All:

Vlad and I have been discussing this and I wanted to put it on paper.

www.tourofamericasdairyland.com

I use to do this better known as Superweek back in the day, racing aginst some Euros, best US crit riders, etc. Mark- back me up here.

Looking at dates: Friday June 21st, returning June 25th (racing 5 days) (early AM depature on Southwest LGA to Milwalkee- arriving 8:30am, returning late Tuesday night). Ticket would be $250 plus bike box $50 each way.

Housing- We can apply for free lodging at peoples houses which is always cool.

Car- have to rent a minivan for bikes and boxes. Split between max 3 people per car to ensure room.

I've put in for vacation these days and will be going. Think it would be good for those who can, to push themselves with big fields, great courses, great fans, and the ability to stomp on people when you return.

Message me with questions.

Hope to see a few of you out there!

 

This is going to be so awesome!!!

My family and I are planning on going again this year.

This series is VERY PROFESSIONALLY run, and highly recommended. Every race has SRAM neutral support (so leave your spare wheels at home), real podiums with real girls (no pinching!), there's always plenty of food to be had after your race while you are watching the pros do their thing (which offers up GREAT LEARNING opportunities, plus is just fun).

The entire series is actually June 20-30, fyi and offers a varied mix of criterium and road racing courses that will challenge various skill sets. June in the midwest offers up some beautiful weather.

And for those of you who obsess over bogus "dollar per lap" numbers, the shortest race you will do is 45 minutes and if you race a Pro 1/2 race, you have to be ON for 90 minutes. And you will wish they are all shorter. This is real deal, ball-busting, holy-shit-fast crit racing.

Check out our website, my blog, The Tattered Saddle for a few write-ups from last year.

PS Last year, the Cat 2/3 races were faster/harder than the Master's races. If you have a choice, and want advice on which category to do for particular courses, ask here. As a cat 2, there are certain races I wouldn't do in the Pro 1/2 category, while other course I might brave racing against the big boys.

Am strongly considering...

Tickets are booked:  June 20th to June 25th.  6 races, 6 days!  Just applied to 2 for free housings during stay.

I'm getting so fucking geeked up for this right now.

$43 per race is not bad. I'm thinking about doubling up, but it's going to be tricky. The 50min 3/4 35+ races happen right before the 50min 2/3 races.

I want the bigger challenge, but I don't want to be in over my head and I don't want to get dropped at the whistle either. I'm concerned about blowing myself out in the 3/4 race only to immediately line up and suck in the 2/3.

Marc, Dan, what should I go for? My heart says 2/3. Am I being delusional?

p.s. Dan and I are flying out on the 21st, not the 20th.

> I'm planning on 2/3 and looking at the easy days to do 2 extra races o. The courses that aren't crazy.
>
> Fly by the pants isn't a bad thing either.


Daniel C Hubbard
315 Gates Ave 2L
Brooklyn, NY 11216

Listen to me. Cat 2/3 races will be significantly harder cat 35+ 3/4 races. If you want, I can look at the courses again and recommend which ones will be "easier" so that you might feel rock solid racing the 2/3 fields and vice versa if you want.

The other thing you must know is that you will get your ass kicked. And you will say, "thank you sir, may I have another." Midwest racers are FIERCE crit racers. Shit goes from the gun and doesn't really let up. So yeah, you might be able to double up, but I'm going to guess that you will be torched from the effort and not particularly good at either race if you do two.

I would personally focus on doing one race per day, and really pay attention to your position. You have monster strength, but that ain't going to help much in a really technical crit. Use this week as a true learning opportunity. If you want to go out and mindlessly trash your legs you can head out to Floyd for FREE!

All that said, bring your check book, and if you feel like doing the deuce, then go for it! I'll take a look at the courses and make recommendations later tonight or maybe tomorrow.

Oh man, I'm getting all boned up!

June 21st: East Troy Cycling Classic

June 22nd: Giro d' Grafton

June 23rd: Carl Zach Cycling Classic

June 24th: Sheboygan Criterium

June 25th: Schlitz Park Criterium

These races are the SCHLITZ!

