My Deland Race Report...

I havn't really writted any race reports lately so I figure I'd ease myself back into it with a quick little post about last weekends Deland Omnium.

Saturday's Ford Road Race
There had been enough rain to fill all the pot holes with water and bring the humidity level up to about 157%. My race was scheduled for 8 laps of a 7 mile loop. Unfortunately, I would only see about 18 of the 56 mile road race.

For some reason the promoter thought it would be a good idea to cram both the Cat.3 and Cat.4 fields into the same race. So with the "yellow-line rule in effect", it was next to impossible to move up in the field or see anything in the road. On the first trip around the 7-mile course somebody went straight into the biggest pot-hole ever and broke his stem. He didn't go down, but his race was certainly over.

In the laps that followed, the field became pretty nervous as we approached the area that the pot-holes were in...and on the third lap that nervousness resulted in a crash right in the middle of the field. I tried to go around, but others began to go down right in front of me. These crashes always happen so quick and the next thing I know I'm sliding on my head and left shoulder through the palmatto brush that laid next to the road. Luckily for me there was a nice little palm tree that stopped my forward motion. Aside from getting the wind knocked out of me and a collection of little scratches, both myself and my bike would live to race another day.

Sunday's Deland Circut Race
I abstained from the time trial on saturday afternoon. I'd like to say that I was too shaken up from the crash to compete, but while that may have had a little to do with it, I really didn't have much intention of doing the TT in the first place (something about seeing my name last on the result sheet just seemed depressing).

So I ventured back to Deland on Sunday after a restful stay at my folks house in Orlando. The rain was off and on all day which created some slick corners, but fortunately the rain stayed mostly off during our Cat.4 race. I uncharacteristically covered a couple of early breaks at the urging of my teamate which made me feel like a team-player, albeit a tired team-player.

Overall I felt good and stayed close to the front. I was able to go where I needed to go and didn't have any problems following attacks. As the race started biulding to it's climactical finish I knew that I wasn't going to have the legs needed to sprint with the favorites, so instead, I launched myself off the front of the field as we crossed the start/finsh line with one lap to go. I knew the 1.2 mile course was going to be too long for me to stay away, but my intention was to be more of a catalyst for a nice fast last lap, thus giving my teamates a smoother finish as opposed to the entire field trying to squeeze through the last wet corner before opening up into a kamakazi-like sprint. Maybe deep down, after saturday's crash, I didn't really want to be in the field for the last wet corner, and blowing myself up before the sprint seemed like a better alternative?

Anyway, I did indeed blow up after only a quarter mile at 30+ mph. Once caught, I dangled just off the back of the field for the remainder of the last lap and rolled through the finish line healthy, happy and in one piece. My team "leader" took a top-ten finish and was happy with the way we rode as a team...so in the end I felt like the race was a success for me.

A Sitcom break...

The following videos are a new pilot called, "Nobody's Watching" produced for the WB by the writers of Scrubs and Family Guy. It's a very different view of the sitcom world and how it's been affected by the reality show generation. Check it out, and remember...if this show takes off, you heard it here first. (unless you saw it on YouTube first.
there are three (3) 9+ minute clips, which together, make one cohesive television show.

Local GCC'er makes the Sun...

For those of you who missed the Gainesville Sun article about Brian Hetz and his two gold medals at the 20th annual National Veterans Golden Age Games in Hampton, Va., here it is.

It's always good to see the local cyclists do good!

photo by: JOSHUA L. HALLEY/Special to The Sun

This is ridiculous!

Look at this freekishly ripped calf muscle. I'm pretty sure this is a body builder and not a cyclist.

It looks like a cartoon character come to life

The Real American "Tour team"...

We all know that the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team is the only American registered Pro Tour team. And as a result, a large majority of American cycling fans view Team Discovery as "their" home team and support them as such.

I admit it, I follow Discovery as much as any team out there, I pay attetion to their results, I know about all their team members and I read the Paceline.com daily. But I'm not sure that Discovery is really the only home team in the Pro Tour.

