Moving the blog

New posts will all be at my new blog site:

 http://cyclingscience.org/blog/

Mountainbike Racing

I've got a video of one of my mountainbike riders, Derric. He is the third rider going up the hill. Derric has been doing great lately, winning the smaller cat 2/sport races, and being in the top 5 in all the bigger races. Check it out:

Sedona

I  went to a 4 day  weekend in Sedona Arizona lest week.   Sedona is a  beautiful place with tons of mountain bike  and hiking trails.    I would definitely reccomend it as a vacation spot.  The season starts off  next weekend, and  am expecting to have a couple of breakthrough riders  this year,  So stay tuned for more!

'cross season, sports medicine conferences

The only athlete I have racing this time of year is Rich Pearson, who is training for master's cyclocross nationals. He has a "B" race this weekend, so we will see how that goes.


I went to an American College of Sports Medicine conference last weekend... I try to have a little fun with my nametag each year:

Steve Scott won the 50+ category at the Fiesta Island Time trial this weekend. His time was 28:02 for an average speed of 26.6 MPH!

Here is the " podium" shot

Bike legs, Cyclocross, Rosarito Ensenada

  I haven't updated the bog in a while, but there have been plenty of successes.  Here is a sample of a few:

I finished my last tri of the season over the weekend.  I came out of the water 39^th out of 140 in my AG (good for me) and then passed 32 guys in my division on the bike to finish 9^th (I was re passed on the run by 2).  That’s my best finish there so far...... I had the 3rd fastest bike splits.  1st and 2nd place finishers beat me by seconds.....  Thanks for your help. - Karl

Rosarito-Ensenada was fantastic! ......his year I rode up ( El Tigre)  without much of a problem, no stopping, no hesitation. Felt very strong.......Anyway, thanks again Sean. Saturday was the first time that I rode into Ensenada with a huge smile on my face and not a grimace. - RR

 After winning a cat 4 cyclocross race:  When they announced the winners the announcer  mentioned that at 57 I  was 10 years older than the combined ages of the next two riders.  -RP

 

TTT win

Coached athlete Steve Zeiss and his team won the 180+ division of the Fiesta Island Team Time Trial. Steve has focused more on time trials this year and has improve his 20K by over 2 minutes!

Rich Pearson Strikes again

Rich Pearson is the the 55+ Nebraska State Champion for the 3rd year in a row. Rich told me that the last time he felt this strong was 1981! Good job Rich.

Recreational riders

This isn't a great picture, but I'll find a new one. Roberto is one of the recreational riders I coach. He is a high school teacher at a local public school. Roberto's goals are to lose a few pounds and to cut down his century times.


Ok, so Roberto sent me a photo of him at last year's Rosarito- Ensenada bike ride. Hopefully this year he be a little faster than the year before. check it out:

other uses for bicycles

I spent the month of May on vacation in Northern Argentina, I didn't do much cycling, just a few days on a mountain bike riding around the city. What I did find interesting was this use of a bicycle. This peanut vendor pedals around a peanut roaster. He has a fire going to roast the nuts, and the wholw thing is shaped like a locomotive. He also has a water reservoir and a steam whistle.

Rosarito - Ensenada

I went to Baja this last weekend to ride my bike, eat fish tacos, and drink beer with my freinds. I only managed to take one photo the whole weekend. That's my buddy Gary in the foreground, and my friend Shaun in the background. Shaun did the 50 mile ride on his beach cruiser, and most if it with that crazy lizard mask on his face.

New Featured Rider Linsey Bradshaw

Ok, It has been a long time since I have put up a new featured rider, and Linsey is a very deserving one. Linsey started off this race season as a cat 4, and has earned her cat 3 and cat 2 upgrades. Linsey won her first race as a cat 2 at the Cyclovets Omnium Criterium in April. Linsey has an amazaing aerobic engine, and we have worked to capitalize on that stength and just make Linsey an aerobic machine. Linsey used that aerobic machine to attack on the backside of the criterium course and solo in for the win. This girl can time trial, she can climb, and she can obviously tear it up in the crits. The other SoCal women better watch out for this up and coming rider. Below you'll find a picture of Linsey on the podium after her win, and a photo of me and Linsey soon after.

Sarah Butler

Sarah Butler recently got her category 3 upgrade. Sarah is a really strong rider, and everyone that knows her understands that she is a very intense and driven person. Not intense in a bad way, mopre like focused. Sometimes my challenge with Sarah is to get her to slow down and take it down a notch!

