Michael's Race Report

The Vuelta a Santa Catalina Road Race is a very tough road race early in the season. The last 9 miles are a hill climb of an average of 3%. But don't let that fool you. Along the way are kickers of 9 - 11%. The plan was easy. Sit in until the last climb and then unleash our attacks. Well, a break formed after about 9 miles and there was no real chase to get them back. Bill tried to limit their gain with another rider. At mile 17 of 53, I started to chase the breakaway with Tom but soon realized that we would have to chase all day in order to keep other breaks from succeeding. What's the best line of defense, OFFENSE! I launched an attack and bridged over to the breakaway at mile 21. Now my teammates could sit in and didn't have todo any work up front. We worked well together in the break, but lost 1 rider during the climb to San Manuel. 2 more riders bridged over to us at mile 37. Now we had 4 strong riders in the break willing to work and bring the race home. One of the riders dropped his chain on a climb and the winner of the race and I attacked. Now it was just the 2 of us on the 9 mile climb to the finish. The power to weight ratio was in favor of the other rider and he slowly distant me. With about 2 miles to go, a group of 5 passed me which included our teammate Tom. I tried to hang on their wheels but got dropped pretty quickly.
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Thanks to Damion Alexander for taking this picture.

Thank you Arizona LOOK! Save a Life for putting on this years Ride of Silence.

The Ride of Silence has taken place the 3rd Wednesday evening in May since 2003 to honor those cyclists who have been injured or killed while riding their bikes on public roadways.
We rode in silence as a procession with a police escort, fire engine, a lead and follow vehicles. We rode at about 7-10 mph. The 6 mile course will began and ended at Reid Park, going on Broadway to Craycroft to 22nd Street back to Reid Park.
It always is a somber moment. Thank you Arizona LOOK! Save a Life
#togodbetheglory #christiancyclingtucson #christiancycling#rideofsilence

Praises be to our Heavenly Father for an awesome race at the Tour de Mesa. Congratulations to Conor for taking 1st place in the 34 Mile distance. Congratulations also to Charlie from Bicycle Ranch who was in the break with Conor.

"Great race this morning; finally got my first win! Got into a 2-man break that was eventually caught, but was able to take the sprint. h/t to Charles Everett for the smart and aggressive racing...and the pics! Congrats on your podium; well-deserved" (Conor)

Praise the LORD for a fun and action packed weekend.
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On Saturday we had our Halloween Scavenger Hunt Bike Ride benefitting Therapy Trykes Tucson. Therapy Trykes Tucson's mission is to provide, free of charge, custom-built and individually fitted medically adaptive therapy tricycles to wounded and disabled veterans who can no longer participate in the great outdoors or exercise in it without these personally adaptive cycles. The ride raised $302 towards that mission. We praise our Heavenly Father for the generosity of the riders.

We rode on the LOOP bicycle path along the Canada del Oro Wash on this beautiful late October morning looking for Halloween themed scavenger items. Some were easier to spot, others took a little looking around. It was great fun for the whole family. We hope to get more families involved in future events.

Praise the LORD and congratulations to Gary and Michael for placing on the podium at the 2017 Arizona State Time Trail (TT) Championship. Congratulations also to our competitors Kevin, Greg and Scott.

We got up early Sunday morning driving to Arizona City. I decided to ride in the 40+ Merckx category because I don't have a TT bike. I also thought to myself, it would be good training for the upcoming Bike the Bluff Cat 3 Road Race Championship, staying in the aero position as long as I could. Gary started in the Cat 4 category.

My goal was to keep my threshold power as steady as I could. I have never raced with a power meter before and knew that it would be challenging to keep that power up. Right before the race I remember that I hadn't calibrated my power meter and in the rush of heading to the start line, the calibration failed. Well, I should have done this at warmup. Once I started, my Garmin showed nothing for power. I thought to myself, well, the power meter battery must have died, even though I just replaced it 2 weeks ago. Ok, heart rate it is. I started out hard, my heart rate went into race zone and I started to wonder if I am pushing it too hard. I caught the rider who started 30 seconds ahead of me in my category fairly soon. That gave me even more reason to speculate if I am hitting it too hard. After passing the rider, boom, power data was showing again.