Brent, Erik and I raced the Rubber City Criterium in Akron, Ohio last Saturday.  The course was a challenging up and down 1.2 mile loop, with a 40 mph descent and a long slog uphill to the finish.  Fifteen minutes in to the hour long race I experienced a first in a race; the police stopped the race because a spectator sitting on a 100 ft. high bridge that went over the race course was threatening to jump.  Thankfully they got there in time, no one jumped and we are able to resume racing.  On restart, the race quickly split up, I ended up in a 4 man break with ex teammate Jeremy Grimm, Matt Weeks and Shawn Adams from Carbon Racing.  I was able to come off of Matt’s wheel and hold off Jeremy in the sprint for the win (barely).
-Paul Martin

We spent some time in Columbus at the Garrett Wonders Roadrace. Here is a photo tour courtesy of Picasa user Consider Biking. Enjoy. You can also find more at Veloarts.com.

A few of use went down to the New Belgium Mass Avenue Criterium last weekend, here is how it turned out. Christ Uberti 2nd, Eric Young 1st, and Kirk Albers 3rd.

Photo credits: TrueSport.com

Not much more to it, but a nice shot of Chris Uberti from Superweek.

Tour of Elk Grove

Five riders from Team Panther raced two criteriums in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village, IL, last weekend.  Both races were held on a flat 2km course with a 180 turn and a long drag race of a sprint.  With $7,500 and $8,500 prize money on offer the team was aggressive, constantly sending riders off the front to create breakaways and ring the prime bell.  Saturday’s race ended in a messy field sprint, won by Andy Crater (Aerocat) with Ryan Knapp 9th, Chris Uberti 12th and Paul 18th.  In spite of late breakaways by Andy Clarke and Greg Christian that forced the Aerocat and Kenda teams to chase full gas, Sunday also came down to a field sprint with Panther putting three riders in the top ten - 6th, 7th and 8th places by Chris, Ryan and Paul.

Garrett Wonders Criteriums

Kirk Albers and Brent Martin raced the Garrett Wonders criteriums in Westerville and Columbus, OH the same weekend, coming up with two big wins.  Brent Martin followed Kirk’s leadout for the win Saturday in Westerville, with Kirk in third and Kirk went two places better to win the Columbus race on Sunday.  Full report to follow.

Next up for the team is the Presbyterian Hospital Criterium in Charlotte, NC this Saturday; a tough NRC and USA Crits event.

-Paul Martin

This past weekend Kirk and I participated in a couple races in the
Flint, MI area. Satuday was the Malliot Jaune road race in Fenton and
Sunday the Le Champion Pave criterium in downtown Flint.  Saturday’s
road race got off to a rather wet start, but despite the ominous
looking radar the conditions turned out to be pretty nice: just wet
enough to keep things cool but not enough to get you soaked.  The
first third or so of the race was the typical attack, chase, repeat
drill with nothing getting more that a handful of seconds over the
field.  During a lull in the pace, local MTB stud Mike Simonson got
off the front alone…riding on his mountain bike. Granted, it was a
rigid 29er, but still, it was a mountain bike.  The heckling from the
course marshalls was more that I could take, so I attacked on the
biggest hill of the course and bridged up.  I rode with Mike for a bit
before riders from Bissel (Nate Williama) and Priority Health (Andrew
Florian) made it across, forming a solid breakaway.  We got within a
handful of seconds of getting caught at one point, but a few rounds of
extra hard pulls by everyone in the break was enough to demorliize the
chase.  Simonson impresively hung in for quite a while before going
back to the field, even doing his share of the work.  Did I mention
that he was running knobby tires too?

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I headed back up to the infamous 100 km crit series for the second week of racing in Milwaukee.