PS Added4/13/08 Here is a photo of Sarah and her teammate Lisa today at the cyclovets crit. Sarah doesn't look to intense here. She looks pretty relaxed just smiling, leaning over and resting her head on her hand.

Red Tolley Results

The Red Trolley went of as planned. Well, maybe not exactly as planned. The rain rolled in that morning and conitinued all day. My first thought was " Oh boy, the EMTs are gonna be busy today." But we actually had only one crash and it was a minor one. The EMTs mostly got to sit in their nice wamr ambulance and relax. Many racers stayed away because of the rain, but the racers that did show up raced hard. You can ge the results on the USAC website.

The 5th annual Red Trolley Classic is on!

All of the permits are pending, but you can find info about the 2008 Red Trolley Classic Criterium HERE.

Christmas Bikestyle

Check this out. "The Nutcracker Suite" played entirely on bicycle parts.

http://www.specialized.com/bc/microsite/holiday/index.html

Bike Porn

Check out this advertisement for saddles. I found it in a bike industry magazine.
"Come On a Joy Ride"

Beer after sport 'is good for the body'

...or so says this British newspaper article. I bet these researchers found what a statistician might call a type I error.
A post exercise beer might be great for the mind, but it definitely isn't going to hydrate you any better than water, and Gatordade will do a better job replacing carbohydrate and electrolytes.

(Note that the athlete pictured in the photo is a crickety player. How exhausting can cricket be anyway?)

Grandpa is a state champ

Here is a great picture of Rich Pearson with his Grandson. Sometimes you have to cut the training short to get a little extra family time.

More BIg Results!

There were 2 big events going on last weekend. The SoCal Nevada District Elite Track Championships, and th Collegiate National Track Championships.


Matt Donovan scored another championship jersey. You might remember he got himself a masters championship in the match sprints in August. Now he can add an Elite state championship jersey to that collection, as he ( along with his 2 teammates) won the team sprint competition. They beat some really high quality teams to do it, so that make the victory that much sweeter.

I coach 2 of the riders that went to collegiate track nationals. Julia and Kelcie both set PRs in the 500m and 2000m time trials, while Kelcie also set a PR in the 200m. Julia not only set personal records, but won bronze medals in both the 200m and the 2K. The highlight of the weekend was when Julia and Kelcie won the team sprint with their teammate Anna Lang, so they all get to go home with a national champ jersey.

So the tally for the weekend is:
1 elite state championship
5 personal records
2 Bronze medals at a national event
2 National Championship jerseys
A Great Photo of Matt During a Sprint:

Fiesta Island Time Trial

Some of my boys really kicked ass at the Fiesta Island Time Trial. My CyclingScience team won the team TT last year, and couldn't wait to get out there to defend the championship. The boys did better than just win the event, they set an all time course record! These guys did a 40K (24.9 miles) in 48:50, and blasted the old record by over a minute. A 48:50 40K is averaging 49K/ 30.5miles an hour.

Steve Scott also set ANOTHER personal record in the individual 20K, posting a 27:42, or 26.9 MPH. Pretty good for a guy that just turned 51 :-) Steve was struggling to beat 30 minutes just a couple of years ago.

Master's National Track Championships

Master's national championships went well this year. I only had 2 riders there this year, and didn't race myself because I had ANOTHER knee surgery on August 14th. My riders that did go to nats had some great rides. Joseph Lacour won a silver medal in the match sprints as well as a Bronze medal in the team sprint. I was very proud of Joe for winning the silver, but also a little disappointed that he didn't get the gold. The guy that beat him(Mike Beers) is a very experienced racer and was an elite national champ just a few years ago, so at least he lost to a high quality rider.

My other rider was Mike Mccue. This was Mike's first year to go to masters nats, and he set a personal record in both the 2K pursuit and the 500m. Mike also did the points race, but some dillhole FORGOT TO GLUE HIS TUBULAR, rolled a tire, and took out about half a dozen racers (incl Mike)only 2 laps into the race. Mike got back in the race, but just wasn't himself once he got back in.
The whole weeklong event was great, and I am already fired up for next year. I look forward to racing myself, as well as taking a few more riders out there with me.

