It was a cold and windy day for the first race in Ontario but it still had a good turnout of 60 riders. The bigger teams from Ontario included JetFuel, Garneau, and Mazur Racing all of which had a large turnout with 6 to 10 riders from each. Mazur Racing had the largest turnout and was using it well for the entire 65 miles by always having a rider up the road. There were a few solo attempts but every break was shut down during the first half of the race. Charlie Bryer, a strong TT rider on Mazur Racing attacked solo and opened up a good gap on the field. He was later joined by Steve Meyer from Jetfuel, and another Mazur racer and the three opened a 1:30 gap. I tried a few times to get away from the field but everything I did was immediately shut down. Within the last 2 miles to go, Mazur had two up the road with the field over 1 minute behind. With 3^rd place still opened up I was prepared to sprint. Rounding the last corner I was 4^th wheel with 500 meters to go. I timed it perfectly to win the bunch sprint and get 3^rd place in the race. This was the unofficial result because after the race the commissaires decided to disqualify 40 riders for crossing the yellow line during the race. So unfortunately I do not have a podium shot with me in 3^rd place because I was one of the unlucky ones. But to me and to everyone watching the race, I got 3^rd.

-Ryan Aitcheson

I went out to the Mitchell Memorial Road Race today over near Cincinnati. The day started early (a little too early) with a departure time of 5:30. It poured the entire trip but luckily stopped in time for the race to get under way.  The race was 50 miles and not a ton of people showed up but there were still some good riders present. The race finished up a pretty decent climb so I like my chances immediately.

Once we were under way I put in some of my patented early attacks, but per usual, to no avail. We then got around to a pretty long descent and I took it easy as I had never been down it before and the roads were disgusting with debris and water. Two people actually got a gap on the descent (Brad Schaeffer-NUVO and Isaiah Newkirk). I rode on the front trying to keep the gap manageable until we got to the climb figuring it would all come back together. Once we hit the Climb Tyler Karnes (Hincapie Development Team) went and dragged me away from the group. As soon as he let up I went and bridged to the leaders solo. I had them by the top of the climb. We then traded pulls pretty evenly with Brad taking shorter pulls. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to conserve or was hurting. The next time up the climb Isaiah went and Brad didn’t follow. I went around Brad and it was just Isaiah and myself for the last 4 laps. We had a pretty sizable advantage and worked well together.

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Saturday was my first race of the year, Hillsboro Roubaix. This race is always big with 100+ riders. It was my first race with Panther p/b Competitive Cyclist. I met up with guys (for the first time) and we hit the line. The attacks went from the gun and usually the first break does not go. This was not the case as the early move looked dangerous. I tried to get across to it and was chased down. After a couple more attempts both Greg and Ryan A. got into the move and it was gone. I spent the rest of the race trying to cover chase attempts and stay on the right side of the split. We came into the last lap and there were only about 20 of us in the lead group. I was pretty tired and just wanted to roll in when somebody decided to t-bone me in the second to last corner with 1/2 mile left.

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A few pretty low key couple of crits this weekend up in the city of Phoenix. First was the San Tan Criterium. Since the San Dimas Race was drawing a lot of the big guns from Arizona these crits were pretty small. Saturday’s was a pretty fun course, 8 corners but super wide so not all that technical. I attacked a few laps in for a prime, I got a pretty good gap and kept thing rolling in sudo-recovery mode. The breakaway came up to me and I tagged on to the back. The group wasn’t working well together due to the large size, but after a few attacks and a few shed riders our 6 man group started working well together. It was pretty boring till the end after that. I positioned myself a little poorly in the final corner and ended up 3rd.

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I’ve spent the last few months making the best of mother nature’s annual butt kicking. I stayed active on the mountain bike and engaged in nightly dates with my trainer and Netflix account. With a relatively light final semester at school, I was fortunate enough to have some time to make a few trips around the country to visit friends and family. I logged some long hours during my trips to Florida, Arizona and even a week long spring break trip to Northern California. I squeezed in a few training races in Florida and Arizona to boot.

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Spring Break in SoCal has become a tradition for the Albers family with the pool, beach, hikes at Torrey Pines, zoo, and LegoLand as our top destinations.

The weather is a little bit off, showers on some days with cooler temps almost every day, but with the sun out, it is hard to complain too much about riding in the North County San Diego area.  Groups rides twice a week have been on the agenda, coupled with a few longer rides – mountainous by Ohio standards – the fitness seems to be coming along at a steady rate.  Riding in this area has been great, familiarity with the wide variety of roads and catching up with the many friends I’ve made during past trips make the time on the bike fly.

I’ve still never made into the ocean, that’s Swami’s break off in the distance, some day I’ll give surfing a go…

The anticipation for the race season is running quite high, all the guys are looking forward to quite the “competitive” year.

I’m currently going to school at Michigan Tech which is in Houghton, MI. For those of you who don’t know where that is, it’s on the Northern tip of the Upper Peninsula. It’s pretty much as far North as you can get in Michigan. Needless to say, the winters up here up here are pretty crazy. If I had ride my trainer all winter I would probably go insane, luckily the XC skiing up here is great. Its a nice break from a long season of cycling, but now that spring is here, I’m definitely getting anxious to start riding.

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