Whitnall Park Road Race

The first race took place in a botanical garden in Milwaukee. It was raining and more of a field split went early. I stayed up front and made the right side of the split. I was feeling really really strong. Maybe strong enough to do some stupid things like attack a group that contained mostly Pro’s including UHC’s Karl Menzies. I was pretty spent by the end and attacked midway through the last lap, poor idea, and got caught just before the finishing climb. Ended up 11^th

Bucyrus Road Race

Another twisty 3 mile course with a few hills that wound through a lake-front park on the south side of Milwaukee. I made the 12 person breakaway again. However I was definitely feeling my efforts from the day before. I got gapped out on the last lap, but caught back on and knew I had nothing in the sprint. Ended up 11^th.

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Saturday July 18 the team headed to Troy, OH, just north of Dayton for the Ohio State Crit Championship, a $3500 purse for the Pro 1/2 race.  The course was a technical 8 corner course with the last straightaway curving around the roundabout that is the center of downtown Troy.  The weather was like a sauna, mid 90s and high humidity, any hard efforts could make you blow to pieces very quickly.  We traded attacks and counterattacks with the Kenda/Geargrinder, Cleveland Clinic, NUVO and Texas Roadhouse teams.  A group of three with Jake Rytlewski of Kenda got a 20 second gap and I attacked to bridge up, got within 5 seconds but kept getting hotter and hotter, had to back off, couldn’t close the gap, ending up 4th.  Kirk finished well in the field sprint, grabbing 8th, Ryan 12th and Brent 20th.

The next day was a $2500 crit with a tough section of bricks in Miamisburg, a suburb of Dayton.  Somehow the heat index was even higher today than in Troy, I was running my Capo jersey fully unzipped and dousing myself with water.  Andy Clarke animated the race with a long two man break with Jeremy Grimm that looked like it would stay away, getting 30 seconds at one point, only to be chased back with 3 to go.  I countered but drew out two sprinters who I didn’t want to take to the line.  With one to go it came back together and I went to the front and led out Kirk to the last corner, he was nipped on the line by a Kenda rider but secured a podium spot with 3rd, Ryan was 8th and Brent 9th.

Superweek and Michigan Races

Greg Christian won the Maillot Jaune Road Race in Fenton, MI on Sat July 24, besting several Bissell riders, with Kirk Albers finishing 4th.  Kirk finished 2nd at the Le Champion Pave Crit in Flint, Mi the next day, with Greg Christian 6th.  Full reports to follow.

Chris Uberti and Ryan Knapp raced several races and turned in some excellent results at the Superweek series in Wisconsin.  Chris finished 5th at the Kenosha Crit on Friday July 23, making a tough break with Fly V Australia and Kelly Benefits riders, 10th the next day at the Downer Avenue Crit and 11th at the South Milwaukee Crit on July 20th.  Full reports to follow.

Next for the team is the Tour of Elk Grove, two big money crits outside of Chicago this weekend and the Presbyterian Hospital Crit in Charlotte on Aug 7.

-Paul Martin

Stage 1 – Time Trial

The Tour of the Valley is a 2nd year stage race held in the Mahoning Valley of eastern Ohio, home to the steel towns of Warren and Youngstown, just upriver from Pittsburgh and on the edge of the Appalachian foothills.  Carbon Racing did a great job with the event, bringing a $10,000 prize list and teams from Mountain Khakis, Team Type 1, Kenda and Panther/Competitive Cyclist to the pro/am race.  The time trial was a relatively flat 9.5 miles out and back, made interesting by late afternoon rain.  Andy and I got a good pre ride of the course to check out the wind direction and turnaround. I told Andy that it would take a 19:00 to win, a 30 mph average, so that was my goal. I started to 2nd to last, 30 seconds in front of last year’s overall winner, Joey Rosskopf from Mtn. Khakis.  I made good progress on the way out, catching 3 riders by the turnaround.  The wind went out of my sails when Rosskopf caught me from behind in the last two miles.  I finished with a 19:17, 3rd place, 37 seconds behind Rosskopf and 8 seconds behind Matt Cooke (Mtn Khakis).  Andy Clarke had a strong ride for 8th, and Kirk was 20th. Hats off to Rosskopf, who averaged 30.53 mph.