Master's District Championships

My riders did well at Master's District Track Championships. On saturday, Mike Mccue won the points race in the 50-54 group. Matt Donovan posted the fastest 200m time on sunday, and went on to win his age group after a hard fought battle against some very talented competitors. Hopefully we'll have some photos soon.

Racing in Italy

Here is a great picture coached rider Rich Pearson atop Stevlio Pass in Italy. I met Rich in 2005 when I was guiding Italian bike tours with Granfondo Cycling Tours, and have been coaching him since shortly thereafter. Rich had some major successes last year, but one off his goals for this year was to finish the "medio" course of the Granfondo Campagnolo, a race over 120km and 3 mountain passes, in under 5 hours. In 2005 he did it in 6:01 and was 55th out of 105 in his age group. For 2007, Rich came back leaner and meaner to finish a slightly longer course in 4:42, placing 12th out of 105 riders in his age group. Good Job Rich!

Karla Johnston- Triple Crown Winner

Would you be smiling like this after 200 miles? Karla is. That's because she just did her 4th double century of the year. About a third of my athletes ( like Karla) are non- racers who still want to perform at their best. Karla Came to me last year and was relatively new to the sport, but full of excitement and enthusiasm. Karla did several centuries last year, and then set her sites on not only doing a double, but doing at least THREE double centuries to earn herself a California triple crown.
Great job Karla!

Dana Aia

Coached Athlete Dana Alia has been going very well in the San Diego Velodrome's tuesday night racing series. We race in groups of A( cat 1,2,3) B ( cat 3,4) and C ( cat 4,5). Dana learned to ride the track this spring then spent 2 weeks racing in cat C and has been racing cat B ever since. Dana is so strong I have had to gear limit him so that he doesn't just ride away from the the other racers. Still, he typically wins several races a night. He'll soon be racing in the A group. Watch out guys!

Video from a team rider

Check out this video that CyclingScience team Rider Colter Cederlof shot with his helmet cam at the Ontario criterium on June 10th.

Julia Lafranchise still doing well

Julia is doing really well racing in both collegiate and USCF races. She has managed to get results in road races, tiume trials, and criteriums. To top it off she is the omnium leader for the western collegiate cycling comference.

Julia will be heading to Collegiate National Championships next month!

1. Boulevard-6th place
2. Red Trolley-1st place
3. SLO Crit-2nd place
4. UCLA RR-3rd place
5. UCSC RR-3rd place
6. UCSC HCTT-4th place
7. SDSR HCTT-10th place
8. SDSR Crit-7th place
9. SDSR GC-8th place
10. Berkeley RR-3rd place
11. Berkeley Crit-2nd place (but first when you add in prime points)*

Riding the rollers - one leg no hands

This guy has amazing roller skills

More results

Things are going well for many of my coached riders.

On March 10th, Julia Lafranchise did really well at the UC Santa Crus Road race, scoring a third place in the women's race. Then she topped that off with a win in the women's cat 3/4 del mar crit on 3/14.
Junior ride Zac Steinf won the 17-18 year old crit at the same race.

Steve Scott started the San Dimas stage race out right by taking 2 minutes off of his hill climb TT from last year, and placing 16th in the cat 5s ( not bad for a 50+ guy), and Cyclingscience team rider Matt Shechtman is sitting in 2nd place in the cat 2s after the TT.

More to come....

Good Results at Valley of the Sun

Valley of the Sun stage race is one of the first big stage races of the season out here in the western half of the country, and riders don't usually show up unless they are fit. Coached rider Jesee O went out to AZ to give VOS a try. Jesse is a cat 5 rider, who contacted me near the end of the 2005 season because he was unsatisfied with his race performance in the 2 races he had entered that year. VOS was his first time to do a true 3 day stage race, and he got a great result. Jesse was 4th after the 22K individual time trial, and then 3rd after the road race. He held on to his place through the crit, and walked a way with two top 5 stage finishes as well as a bronze medal for GC. Good job Jesse!

As far as the women go, coached rider Beatrice D took 2 minutes off of her TT time from last year. I'd call that one a success as well.

My knee surgery

I don't usually write about myself, but I've got some interesting stuff here. I've been off the bike for several months due to what I originally thought was an overuse injury. I finally had an MRI, and the MRI indicated that I had a torn meniscus. The only way to resolve the issue was surgery, so on valentine's day I had arthroscopic surgery to repair the meniscus.
The meniscus is essentially a shock absorber in the knee joint, you an see a drawing one it here.
The surgery went well. I an actually put weight on it just hours after the surgery, and I am starting PT in just a day or two. Any way, the cool part is this. I have some before and after photos of the knee, along with a video of the arthroscope.