Daniel C Hubbard
315 Gates Ave 2L
Brooklyn, NY 11216

Dude. Those are some bizzaro looking courses! SO jelly.

holy shit.  they named a whole section of the schiltz park criterium after dan. he's clearly a big deal in that part of the world.

Bam!!!!

Daniel C Hubbard
315 Gates Ave 2L
Brooklyn, NY 11216

Do they do an overall points leader or something of the sort. If so Vlad I would suggest you do the 3/4 and try win the whole thing. No reason to double race just to get miles in kinda thing. 

Course breakdowns....

East Troy: Looks like this year, they extended the course. Last year the course took a sweeping, double apex left turn over the top of the town "square/circle" which led right into a trafficky island chicane section that guaranteed crashes, and lapped fields. Still, the course looks plenty tough this year too. Especially that stretch, coming down Division past the town circle, left onto clark, left onto Austin, is decending, fast slightly off camber and a bit tricky.

Giro d'Grafton: Another tough one. With a climbing rise after turn two that will hurt if you are stuck behind the wrong people, followed by a quick right/left combo where you won't be able to move up, followed by another out of the saddle rising straightaway, that again, if you are 60 riders back and you had to slow too much in the turns, you are going to pay for it when you have to unleash another 600 watt burst to crest the little rise. Then it's fast downhill, with a fast right hander onto the home stretch. Nice and wide road there, but plenty of tar strips and parallel cracks in the road to make you wish you were in the top 10 riders.

Carl Zach Classic: I know I keep saying this, but tough too. What makes this race trick is the home stretch near the start finish is very narrow, you are full gas until turn 1 which is rocky pavement, but worse is you are going from narrow street, to narrower (it seems) street. So there's always a big traffic jam here. Inexplicably after a gentle-ish rise to turn two, which goes to a wide smooth stretch of pavement next to a park, there were a lot of crashes there. I think people were so torqued from the turn one section, that they lost their heads a bit and did stupid things. Now we're basically onto a fast section of combo turns. If you can move up after turn two, that's probably your best bet, because after the left of turn three, it's starts getting fast. You still have a chance though in that short stretch. But then you turn right and go downhill leading back onto the home stretch and that is all very fast, so hard to move up there. The first half of the homestretch is pretty wide though before it pinches down in a hurry near the start finish, so if you have power, it's another spot to try and move up, but damn...you are going to have to put out a lot of watts to move up here. But if you are 80 guys back, things aren't going to get easier, the later the race goes on, so go when you can!

Sheboygan: Okay, 4 right turns and no elevation changes. If your balls are swelling with testosterone and rage, this might be the day you do a harder category, or double up. But if you've been racing hard leading up to this event, you might just enjoy "the break."

Schlitz Park: Will crush your will to live. As if lap after lap of out of the saddle hammering isn't enough, you have to be tough enough to keep your wheels under you and not let too many gaps open on the fast descending turns that follow the climbing madness.

At my crit workshop we're going to talk about and work on the things that need to happen for you to be successful in these races. But suffice it to say, a good warm-up is CRITICAL. Positioning is CRITICAL.

Cross posting a little Wilmington DE vid I made because I'm getting pretty psyched to see stuff like this out in cheese country. It's just a few days away. Oh boy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH_LDLasayw&feature=youtu.be

Hell yeah!

Popped into top 30today. Going to Harlem tomorrow?

Daniel C. Hubbard
315 Gates Ave. 2L
Brooklyn, NY 11216

Day 1 of ToAD was kind of awesome, after almost 14 hours of driving the day before and this morning, I managed to get myself lost on the way to the very nice enclave of Milwaukee called Shorewood, and got my race number exactly 20 minutes before my 2/3 race was supposed to start. Crampy legs from so much driving and no warm-up ensured that was OTB when there was a crash and and everything got strung out. Made it about half distance before getting yanked. In the pro race shit was fierce. A 3 rider break gets away about half way, and pretty much holds onto a 25 second gap, until UNH lines it up at the front and brings everything back together with 3 laps to go. I think they swept the podium...again. Sorry about the no paragraphs thing...the forum doesn't like my iPad.