Stage 3 – Youngstown Criterium

Coming off Kirk’s strong win in the road race our goals were to retake 3rd place on GC and go for the stage win, as I had dropped to 4th by one second to Oscar Clarke (Mtn Khakis).  The six corner course was dead flat, but rough and bumpy, going past reputed old mafia hangouts that color the history of Youngstown.  Time bonus sprints were on offer at 20, 50 and 75 minutes in as well as the finish at 90 minutes.  Kirk exploded out of the field for the first bonus sprint with me on his wheel, the only rider from the field who could follow us was Rosskopf, who took the sprint but I took the 2 second bonus for 2nd.  The second bonus sprint was similar, except my leadout came from Brent and Andy, and I took that sprint with a bike throw in front of Clarke.  Kirk took the 3rd bonus sprint and I was 2nd, plenty of time to retake 3rd on GC.  Panther again took control of the race for the finish, with Brent and Andy controlling the front, Kirk did another monster leadout, single handedly holding off trains from all the other teams.  Rosskopf jumped our train with two corners to go and with another rider gapping me off his wheel coming into the last turn I ended up 3rd.  A great team effort, we placed a rider on the podium for the stage and the GC, with Andy Clarke 9th on GC and Kirk 14th.

-Paul Martin

The rolling and often twisty roads of the 33 mile lap featured one significant climb with time bonuses at the summit, although the field was put under considerable pressure on each passing, it was positioned far enough from the finish to not play a significant factor in the outcome of the race.  However, the warm temps coupled with the 10 finishing loops and three opportunities for bonus seconds proved to be the deciding factors in the outcome of the stage.

With Team Mountain Khakis occupying the first two spots in the overall and Team Panther’s Paul Martin slotted in third just one second in front of another Mountain Khaki rider, the bonus time available on each passing of the KOM was a goal of the top riders and with the time gaps relatively tight over the top ten riders, breakaways were kept to a minimum leading into the climb on the first lap.  Paul climbed well on the first and was able to score a single second bonus while Andy Clarke suffered an untimely puncture just a few miles from the base of the climb.  Over the top, most of the group reunited, while Kelly Benefits rider Cheyne Hoag put in the huge solo effort and quickly built up a 50 second advantage.

Andy Clarke was able to chase back to the field while Mountain Khakis kept the gap manageable and the rest of the field was content to wait for the second ascent of the climb.  Hoag was able to just hold off the lead riders for the second offering of bonus seconds, while Paul was slotted in with a select group of chasers a few moments later and myself not too far behind in a group of ten.  Within a mile, the lead group was up to 15 riders, but the heat and terrain began to take it’s toll on the race animators, allowing a lead group of 30 riders to form.  Unfortunately for Andy Clarke, another mechanical and a detour off course would take him out of the running on the stage.

Paul and myself, along with the Mountain Khakis riders provided much of the race animation on the relatively flat and fast run in back to Columbiana as we began to focus on the time line at the entrance to the finish circuit and the bonus time available on the first and fifth passing of the finish line.  I was able to latch on to a small group 1.5 miles out from the time line, but the field was more or less back together as we began the false flat to the line, I made my move 200 yards before the last corner, maintaining a small advantage to score the first bonus.

The attacks were fast and furious over the next few laps, the quite long false flat taking a toll on the greatly diminished field, I followed a hard acceleration by second place on overall Matt Cooke, setting me up well to score the second bonus sprint much like the first.  With 10, 6, and 4 second bonuses on the finish and Paul so close to reclaiming third on overall, I moderated my efforts in the lead group of five, but was then forced to solely respond to all the eventual attacks.  With one lap to go, race leader Rosskopf from Mountain Khakis was close to making the junction to our group, just as he came charging through, his teammate Cooke made a blistering attack 500+ yards from the finish.  Cramping and twitching all over the place, I gave it all I had left, overtaking both riders 100 yards before the last corner, holding off the teammate duo before finding the nearest bit of shade to lie down for a good stretch.  Paul finished quite strongly just behind the remainder of the break in 8th, with the rest of field literally finishing in groups of ones and twos.

- Kirk Albers