I think Team CSC offers just as much American representation in European cycling as Discovery, if not more. Yes, CSC is registered as a Danish team and coached by a Danish Director Sportif, but Discovery is coached by a Belgian, not an American (Ed. note: we think Johan Bruyneel is one of the best directors ever). Yes, the Discovery Channel is an American company based in America, but so is CSC (Computer Sciences Corp).

Let's look at the biggest event on the Pro Tour calendar, the Tour De France. The American registered Discovery Team is sending a strong group to contest the overall in France. Of those nine strong riders, only one hails from the good ole US of A. Compare this to the 7 Americans on the 1999 Tour de France squad that saw the then U.S. Postal Service team on the top step of the podium in Paris. CSC has 3 Americans named to their TdF squad this year.

Team CSC
Carlos Sastre - ESP
Fränk Schleck - LUX
Giovanni Lombardi - ITA
David Zabriskie - USA
Christian Vandevelde - USA
Bobby Julich - USA
Stuart O'Grady - AUS
Jens Voigt - GER
Ivan Basso - ITA

Team Discovery
Jose Azevedo - POR
Viatchslev "Eki" Ekimov - RUS
George Hincapie - USA
Egoi Martinez - ESP
Benjamin Noval - ESP
Pavel Padrnos - CZE
Yaroslav Popovych - UKR
Chechu Rubiera - ESP
Paolo Savoldelli - ITA

If you look at the Discovery/Postal teams over the past 8 years, the number of Americans going to the TdF have gotten fewer and fewer:

1999 - 7
2000 - 5
2001 - 4
2002 - 3
2003 - 3
2004 - 3
2005 - 2
2006 - 1

Granted, the Postal/Discovery organization has been the launch pad for several American cyclists who have since moved on to become members of other European cycling teams such as Floyd, Levi, Tyler, Vandevelde, Kevin Livingston and Jonathan Vaughters, thus decreasing our American numbers. But if CSC (who is the odds on favorite to win this years TdF) is able to field a team that is 33% American, why wouldn't Team Discovery be able to do the same?

Even if we look at domestic races, I didn't see any Discovery riders in Philly for the Commerce Bank Triple Crown... but CSC was there.

I'm still going to be following and even cheering for the Disco boys this July, regardless if the team leader is Hincapie, Acevedo or Popovych. But I'm also going to start viewing CSC as my home team as well!

Related TRIVIA
As mentioned, The Postal Service Team sent 7 Americans to the 1999 TdF. They were:

Lance Armstrong
Frankie Andreu
Tyler Hamilton
George Hincapie
Kevin Livingston
Christian Vandevelde
Jonathan Vaughters

So who were the other two roster spots filled by, and what country were they from?

Behind the Scenes

5count had secured it's own domain name and will soon be transferring to www.5count.com

The I.T. department is currently in the process of designing and programming a new look for the 5count blog. The changes that come about will serve to enhance the asthetics, navigation as well the ability for us to offer new features for you, our faithful 5count viewers. Stay tuned for more information in the coming months. In the meantime, please continue to visit us right here at our current location.

Thank you,
5count

They're Back!

Image courtesy of HBO.com

That right Bi***, the whole crew of my favorite show is returning for season three starting this sunday night at 10:00pm.
Drama, Eric, Vince, Turtle and Ari will be tearing up HBO yet again...if you haven't seen Entourage, go out now and buy the first two seasons on DVD and catch up!

Related sights:
LHIOB.com
Entourage on HBO.com
Rooftop Golf
Episode guide
Entourage WikiQuotes- funny!

The new addition...

All together now... AAWWWWWWW!
Rodrigo and his wife have just added a member to their family, no word on what they have named the little furball but my guess is "Taco".

They say that dogs and their owners start to look like each other, but don't you think this puppy already looks like a rabbit (Rodrigo - a.k.a. Easter Bunny)???

Good luck with all the poop!

Gainesville Represents at the State Road Race

Five Podiums for G-ville residents
At this past weekend's State Road Race Championships five local riders made it onto the podium, two of those actually pulling on the State Road Race Champions jersey.