Before photo. Se that flap of stuff hanging there? That isn't supposed to look like that!



After photo.....much better!

Julia Lafranchise wins Collegiate criterium

Julia Lafranchise won the Collegiate Women's A criterium at the Red Trolley Classic. Her primary goal is to do well at collegiate national championships in May. I'd say she is off to a pretty good start!

Photo from 2006:

Doping Articles

Here are some great articles on how an accused athlete basically has little or nor recourse once he has been accused of doping:
LA Time Article Here
Opinion Piece From Daily Peloton Here
I pretty much agree with everything Ray Cipollini says

Not Much Going On

There isn't alot going on these days. I didn't work with any 'cross riders this year, so I have no riders in competition between October and 2006-January 2007.

If you get bored of cycling, maybe you can give competitive breatholding a try:


If you wanna see a documentary about some good athletes, check out this documentary on quadraplegic rugby. These guys are awesome:

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0436613/

Jesse Ocon Beats 30 minutes in his first 20K. Team Wins Endless Summer Crit

Coached rider Jesse Ocon did his first 20K TT in under 30 minutes. Averagin over 25 miles per hour is pretty good for a first try! I've analyzed his power file to tell him how he can improve his pacing, and I've made a few equipment recomendations. I'm confident that Jesse will be going under 29 miinutes within a couple of months.
The Cyclingscience.org team also scored a win in the Endless Summer Crit. Team Rider Jordan Itaya got in a break of 4 that lapped the field and then won the field sprint. This is Jordan's First ever win in a pro 1,2 race. Congrats!

Another State Championship

On September 23rd, another one of my coached athletes won a State Championship. Joseph LaCour won the Texas State Match Sprint State Championship by beating Ryan Nelman. Nelman got 2nd last year in the match sprints elite nationals and is a elite national champion in the team sprint, and a former jhunior national champ, so this was an exellent win for Joe. Hopefully he'll send me a photo of himslef in a state champ jersey real soon!

Team, Coached Athletes have a Great TT

This last weekend was a good one for me and my team. Saturday morning was the Fiesta Island Team Time Trial. This is where all of the local teams come out to see who is the fastest, and the team that wins gets bragging right for the whole next year. We new that the Cyclingscience.org team would be one of th fastest, and saw the DeWalt tools team as our closest rivals. I, along with team Sponsor Gabe French of Gabe French Plumbing. went out there to put a clock on top teams, and let our boys know where they were. THe boys started out a few seconds slower on the first 2 of 8 laps, buyt they kept it nice and steady while the other teams faded, and the CyclinScience.org team put in the fastest time of the day by over 40 Seconds.

Sunday was the individual 20K TT
The day started out well with team rider Chris Daggs getting second in the mens 30-39 category by going ovr 27MPH for 20K.

Two of my coahced athletes put in new personal records for the day, with 17 YO Zac Stein completeing the distance in 30 minutes flat ( and only a 12 seconds from appodium place).

Steve Scott DESTROYED his last PR by 40 seconds, with a time of 28:30. Steve has taken about 3 minutes off of his 20K time in the last 2 years, and it is great to see him continually improve.

Rich Pearson Wins State Champ Citerium

Rich Pearson is my newest featured athlete, and theere is more about him a couple of entries down. I've been coaching Rich since about February of this year. Rich has had a great season with many podium places, but had still not gotten that elusive win. The most frustrating parrt was that it was the same guy beating him almost every time. Rich hit the Masters State Championship races with top form, but it was still going to be tough to beat the guy that been getting him almost every time(not to mention beating all the other masters riders vying for the state champinship). So a few days before the race Rich and I had a conversation about how he could finally beat not only the rest of the feild, but also his "arch nemesis", the Penguin to Rich's Batman.... ;-)

Saturday afternoon, I was excited to get this email:

Date: Sat, 09 Sep 2006 18:07:19 -0500
From: "Rich XXXX"
To: "Sean Burke"
Subject: race results

Sean--I finally beat XXXXXX and won the state
championship for
nebraska masters 55+!! Heres the race report.....

Rich has been working hard all since the later winter/early, and I was honored to help him win his biggest race of the year. Hopefully I'll get a photo of Rich in a State Champ jersey to post some time soon.

