The Globalbike family has just received some amazing news. We have made the short list for Beyond Sport, the global initiative which seeks to unearth, celebrate and support the world’s most inspirational sports projects, people and organisations that drive positive change through sport, is delighted to unveil the Shortlist for the Beyond Sport Awards 2009. The Globalbike family has been selected as one of 3 finalist for Best Project by a professional sports team. What better way to spread the Globalbike word! More to come but what an amazing honor!

Learn more about Beyond Sport and the finalist:

http://www.beyondsport.org/mediacentre/press-release/view/1300/beyond-sport-announces-awards-2009-shortlist

Ion Village 35+

Global Bike started with Rick Creed, Jim Taylor, Paul Mills, Steve Sperry, Rodney Dender, and myself for this very fast crit. The attacks were coming from the beginning and we were all over them as usual. Unfortunately a move of four or so got off the front and we had no one in the mix so we do what we do best when we miss the break……..we bring it back. Once the field was back together it was clear it would end in a huge sprint. I noticed Rick was third wheel and had two Hincapie boys about to lead it out. My thoughts were to get up there and help with the lead out but what could i do that Chris Harky couldn’t? I decided to sit in and finish as strong as possible. Rick took 2nd and i finished 6th in a crit which we averaged 27.4 mph for 55 minutes. Great racing from the entire team. It was a tactically a smart race.

Hampton Park 35+

Again we had the usual group with the addition of Jim Cunningham in this race. Attacks started from the gun and we again were represented in each move over and over. No one on Global Bike is scared to sacrifice themselves and that alone makes us a dangerous team. Jim Cunningham got away solo and almost held it off until getting caught with 4 laps to go. At that point we all started gearing up for the sprint and it came down to a fast and furious 50 man sprint. Rodney had the legs to get 3rd, Rick pulled a solid 5th and i managed to get 8th. Three guys in the top 10. Thanks to all the guys who raced and raced well. I’m proud to be a part of this team and look forward to inflicting some serious pain in the races to come.

Derek Kidd

We have been racing hard and it is paying off as we are in the top 10 of the team points competition for USA Crits Speedweek. The team is also the 3rd ranked amateur team.
In addition we have 3 guys; Tyler 29th. David 35th and Sean 39th in the overall points competition for Speedweek as well.
Look for more from Globalbike p/b Catoma for the remainder of the Speedweek series.

http://usacrits.com/09results/promen_teampoints.htm

Well Twilight and Roswell are in the books for 09 Speedweek Crits. Globalbike p/b Catoma though outgunned by many pro teams still manages to get 3 guys in the top 40 and Dave pulls off a terrific 29th at Athens. The crowds at Athens were…well unbelievable and a must see or DO for any cycling fan! It was great people watching late with team grabbing a meal at oh 2:00 am as well. We threw on our SKINS and called it a night.
Roswell was great too. A good course and there were far more pro teams represented Sunday, with many having 6-8 man rosters. Tyler took honors today as the top finisher and once again we had 3 guys in the top 40. Noah Metzler a late addition to the roster did a great job as well hanging in a very fast race.
We have a great young team and many of our guys are getting their first taste of NRC comp. With all that said we are placing as some of highest amateurs in both of these events. Look for more of the same as we will be racing the remainder of the Speedweek events and looking for something big at our home race of Spartanburg.

Jim, David, Tyler and myself headed to Athens for the computrainer qualifiers Friday evening. The computrainer quals are basically an attempt to get a better start position for the “Big 150 rider Twilight” event Saturday. Tyler and David were in the 2nd to last heat. Tyler threw up an impressive 7:41.6 for a 5.5 K TT. This placed him in 8th of the 80 guys that had attempted the qualifiers that day. The last heat only stood his way of reaching the finals. This heat had Jim and myself in it. The pro that won our heat threw out a 7:40.8, less than a second ahead of Tyler. That’s TTing for you. So Tyler was the 9th by .8 seconds. 9th of 88 guys is still not bad! I managed to break into the top 30 and Jim and Dave both had good rides. Look for us Saturday evening as we all represent Globalbike p/b Catoma in “Twilight”!

Saturday

My report is going to be a little incomplete because I really only know what happened in the Pro,1 race.  I could attempt to talk about the other races but I would probably misrepresent the team’s efforts in those other races.  So here is how the Pro,1 race played out.  Globalbike had a strong team today with Sean, Jim, Andre, David, Chris and myself.  Right off the line I was away; a little more by accident than anything else.  My pedals are really old so I guess I can clip in faster than people with newer systems.  That lasted all of 5 minutes before the race heated up and I was sucked back.  Our problem as a team right now is that we race a very solid race until the last few laps but we are steadily getting better.  The course this day is a great course to stay away, maybe not solo, but it’s a crummy course for a field sprint.  So all day there were escape attempts and, with the exception of a few lackluster efforts, Globalbike was represented well in each move.  The most promising move of the day saw Sean off the front with another rider until the last few laps.  Thad Dulin bridged up to the move and unfortunately rode through it and on to victory.  With some positioning error and bad luck in the 2^nd to last corner (the important corner in this I’On race) we managed to miss the podium.  Someone came out of their pedal going through the turn and slowed everyone up, making the last stretch a 5-wide $h!+show.  We should have been more aggressive coming into this last lap and less reactive; things might have gone differently in our favor.  The fact of the matter is that we weren’t more aggressive and our best finish was 10^th.  A respectable finish but not what we had hoped for.

