemed to work alright. Mad props to them for helping out during crunch time. We picked up the race numbers and also took a few cool pics of the end of the race and took a couple photos of us holding the winner's checks since they were just sitting right there. Once I figure out how to download them, without the cable which I misplaced, I'll make sure to post them. We rode about 30 miles or so on the course and realized it was going to be a very cool race involving lots of climbs that were not individually tough, but would wear one out. During the team meeting, through the random draw, we got 1st spot among amateur teams and 4th in the line up so we were going to have our team car close in case we needed it.

Finally race time Sunday. Parking was chaotic as is expected. The weather was somewhat cloudy but it seemed as if it should hold. Ryan and I decided to race our dry weather wheels. So of course it rained. Ryan told me later that he started skidding and was sliding all over the road. My brakes did not work. I had to take a power bottle to get up a hard climb but the peloton blew up after the top and I ended up getting gapped behind some guys who were trashed. Together we made a small group and worked together to advance a bit. Adam was crashed out. Brian was not having a good day either. Only Matt and Jack seemed to be having a good day but eventually even they decided to bag it after 90 miles. Ryan and I called the race organizer from the broom wagon to tell Matt Jones to drive backwards and pick us up. As it started to clear up a bit Ryan and I ended up just switching wheels and rejoining the race instead. We caught some riders in Tower Hill which is the steepest climb with pitches of 24+%. Caught a few Jet Fuel racers and then little by little picked up more riders with Ryan and I doing most of the pulling. Eventually we got close to the finish and Ryan sent me up to the front to pick up the pace so he could get the glory of sprinting ahead of everyone. The plan worked, a few got dropped and he went up the top of the last rise with me following half a wheel behind him. 110 miles. One tough ride. Most importantly though we had some great times as a team and I'm very glad we all got to hang out together. I'll be missing most of the season since I got an opportunity to race in Europe but I'll be cheering from across the ocean for sure!