OJ Simpson's Blog: 2008

Monday, November 17, 2008

Ride with Floyd Landis and Rory Sutherland

On Floyd's Wheel.

Me and Floyd chillin with his teammates.

(Mostly from Frank's blog)

It was a Friday. I received unsolicited intelligence from an undisclosed source that Floyd Landis was in town. A few minutes later that intelligence was independently verified twice by two 2nd person observers. Yes indeed "Floyd Landis is in town". Frank started my suspicion that Mr. Landis would show up at a local ride the following day. So my homey convened via mobile-cellular technology (texting) and we decided to discretely rendezvous at the non-disclosed location the following morning at O-10-hundred hours. We arrived and waited and looked around. No sign yet. Then and after a while the one and only, 2006 Tour de France champion, Floyd Landis arrived at the location of the ride departure. There were about 20 cyclist gathered. There was no "star-struckness". I remained cool and spoke with him (nobody else would).

We were off. At times he was on my wheel. At other times I was on his wheel. We stopped at stop signs and red lights together. I heard the same voice in the paceline that I have heard on OLN and VERSUS interviews during the Tours de France. I was wrongly accuse at one point of unknowingly trying to run him off the road as we climbed up the short and steep Potato Gap. Floyd was boxed in as we were climbing more slowly in front of him. Sunshine blurted, "don't let him out!". We chuckled. Ha ha. There goes Floyd up the climb ahead of us. I can't hang with that. I am hurting. I hoped that I would not get dropped on this rare-opportunity ride. The team car is waiting on me (and all of the slower people). I hang on to the car as we go up a few of the short climbs. I wasn't going to get dropped. There were no officials, so pull me all the way up. Thanks! ...again, over and over....thanks!

It was like a normal ride.....a normal ride with Floyd Landis. It was pretty cool. He had yellow shoes on. He once wore a yellow jersey. Outside of Marshall, we raced a locomotive going down the tracks beside us. I witnessed Floyd waving at the train conductor. The train conductor waved back. . The train blew its horn loud. I stayed on Floyd's wheel for a while, took my turn at the front and eventually fell off of the first group. I got dropped. Behind me the team car was closing in with several other cyclist drafting behind it. I "got on" and was saved from getting dropped all-together. We rode at 32 mph drafting the team car up the slight grade to catch Floyd's group. This ride would have been fun even if Floyd wasn't here. This is a good day.

So now instead of riding with Floyd, I am stuck on Rory Sutherland's wheel. (oh darn) I told Frank that we will be faster next year, just from this one ride alone, oh yeah we will.

(Pictures are from Evan Wynn)

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Tree shaker 12 hour race.

This past weekend was the Tree Shaker 12 hour race in Fort Mill, SC. Jim and I had planned on going for a while with Billy, but he had a wedding that day and could not squeeze in both, so we had to find a 3rd person to race 3 man open or do a duo. Jim's friend Jeremy agreed to do the race with us even though he had never done any type of mountain bike race. Jim and I weren't sure if this would hurt our chances to take 1st in the open class (the toughest class) or not, but we decided that no matter what we would give it all we had, make a good showing for our sponsors, and have a good time.

The race got started and I hit the singletrack in 3rd, the gravel and the wet grass made me a little nervous, so I kept from going all out. After a mile or so, I was up in to 2nd and on the leaders wheel. We opened up a 15 or 20 second gap on everyone else and cruised. I tried to remember the course from last year, but made some poor decisions on my first lap, causing me to slow down a bit. I dropped my chain on the first downhill and lost 7 or 8 spots before I recovered. I motored on the rest of the lap picking a few bad lines, but learning the course. I was in the top 10 from all of the teams and 2nd for our class.

The rest of the day went smooth, we thought that we were fighting for 3rd place, but realized the team that we were racing was in a different category (they had the same color plate as we did).

We all did our parts to keep our place steady with Jim and I putting in laps about 15 minutes faster than Jeremy. We all stayed consistent, and had no big problems.

We ended up 3rd, a lap behind the leaders(some local xc racers that knew the trail and the pros from Coca-Cola Barkley), and a lap ahead of 4th. The day ended up being awesome for all of us, we had to tease Jeremy for being on the podium in his first 12 hour race in the open class with a very competitive field.

Thanks to all of the sponsors and supporters that made another podium finish possible!

Go Velosports.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Monday, August 25, 2008

Adam's Report from Night Train

Night Train
So, here we are Team VPC and Team Deltec (dirt bike divisions), immersed in the Mountain Bike scene. Man, it's like a night and day difference from the USCF (road) scene. Anyway, this time we headed deeper into the western edges of WNC to Fontana Village, about a half hour past Tsali. Here's the skinny from the promoters web site:
The Night Train uses a Le-Mans style start. Starting racers must have their bikes in the area specified during the rider's meeting. The racers must run to their bikes from the designated starting line (editor's note: which ended up only being a lap around the stage shown in the fourth picture below). The race starts at 10:00 AM and ends at 10:00 PM. A team's final placing will be determined by the number of laps completed and the order of finish. For example, a team that has completed 20 laps, with a finish time of 10:34 PM would beat a team that completed 20 laps with a time of 10:40 PM. A team with 21 laps completed and a finish time of 11:00 PM would beat them both.

Night Train

The Night Train was a cool race this year. New promoters did a good job. There were live bands, some good riders, and Fontana was actually in good shape!! The course was set up for a 9.2 mile loop with 2700 ft of climbing per lap (ouch).

Our team was Adam, Billy, Jim, and me. We were entering the 4 person open class. Bio-Wheels and Sycamore Cycles were there as well, and we knew we would have our work cut out.

We stayed in 2nd pretty much all day, behind Sycamore (and Wes's record laps), and held our position well. Our laps stayed consistent and we ended up about 15 min ahead of 3rd, but still a lap out of first. We had no major mechanicals, and we all held up well. We had some good support from Keith at I-9 and Jacob McGahee with neutral support from Liberty.

It was our 3rd 12 hour race and the 3rd podium for Velosports!! Thanks to the promoters and to our sponsors. Check out the pics. (Lindsay added the blurbs!)