April 9/01 10:04 am - Shep Report

Posted by Editoress on 04/9/01
 

Napa World Cup Photos

Will be posted tomorrow - Editoress


The Shep Report - AKA: World Cup Wine Tour

The last two weeks have been anything but a walk in the park. Sure Haro graciously set us up in a beautiful vineyard house in Calistoga but most days were spent behind Chicken going 35km an hour no matter what distance! Ohh the suffering! Our weekend off was spent racing local style at the Sizzler Classic. Off the bat, hard and heinous as Bas, Dre, j man, shamoe, were going crazy. The Swede and I rode for a couple minutes then it was solo time for me. Spent an hour and a half time trialing 20 seconds behind these guys in a 20 km headwind...full on seat enema, uncontrolled breathing but I never caught them. Course was reminiscent of ...... let's see .....my second beginner race where I rode around in a parking lot! Whole course was loose gravel, double track fire road. Ended up 6th.....must have been good training for this weekend as the legs appeared on Saturday.

Saturday World Cup Time Trial

Under a new format Sunday's cross country start list would be decided by a time trial on Saturday. Riders set out to do two thirds of a lap with 30 second gaps so pressure was on to not be behind slow people who well....would just get in the way and cost you vital seconds. Anyway our course was rocky and fast consisting of a 600 ft climb from the start, quick decent, 1km of flatish road, small climb small descent rolly to the finish. Basically you ride as hard as you can at the start (usually til you're frothing at the m outh), take every chance on the downhill and then try and hold the gap for the rest of it. Worked for me, ended up in 8th! Ha! No mistakes no problem. Team mate chicken was just in front of me, Shamoe in 14th but the big cou was Dry ryder taking a second behind I-ti Bui and Rollie in 3rd. Canada was well represented on the front line or so I thought. There was a rule I didn't know about.....no matter what position you are in after the Time trial the top 50 overall (from the cross country series) are protected. So what that meant is because I'm ranked 58th from last year I would not get the 8th place call up! AHHHHHHH! Now I know and my heart will never be broken again. Most of my motivation came from friends and family.....I was not only missing my best friend's wedding on this day but also my parents 35th anniversary.....so that result was for them!

Sunday

Cross country day consisted of 6 laps on what was supposed to be a fast buff course. My team mates and I rolled up to the start line under light showers sporting semi slick tires thinking the the rain would stop and we would take advantage of low rolling resistance.....no. Pissed rain. Should have cued to Tioga Jeff 's scratching of his head and saying. "are you sure you want to run those"? Pulled up to the starters box and almost no one else had the bald tires on. Chicken got a good start and was floating in the top five until the first corner when he tried to lean the bike on knobs that did not exist. Bam! The ground shuddered under the force of the 120lbs coming down! He would try and chase but 120 guys single file is a tough task. Meanwhile up front Dry ryder was putting the stink down for a lap and a half. Cruising at the front was very noble and he held on to tenth by the end. I do believe he was countered by Christophe, Cadel, German guy & Jose who would form an elite pack off the front. Jose using his great technical skills rested up on the descents while the others clung their brakes and got a little ragged. He punched it at the end and won. Wish I could have a better update but I was in the smoking section where not much was happening. Tried in vain to make up spots after three laps doing the run/ride thing. As it dried out over the last two laps I made a bunch of spots and ended up 49th. Rolland had a slow start today but worked up to 11th.....shamoe was floating in the top 15 until the ice skating started with the tires...ended up 29th......dre 41st.....kabush 46th.....wedge 53rd (wicked result as he too is coming off of winter drinking problems..... errr.... knee problems) . So off to Kamloops I go for a brief but welcome break. Will start training the power hard towards the end of April through May and come Big Bear I will be good to go in the cross country ..... knee and all.


Translations

Chicken - Michael Rasmussen
Shamoe - Seamus McGrath
Dre - Andreas Hestler
Rollie - Roland Green
Dry ryder - Ryder Hesjedal
Bas - Van Dooren
j man - ?