John Roden's Weekend Report

August 11--2007

Started the morning with the Summer Sizzler duathlon out on Grand Island.

With a course that featured quite a lot more running than biking, I bade goodbye to the eventual winner at the crack of the starter's pistol and spent the day laboring in second place, wire to wire as they say.

Next stop was the Ascension Church Criterium. Spent the day doing results and registration and jumped in the P1-3 race at 6pm. This was my first crit since a nice crash a few weeks back caused by a freak stem breakage, so I was feeling a little apprehensive, but it all comes back after a few go-arounds. The race played out in an interesting way, with local teams having both strong riders and numbers, but the presence of many strong Canadians riding without teams kind of upset the apple cart and gave the race a nice dynamic. With a couple to go I managed to worm my way into a nice group of 4, throwing everything my cramping legs had left to stay on Peter Morse's wheel to make it across, but alas were caught by the pack with 800m to go, so I came out of the last turn with smoke billowing out of two engines and hydraulic fluid blowing out of the back for 12th. place. Todd Sheske won with a class sprint at the end of a hard fought race.

Dan Staffo had a great race in the Mas 35 for 2nd. place after a long solo attempt off the front. Kevin Mahoney rode strongly in two races back to back and Mick Snyder flew the colors with verve in his race.