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!

Sprinters Doing Well!

The last two weeks, A few of my riders have done pretty well on the track. On May 30th, Matt Donovan set a new PR at the San Diego velodrome with his 200 meter. Matt Recorded a time of 11.18 seconds. This was good enough for him to qualify third for the sprint tournament, behind 2 elite level riders. He gave a good showing and wound up in third place for the night as. Matt is going well, and has now set his sights on Master's Track National Championsips in August .

Josepgh Lacour meanwhile, competed in the Texas Master's Track Championships, on June 9th and 10th, just barely missing out on a gold medal..... 3 times. Joe wound up 2nd in the match sprints, 2nd in the 1k time trial, and his team was second in the team sprint. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.... at least for the weekend. That's Ok. Joe is not really experienced on the track, and this time next year he'll be tough to beat. Besides, Joe got his first win as a cat 2 rider just about a month ago at the Moritz Chevrolet criterium in Fort Worth TX, and I'm sure there are more to come.

Gabe French Featured Rider

Gabe French is one of my team's sponsors, and our new featured rider. Gabe came to me last year as a recreational rider, and said he wanted to start racing. His first few months of racing have definitely been a success. Gabe wound up on the podium multiple times as a cat 5 racer, and quickly got his cat 4 upgrade. As a category 4 rider, he found himself racking up the results almost immediately.

Valencia crit- 9th

Valencia GC-16th

Ontario 30+ 4/5 - 2nd

El Cajon Grand Prix 30+3/4 - 4th

Gabe got results on the track as well as the road, and has won multiple races in the "B" category since track racing started this April. Gabe's main goal for the spring was the State Criterium Championships in May, but he found himself sidelined by an infection, and actually wound up in the hospital for 2 days! Gabe has taken a little time off to recover, and will now start building towards the second half of thew long SoCal race season.

Gabe French Podiums

Gabe French got a solid podium perfomance with a 2nd place in the cat 5 group at the Torrance Crit. I raced the course earlier in the day and told Gabe where he needed to punch it. Well.... he punched in the right place! There was one guy off the front but Gabe won the field sprint. He put in for his cat4 upgrade that evening and he'll be racing as a cat 4 in Redlands this weekend.

Fiesta Island Time trial

Steve Scott set a new PR at the fiesta island TT course this weekend. The exciting thing is that Steve is still quite a way away from his peak fitness. Good Job Steve! Here is an excerpt of an email I got from Steve:

My unofficial time was 29:11 (25.55 mph) - Gale and I both
clocked me at the same time.  If that holds, it's a new PR by 18 seconds. For a C race,
and I worked hard this week, and I felt pretty tired....

BTW Steve's official time was confirmed at  29.11

Grant Sample & Jeremy Floyd

Anyone who follows this blog has seen and heard about Grant. The road season is just starting andgrant has started it out right. He scored a podium spot by getting second place in the Red Trolley Classic on February 5th, and then used his TT skills to score a 10th place in the GC at Valley of the sun Stage Race. Guys don't go out there to Valley of the Sun unless they are fit, so 10th place is a great result.

In a blastt from my personal past I've been dealing with an old friend and roomate of mine Jeremy Floyd. ( we just call him Floyd) Floyd is mostly deaf, and so when I saw that the deaf cycling world championships were being held in California I told him he ought to go for it. He has a prett good chance of making the US MTB team, and is meeting with the team coach and current team riders soon. Floyd sent me an email and said " You got me into to this, now I need you to help me out", so I am working with onhis preparation to make the team and hopefuly represent his country. On a side note, I told another old friend that what Floyd is doing an he said "...I've raced with Floyd, and he sure isn;t disabled when it comes to pedaling a bike." Rock on Floyd.


Race season is starting to heat up, stay tuned for more updates.

Happy New Year

There hasn't been alot going on racing wise. Cross season is over, while MTB and road season have yet to start. Serious training started for alot of the road and MTB riders around the beginning of december though. The Southern California seasno starts early, and if you aren't putting getting some saddle time in December and january, you'll be hurtin' come february. I personally have alot I've been working on recently. I am starting my own new road and track team for '06, and I've debuting a new web page focusing on racing news in SoCal. Keep checking back and you'll be one of the first to get a look.