Sunday

We seem to have better luck on Sundays this spring and this Sunday was no exception.  Prior to the Pro,1,2 race Steve Sperry had already picked up a state championship in the Masters.  Congrats man.  That’s 365 more days of trash talking.  The field was strong for our race again today but the course is a little more forgiving and suited for a team of our size.  The Hampton Park race is essentially a NASCAR course for bikes, you really don’t ever brake, it is all gas.  We rode another solid race as a team today.  No moves really stick on this course unless enough guys get up the road for it to turn into a field split of sorts.  Our job today is follow people and close gaps.  Coming into the final laps of the race everything was all together.  I had Sean’s wheel and Andre had David’s.  I am a South Carolina resident and so is Jim, so the idea today is to ideally get one of us up there for the finish.  Jim had already raced today as well as being very active in this race so it looked like it was going to be on me at the end.  I stayed as close to Sean as I could on the last two laps.  The finish was sort of funny like the day before.  I think a bit of this has to do with the few strong riders that everyone is watching don’t love to sprint or don’t have teammates so they are not driving the pace at the end.  The race slowed up and got disorganized.  Sean got me to the last corner in somewhere around 10^th to 15^th wheel.  He opened up and I came around him for 7^th, just barely catching Andre at the line.  Andre was in the grass on the 2^nd to last corner so the fact that he even finished in the top ten is pretty impressive.  Even after helping us out Sean and David finished just outside the top-10.  Even though I finished 7^th I won the state championship title because everyone ahead of me was from another state.  I really want to thank the team for helping me out with this.  It was a good day for us as a team with 4 of our riders inside the top 15.  Next week Twilight!

The Criterium

If you were to just look at the numbers the crit would not look like much of a success for Globalbike this weekend, but if you have ever raced you know that the numbers aren’t always a direct reflection of the performance.  All the results show is that we didn’t finish well on the last lap.  The other 30 some odd laps went a little better.

The Race: The field was STACKED all weekend for a regional race.  Four of five of the guys in the race were fresh off of Redlands and some of the other huge races out west.  For most of the Globalbike guys this was one of the first times we have hard to turn in 2009, you don’t do a lot of turning in the training series.  That having been said the race went fairly well.  Mountain Khaki had 8 guys in the field and did the majority of the attacking.  Unfortunately we did the majority of the covering.  The course is an “L shape” and fairly non-technical with the exception of the one downhill turn that narrows on the exit.  That corner made up for the ease of the other  5 corners; it was hairy.  There were quite a few guys in the field that did not have much regard for their health and that is pretty much what happened on the last few laps.  Globalbike was well represented at the front end of the race for most of the time but eventually the firepower that Mountain Khaki brought landed them a first and second.  Heckman was away most of the race.  The field eventually brought him back and Hamblin slipped away for the win.  We ended up losing some valuable wheels in the final laps and did not have anyone in very good position for the short sprint out of the last corner.  Personally, lesson learned.  Be more aggressive the entire time.  Not just most of the time.  We have a fairly young elite team and I think we will only get better with time in these aggressive crits with the more seasoned racers.

The Road Race

This race went much better for the team than the crit did. The field was actually a little larger than the previous day and I was proud to be a part of the Globalbike team this day.  We didn’t ride timid and ended up putting two riders in the winning break.  David and Craig were active early and it paid off.  As MK set the pace we stayed near the front and the whole team did their part covering the early attacks.  When Heckman went flying up the yellow paint Craig and David were there to go with him.  YES! I was terrified that I was going to have to ride aggressively for the entire 90 miles.  Now I just have to stay in control and close gaps while they ride their legs off up the road.  Thanks and congrats guys.  This is what the entire team did so well all day, close gaps and cover bridge attempts.  Early on a chase group went up the road and Austin latched on.  They came close to catching the break but never did.  As their gap on the field started to come down Austin came back to the field and we pulled it back with the help of some others .  All this time David and Craig were up the road riding strong.  Andy Baker was obviously riding for Heckman and, from what I am told, was relentlessly aggressive and even spent 45 min. off the front of the break by himself.  He was a machine on Sunday, nice ride Andy.  At the end of the day the lead break had split.  Heckman won and Globalbike’s David Forkner crushed his group in the sprint for 5^th.  Craig rolled in for another top 10; he is quickly stabling himself as one of our better road racers both through his USAC and collegiate performances.  Both of these guys had very impressive rides, if you see them make sure to congratulate them on their long days work.  We didn’t get a result out of the field sprint but the team did ride very well the entire day.  We were smart and aggressive.  More results are going to start coming our way soon.  Good work guys.

-Tyler