New Featured Rider.

I am putting up a new featured rider on my front page. It is long overdue... Steve Scott (not the famous runner) Steve is coming up on his 50th birthday here pretty soon, and was just getting into bike racing when he came to me. He discovered that he enjoyed the race of truth, but was unsatisfied with his 20K time of 32:18. I got steve started on a training program that primarily emphasized muscluar endurance and on the bike strength work. He's been working hard, and since he came to me he has taken 3 minutes and 50 seconds off his first 20K. His new PR is 28:28 was good enough to get him 5th place ( out of 30) in his age group at the last time trial.

San Diego 2- Day Madison

Below is a report that fellow coach Eddie Monnier and I wrote on the San Diego 2- Day Invitational Madison. The event was fun but tough, as there were some seriously talented athletes out there. Photographer Mitch Clinton was out there snapping photos, and hopefully some of them will end up on cyclingnews.com. If so, I'll post 'em.

Race report for the San Diego 2-Day Invitational Madison

by Sean Burke and Eddie Monnier

The annual two-day invitational Madison is one of the San Diego Velodrome’s (www.sdvelodrome.com) most popular events. Billed as a “for-fun” event, the promoters attempt to pair teams to keep the racing close and exciting. The field was unusually deep this year and included Olympians, national champions and master’s world champions.

Saturday’s racing started off with a motorpaced Madison that demonstrated “for fun” doesn’t mean “go slow” and also offered a glimpse into the depth of this year’s field.

The first day of racing also included a team effort flying lap, chariot races, miss-and-out, and two five-lap scratch races that led directly into the final Madison of the day. By day’s end, it was clear that this was a three horse race. Chad Milliken and his coach and track legend Gil Hatton racked up 55 points. National champion Sarah Hammer and Malaysian Olympian Josiah Ng were trailing by only three points. The Cliff Bar team consisting of two-time para-Olympian Dory Selinger and his junior phenom teammate Daniel Holloway led everyone else with 31 points.

Sunday the teams reassembled for a day packed with even more racing. The day kicked off with a couple of scratch races leading directly into a 35-lap Madison. The Ng/Hammer team and the Cliff Bar team worked hard to make up ground on the leaders but despite all the hard work, neither was able to wrestle the lead away. A two-lap standing start and several short scratch races also provided some exciting racing. The best of the rest continued to battle it out for the remaining spots, which caused quite a bit of movement on the lower portion of the scoreboard. Many of the 4^th through 10^th placed teams were close on points heading into the final 70-lap Madison which resulted in some fast and furious racing. The Cliff Bar team and several of the lower ranked teams, especially the duo of Casteneda/Burke, rode very aggressively. The Hatton/Milliken and Hammer/Ng teams continued to dominate the sprints, and despite the many efforts, no other team could make up any serious ground. Once again, Hatton and Milliken topped the leader board, followed by Hammer/Ng, and Team Cliff Bar. After the racing ended, everyone agreed that fast can also be fun.

Full results:

Gil Hatton / Chad Milliken 112 pts

Sarah Hammer / Josiah Ng 96 pts

Team Cliff Bar – Dori Selinger/Daniel Holloway 89 pts

Scott Evans / Steve Geerligs 63 pts

Javier Casteneda / Sean Burke 47 pts

Anna Webb / Shaun Wallace 37 pts

Kevin Schiller/ Adam Smith 40 pts

Eric Hollenbeck / Eddie Monnier 33 pts

Jeremy Mucha / Tom Dahill 16 pts

John Arnold / Chris Bennet 11 pts

Photos from mitchell clinton and cyclingnews.com