On the plane!

Mini skills and drills lesson from the field: We talked about leg speed and worked on drills that generallfavored high cadences over big gear mashing at the crit workshop. But last night while racing, there was a stretch of road that was so torn up and bumpy that there was not a single good line throughout. And so I employed a technique that I used on Belgium cobbles. Put it in a huge gear and roll it hard. This effectively smoothed out the road, and even made me drop a guy who was riding my wheel. Imagine me, dropping someone?!

Disagree with my big gear over cobbles technique? Okay...to each their own.

East Troy. Another day, another tardy arrival for Fat Boy Bertucco. This, by the way, is what happens when my wife is not around...I'm half a wreck. Fortunately, things were running late(wuhhuh? A bike race running late?) and Cycleops had a tent full of trainers set up. Dan Hubbard and Al B. from our shop and Mengoni, we're already locked and loaded. Vlad was scouting the course, watching for tricky bits and came back with helpful notes for us. A steady rain of the morning started to die off, leaving wet roads. Another big field, but definitely smaller than yesterday. Guys were jockeying for position 15 minutes before staging. The announcers wet imploring us to roll around. I wanted a good start position, but damn I hated everyone who was clinging to the barriers just waiting for the all clear to bum rush the start line. Tomorrow I have to be one those guys. I'm not strong enough to race from the back. When the pre-pubescent looking cat 3s who can't corner, start popping, my lardy tardy self can't bridge that gap.

After I got popped and dropped, I watched Al and Dan and former Kissena Mattio race. Al was rock solid in the front 1/3 of the field, Hubbs looked good too until he got caught by a crash, had to do some chasing, and was feeling heavy airplane legs and called it a day. Mattio was back with me early, and when the crashes and splits started happening, he was able to sprint past me to join a small group of chasers who were in there working hard, but eventually, they too got pulled...I think.

About 15 minutes before the start of the masters 1/2race, I got the "brilliant" idea to day of register for that race. If I'm going to get any training benefit from this trip, I need to race for more than 15 minutes a day. So I spent a ridiculous amount of money to get my ass handed to me by a bunch of ex-pros, world champs of this or that,etc. I got dropped from this affair too, and I couldn't blame any pre-pubescent looking cat 3 either. This one was all me stIll kind of sucking.

Sup dudes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UQ-18DeDnM

Disagree with my big gear over cobbles technique? Okay...to each their own.

I disagreed with this statement:

"Imagine me, dropping someone?!"

Ohhhhh....I'm just to damn sensitive for my own good sometimes. see you out there tomorrow....I'll be racing with the lightening grey foxes again, but at least I'll have my boy Peter, and wife to give me hugs when I get dropped!

"mental mentor moment" from yesterday: When dropped I was riding with a couple of youngish riders from a big Wisconsin team called ISCorp. One of the kids instructed his teammate to not ride so hard so that they could get caught by the field on the backside of the course. I said, no, they are pulling lapped riders. His response? They'll never know if we jump back in. I was incredulous. Aren't all Midwesterners perfect and pure? Haha. I took that comment as my cue to roll away from those jamokes. But my old man mentor self just couldn't let youth go down the dark side. So I found the guy after we all got pulled and said, in a non confrontational way..."you don't know me, and I'm not trying to get up in your business, but I've been racing over 21 years, and ultimately I think you are going to benefit more from getting out there and riding your hardest and trying your best instead of trying to game the system." he was responsive and explained the frustration of not being able to get back, and I said I understood, but there was another group split off from the main field and maybe we catch them and then who knows. And then I just said lets just reload, get out there tomorrow and both ride better.

There are people who get more joy from having gamed the system than the spoils themselves ever bring...
#humannature

Taken from about 75m from the start/finish. UHC shattered the field.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSEaRQPB6EI

Al and Mattio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL6GmAac5tM