• In the Cat 5 race, long-time friend of 5count, Anthony Musalo won the jersey in his first ever attempt at racing on the road. Not a bad way to start...congratulations Anthony!
• In the Woman's Pro,1,2,3 race Cindy Tompkins, who usually rides in support of Rebecca Larson (who finished second on the day), made it to the finish line ahead of everyone else earning herself some much deserved accolades. Congratulations Cindy!

Also in the Cat 5 race, Dan Connaughton took home the bronze medal for his efforts. Dan's wife Angela Connaughton went one better by winning silver in the Woman's Cat 4 race. Congratulations Connaughton family...maybe you two ought to race more often!

In Addition...
...to the above mentioned Gainesville cyclists, the State Road Race was littered with local riders who made the trip to Tallahassee this past weekend. First-timers, long-timers and even some some-timers were racing through the HILLS of north Florida. Some did better that others, but all are to be commended for getting out there and racing one of the toughest courses in the state. Here are the local brave souls
***List comprised by 5count editorial staff. If there have been local riders not included in this list that should be, email 5count directly and the error will be corrected. Thank you

Men Cat 5
1st - Anthony Musalo
3rd - Dan Connaughton

Woman Cat 4
2nd - Angela Connaughton
5th - Dana Zimmel

Woman Pro 1,2,3
1st - Cindy Tompkins
2nd - Rebecca Larson

Woman 45+
5th - Vicki Santello

Men Cat 4
9th ? - Kevin Collington
13th - Michael Christopher
21st - Paul Messal
- Alex Price

Men Cat 3
9th - Lorne Johnson
11th - Anthony Alexander
- Jayson O'Mahonney

Men Pro,1,2
16th - Brad Davis
- Ryan Saylor

Men 35+
- Ed Joy

Men 45+
7th - Kerry Duggan
9th - Daryl Tompkins
- Mike Robinson

Congratulations!!!

Busted

In the wake of Manolo Saiz's recent detention for his alleged involvement in a blood doping program, Spanish news agency EFE has just released a newsflash, announcing primary sponsor Liberty Seguros have chosen to cancel their cycling sponsorship from the Liberty Seguros-Würth team, effective immediately!

I wonder how this is going to impact Alexandre Vinokourov's chances of winning the TdF...I can only imagine things would get pretty tough for ol' Vino without a Director Sportif, cook, massage therapist, etc. etc. etc...When you're trying to focus on the next days stage, calling around to make your own hotel reservations would probably be annoying. Vino would probably have to rent a car and drive himself to the start line.

Who knows, maybe he can get out of his contract and get picked up by a pro-tour team in need of a GC contender???

Ring...Ring...
"Hello."
"Hey Vino, this is T-Mobile, Jan is still fat...wanna come back and ride for us?"

OR

Ring...Ring...
"Hello."
"Hey Vino, this is Milram, Our overly-pampered poster-boy has recently bumped his knee...wanna come and ride for us?"

Heading North...

I'll be heading to Tallahassee, Florida today for a work related conference. Earlier last week, the 5count staff contacted one of the local Tallahassee bike clubs about group rides during the week. As it turns out I plan to participate in their wednesday ride that they refer to as The Food Lion Ride. From what I understand it's a race paced 33miles over some undulating terrain...not to worry, I've printed a course map and will be able to find my way back to the hotel even if dropped in the "mountainous region" of north Florida.

The State Road Race held in Tallahassee is just under two weeks away so this trip should be good recon of the course and preparation for the race (assuming that the Food Lion ride covers some of the same roads as the State RR course).

We here at 5count hope to post pictures and reports of our week in the Capitol City. We'll see if the 1.3 mega-pixel camera on my new Motorola Razor cell phone will produce some quality images worthy of posting to the blog.

In other news
The Giro de Italia is rolling right along. Robbie McEwan has taken 3 stage wins already...but I think there's a bit of a drop off in sprinting talent after McEwan. Savoldelli choked a bit in stage eight on sunday and lost precious time to Basso...who will probably walk away with this race assuming he can keep his tummy in check. Bettini is so close to a stage win but keeps missing out...but that wont stop him from throwing his hands in the air for a hard faught second place...oops!

