Saturday, October 18, 2008

CycloStampede Photos :: 2008

Cyclo Stampede Photos by our own Mike More.
Thank you Mike!
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Monday, October 6, 2008

Directions to the center of the Cycling Universe:

Use your favorite web service to get directions to Friday's Darkhorse Cyclo-Stampede:

England/Idlewild Park
5550 Idlewild Road
Burlington KY 41005

Sunday, October 5, 2008

TTT: A New Form of Pain

As Alex posted, Darkhorse tried to represent on Saturday at the QCW team time trial. I am sure that most cyclists have dreamt of doing a team time trial of some sort, either seeing the teams roll around a race track at the Tour de Georgia or seeing a teams rolling around France in July.

Here we are a few moments before the start.

I rolled w/ the A-Team (try to say that w/o hearing the theme some in the background). Brett, Dan and I had come out and practiced a few weeks back and that was a huge help. An obvious factor in a TTT is raw fitness, but it is rare that you'll have a perfectly balanced team, so communication is key. During our little workout, we had established a basic code for Dan, your going too fast, Nick, stop rocking your hips, and Brett, turn down your handlebar-bling, its hurting my eyes.
Check out Dan- he's busting out his Space Balls Halloween costume early.

One strategy that we implemented that worked pretty well was to have the rider that was in the second position be the "coach." that person could kinda keep the guy out front honest. It seemed to work OK. This would be really fun to do in June when we'd all have a little more consistent fitness. I think we ended up in 2nd place w/ a time of 23:17. Not to bad for a bunch of hacks.

Chip getting the 'Horses in line


Here we are digging deep into our suitcase of courage...


Mike More was strong early, but we used and abused him... Thanks for selling out!


Saturday, October 4, 2008

Triple T (B Team)

Today was a beautiful day for a bike ride, unfortunately it was a little hard to enjoy it being in the pain box for 25:38. That's how long it took us to cover the 10.2 miles of the Queen City Wheels Team Time Trial. Darkhorse had 7 representatives out today, so we split into 2 teams of 4. The A team was Dan, Nick, Brett, and Mike M. B Team was Chip, Mike G., Micah (friend of Chip) and myself. I have never ridden the Cleves TT loop, so I had no idea what to expect.

Here is a link to the route: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/email/accept.mb?senderPk.pkValue=15361&unitSystemPkValue=2&episodePk.pkValue=6908574

As you can see from the profile, it is relatively flat, especially the last 3-4 miles. But when you are trying to go as fast as possible, it hurts regardless. We all took pretty equal pulls and I feel we worked well as a team, especially having never tried this before.
While nowhere near the top, I'm pleased with our time, considering the time spent off the bike for all 4 of us. Chip is still coming back from his shoulder injury, Mike G. has a hurt back, this was Micah's first race of any kind (great job and thanks for helping us out!), and I've been too busy eating Bon Bon's and picking lint out of my belly to ride.

Great job to the A team and we will do it again next year!