Coached Rider Jason Vorell is State Champ

Coached Rider Jason Vorell is the Cat B Cyclocross State Champion, he has also clinched the socal cross series overall points championship- all he has to do is show his face on the 18th and he go t it in the bag!

Encore Does it Again....

Just a quick to say that Team Encore Credit is still Killing 'em on the Cross Scene. Coached riders Jason Vorell, and Camereon Dickinson Both took 2nd Place in their categories (B&C) in the Adams Ave Bikes Cross race in San Diego Last weekend. Both of them are gonna have to move up a category next year. Team Encore is hosting the SoCal Cross State Championship on Saturday December 3rd. Wish 'em luck, as they have several riders that could post a W in thisd race: http://encorecycling.com/race/racepage.htm

Congrats again to Jason Vorell and Team Encore Credit

Here is a recent press release sent out by Team Encore credit. I coach 3 of the Encore Credit riders, and have consulted with a few others:


Palos Verdes, CA

The 2005 SoCal Cyclocross Series made its 8th stop in the beautiful rolling hills of Palos Verdes this weekend. On the cool and foggy morning, Encore Cycling put on quite a show. Lisa Vorell started it off in the Woman's B with a solid 2nd place finish to secure her 2nd place overall in the Urban Cross Series and put her in the lead for SoCal Cyclocross Series with 6 races to go. In the Men's B it was a 1 - 2 - 3 for Encore Cycling!! Jason Vorell took the win, clinching the top spot for in Urban Cyclocross Series and extending his lead in the SoCal Cyclocross Championship Series. Mike Tettleton, in his first Cross race ever, took and impressive second! Starting in the back of the 22 man field, Mike fought his way up to the front group and then set such a fast pace that only his team mates could hold his wheel. Jason Perkins placed third, taking 2nd in the Urban Cyclocross Series and moving into 2nd in the SoCal Cyclocross Series. Daniel Preston also made his first debut into cross this weekend in the Men's B class. The afternoon concluded with a super competitive Men's C Field. Cameron Dickinson continues to make significant improvements and placed 7th out of 23 on the day.

Encore Cycling, now trailing by only 10 points, stays in 7th place in the team competition.

Coached Rider Jason Vorell powering to victory

Training Camp

I'll be putting on a training camp in January, It is a weeklong camp with piles of miles and tons of climbing. The campis reasonalby priced, and will be tons of fun! Be sure to check out my sandiegocyclingcamps web page. You don't have to be one of my coached athletes to come along!

Recent Results

Jason Vorell was my featured rider last 'cross season, and he is tearing it up again this year. Jaon won the SoCal Cross sup for the "B" group last year by going ou there and getting consistently top results. He is taking a slightly more laidback approach this year, and isn't really worried about the overall cup, but that hasn't stopped him from getting a 3rd at the Urban Cyclocross race on 10/30 or a 1st on 10/23 at celo Pacific. Jason actually said he feels the fittest he has been in years. I think it is partially because I was able to help him prepare a little better this year based on the feedback he gave me in 2004. Jason't got plenty more races to do this season, a few more performances like the last few weeks and they'll probably make him cat up!

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

The Season is Winding Down....

The season is winding down for most racers. I've got Jason Vorell hitting some cyclocross races prett hard in the coming months, but besides Jason and a few time trialisst there isn't much going on. I will be racing in the San Diego Annual Inivitational 2-Day Madison this coming weekend. It is more of a fun event (if you can call incredible suffering fun). I'l be out there racing with guys that have been to the olympics, world championships, and curent and former national champs, so I'm in for some pain for sure.

In case you don't know what a madison is, it is a race where you are basically racing with a partner and only one of you is racing at any given time. You literally grab the hand of you partner and throw him in at 30 MPH, then you get about 30 seconds rest and he throws you in. Get about 10 teams going, throw in some sprints, and you are in for the most pain, suffering, and fun you can have on a bike!

Here is a good decsription of madison racing : http://www.obra.org/track/track_racing/madison.html

Never run away from your problems

I saw this today and though it was great...

Mammoth MTB Nationals

MTB Nationals at Mammoth were HIGHLY compeitive this year, with top riders from every category coming from across the country
Jose rode to a 23rd place in a VERY strong expert field.
Zac ended up tenth in his race. Here's the strange thing about that....
For some reason, the riders are allowed tor race DOWN a category at nationals. Advised Zac to race in his normal cat, but he ended up racing beginner. Every fast kid from across the country also decided to race beginner so they could try and win a medal. IMO, the medal is worthless if you are racing down to attain it. There shouldn't even be a beginner class at nationals!
Anyway.... Zac got 10th in the race, but noticed when he checked the results that his speed would have actually placed him HIGHER if he he raced in his normal category.
That's what you get when you race for a beginner championship.

