Master's Nationals

Joe LaCour, Matt Donovan, and I all went to Master's National Track Championships in early August to compete against some of the top age group track rides in the country. It was the first time for all of us, and each of us had an interesting adventure. Matt took the entire family to Colorado and made a vacation out of the trip. His sole event was the match sprint. In order to do the match sprints you have to qualify for the tournament by doing a flying 200M time trial. Unfortunately they only take the top 8 riders, and Matt didn't make it. Although he is already motivated for 2007, and if he improves over the next 12 months by nearly half as much as he improved in the last 12, he'll be kickin' ass and taking names next year.

Joe started out by qualifying 5th for the match sprint tournament, but was eliminated in the first round by the guy that won the tournament and took home a nat'l champ jersey. It is a single elimination tourney, and Joe got a bit unlucky with who he met in his first round. Although he did demolish the competition in the ride for 5th -8th place to take a solid 5th in the sprints. Joe also found himself 5th in the Kilo TT, and now he is focused on the match sprint at elite nationals.

I did alright for myslef with a 5th in the points race and 4th in the team pursuit. The madsion was a rough one. My partner was involved in a crash, and broke his arm. I felt lucky to escape the carnage, and I doubt I'll do the madison at master's next yearm as it was the craziest one I've everdone!

Rich Pearson

I met Rich in the Summer of 2005 when I was guiding bicycle tours in Italy for Granfondo Cycling Tours. He decided to attend one of my training camps in winter of 2006 and I have been coaching him ever since. Rich races in the 50+ group, and is a talented athlete, but just needed some guidance. He works full time as a nurse, and likes to do the occasional tandem ride with his wife. His racing is aimportant to him, but we also worked Ragbrai into his training schedule this summer. Rich has an excellent finishing kick and has used that to finish strongly in many road races and crits, with the occasional top finish in a time trial. He has been on the podium in almost every race he has done this year , including one win. His main goal for the year is the NE state championship road race coming up in September. Wish him luck!