Stars and Bars

Rebecca Larson of Team Florida won the individual Division I womans national collegiate title this past weekend in Lawrence, Kansas. Larson placed second in the road race and won the criterium earning her 263 points which put her into a tie with Penn State's Sarah Uhl. According to the rules, ties are first broken by the number of first-place finishes, but since Uhl and Larson each had one (Uhl placed first in the road race), officials went to the second tie-breaker – the number of second-place finishes by each rider – giving the overall title to Larson.

Hmmmm...

So I came across this picture by Graham Watson
on VeloNews.com. It's a nice little picture of Lance Armstrong in the Discovery Channel team car with Sean Yates as they follow the boys during the TTT on thursday. But what really struck me wasn't Lance (you've seen one picture of him you've seen 'em all), but It's the moto driver with only FOUR FINGERS ON HIS LEFT HAND!!! What the hell is going on there...I thought that maybe he just has his middle finger bent down, but I think he really only has four fingers on that hand.
Even Lance can't help but stare at it.

Sugarloaf weekend

I spent this past weekend in Clermont Florida at the Sugarloaf Mtn. Road Race (sat) and Ferndale Circuit Race (sun). Saturday I helped out with the registration in the morning and I drove the lead officials car for the Masters 35+ race in the afternoon. The race didn't seem too hard to me...but I was driving in an air-conditioned car, so that may have been why I didn't struggle up any of the ten-thousand, three-hundred and fifty-seven climbs on the course. I really don't think that there is a more difficult 11 miles anywhere in the southeast, and depending on which race you were in, you had to ride that loop five, six or seven times. The category 3 and catagory 4 race went off together (but was scored separately) and had a field of about 120 guys. The field was cut in half by the first of 5 ascents up Sugarloaf Mountain. And just to illustrate how strong the cat. 4 field is this year, four of the top five finishers of that race were cat. 4’s, not cat. 3’s (which sucks for the cat. 4 who placed higher than a cat. 3, but still received a payout of less money because they were scored separately and cat. 3’s had a larger purse for the race). Hats off to those of you who braved that course. Click on the title of this post to link to the results from this race.


As you can see in this picture taken from the top of the finishing climb, this course didn’t look too much like a Florida race.

Sunday was a flat 2.2 mile circuit race held in pretty much the same location as Saturday’s race. You can see the results from that race here. Since the course wasn’t a mountainous butt-kicker, or even a hilly leg-burner, I gave it a go. No results for me to report, but I did feel a lot more comfortable during this race compared to the past few races I’ve entered. I was able to make it up to the front when I wanted, I didn’t have any problems responding to attacks and I even pulled through on the front a few times. I still don’t have the legs to chase down a break and my big pop at the end of the race is more like a fizzle, but I feel like things are on the rise. I worked pretty well on the last lap to get myself to third or fourth wheel coming out of the final corner going into the fast sprint finish…but when I stood up to sprint, the kick just wasn’t there and I got swarmed pretty quick.

In other news…
The Giro had obviously started and Discovery has brought a strong team in support of Paolo Savoldelli. You can sign up here to get live streaming video of the race from OLN and here

I also read recently that OLN (Outdoor Life Network) will soon be changing their name to “Versus”…as in Man versus Nature or Basso versus Ullrich.

The Mountains of Florida...

Now for those of you who live up near the Rockies or the Smokies, this image may not be too intimidating. However, for me..down here in the good ole F-L-A, this looks like 300+ feet of little-ring hell. If it's too far to roll over and too steep to sprint up...the chances are that I don't want any part of it.

That's why I'll be happily helping out at this saturday's "Sugarloaf Mountain Road Race", as opposed to racing this saturday's "Sugarloaf Mountain Road Race". The race is sponsored by Team Olympus, and since I am a member of Team Olympus I am required to make a contribution to the race production and will regretably be unavailable to race (awe shucks).

If you are planning on attending the race, look for me in the wheel truck when I drive by you once you've been dropped from the field. Or, I may be taking your entry fees at the registration table...but with my luck, I'll be standing on a corner wearing an orange vest and waving a caution flag at oncoming traffic while I fry in the hot Florida sunshine.