Young Zac has a had a great year toher than the day at mammoth, and still has a couple more races to get out there and mix it up before the off season begins....

Big News

Grant Sample along twith some of my Ranchos teammates got 2nd place in the state TTT. They were only beat by 45 seconds, and it was a group of cat 1/2s that beat them. Not Bad for a bunch motely crue of cat 3 and 4 riders! Grant has been featured rider on mmy site for a while now, and his TT prowess is well known, but this is till a big accomplishment.


Next weekend Jose Nilo and Zac Stein are both going to be racing MTB nationals in Mammoth. Stay tuned to see how they do!

CBR Team TT

Grant Sample and his partner found themselves on the podium at the CBR TTT state Championships in the 2 man division. They got 3rd place, not bad for a cat 4 racer mixing it up with a bunch of cat 1s and 2s huh?

FYI: this is a photo of Grant, but not during last weekend's TT.

Matt D at Master's District champs

Here is a cool photo of Coached rider Matt Donovan keeping warm before his sprint heat at the Master's Disrict Championships. I'm there on the left getting ready to dole out some tips before the race, and local rider Darrel McPheron just got done telling a fart joke.
Matt qualified for the tournament for the first time this year, but got eliminated in the second round.

Last weekend

Last weekend went well for a few riders.

Jerry Murphy got a 9th place out of over 50 riders in his category int the TX state TT championship. a 1:03:20 is pretty good for a trolling course like that one. While Terry Ward got a 6th place RR finish and an 8th place GC finish in the Tour of Whitehorse in Alaska. Both riders have worked hard all year, but I really have to hand it to Terry. Terry wins the mental toughness award for putting in those big computrainer hours during the long Alaskan winters.

Master's district championships

Here is a photo of me after getting 2nd in the SoCal -Nevada Master's District Championships points race. over the weekend. It became apparent about a 3rd of the way through the race that i wasn't going to beat Chris Daggs from the SDBC Elite Team, so I just worked on getting that second place. Daggs was just too strong.

I'm back!

This blog has been severely neglected for the last 2 months. It was just impossible for me to find time to update this thing while I was guiding the tours in Italy.
In recent athlete news. Tm Warren of texas just got his cat 3 upgrade. Congrats Tom. Tom has been working hard all year, and the work has paid off. Tom is a physician and his work schedule can bepretty crazy, making my job tough as well.

I have several riders racing the the TX state TT champs this weekend, so good luck to all of them. Some of my other athletes are doing Stage races in Alaska, and circuit races in California. Check back to see how they do.

Big Weekend coming up

This is a big weekend coming up for my coached athletes. I've got a Dr in CO peparing for Iron Horse Classic.
I have several riders in Texas getting ready for 3 races over 3 days, including the TX State Criterium Championships.
Check back to see find ou how the weekend goes!

I just started working with Lezlie Smith from west Texas. One of her goals for the year is to beat her PR for a 40K TT. Her current PR is 59:45. That's a time that many young guys would consider toufh to beat!

A great Weekend for cyclingscience.org coached athletes

The weekend Started off well for my coached athletes, with Grant Sample winning the cat 4 TT and the cyclovets omnium road race in San Diego . It's a good thing Grant gave it his all, as the winning margin was only one second! James Warden also did a great job in the cat 5 race finishing 4 th place.
Saturday went also went well when Jason Montour made the podium with a 3rd place finish in the cat 4 cyclovets omnium road race, and Grant held on for 8th place, goodenough for second place overall.

Sunday was a day for the fast men with racers entered in criteriums in Texas and California.
Grant Sample, and Jason M. James W had pack finishes in the crits, but their previous results were good enough get Grant and Jason 3rdand 5th overall for the stage race, and James' result gave him an 11th overall in his category.

Joseph LaCour finished 7th in the p/1/2/3 category in the James bailey memorial criterium in Texas(~ 100 F heat). This is Joe's first season as a cat 2. I've coached him since he was a cat 5, and it's really rewarding to see him doing so well. And last but not least is Trey Buck, also racing the crit in Texas, who got a 5th place in the cat 5 race.