Chinook is Everywhere

It was a busy weekend for chinook volunteers and racers. We had people strung out from Spokane to SeaTac racing their favorite form of bicycle. Charlie and Larry ventured off to SeaTac for the first of the Seatac indie series mountain bike races. Mark and Erin were at Carnation for the first of the Carnation TT series, and a number of volunteers helped with the Canyon Marathon.

Seatac Indie Series
Larry placed 7th in his category and Charlie placed 5th in his category. Two top ten finishes great job guys. And you can tell by the photos below the race was both fun and painful as it is supposed to be.


Larry pushing hard to the finish.

It's impossible to get a clear picture when your object is moving so fast. Charlie is off to race Sea Otter this weekend good luck Charlie, don't drink too much beer before the race.

Carnation Time Trial Series

The Carnation Time Trial series contains 3 races of varying length and terrain. Mark Cleaver and Erin Hale race the first in the series and brought Chinook two top five results.

Erin placed 4th and Mark 5th in their respective categories. Once again Chinook showing off their time trialing strengths.

Time Trialing is a great way to get in to racing if you don't want to deal with some of the dangerous aspects of road racing. All you need is some clip on aero bars on your road bike and your good to go.

Frozen Flatland Omnium

The Frozen Flatland Omnium consists of a circuit race and a road race where riders are given points based on placing instead of overall time. Troy and I ventured off to Spokane to give it a go and had a great time. The weather was horrible, it is called frozen flatlands after all. The first race was a circuit race at the Yakima Raceway the link shows the windy course the race is held on. The races were delayed two hours while waiting for the snow to melt off the course. The race started fast and maintained a fast pace throughout. Troy kept a good steady place towards the front. Here he is below about 3 back.



Troy and I started riding with the club about the same time. It's been amazing to see how good a cyclist he has come. He's not only very strong, but he's become a great bike handler and leader in the cycling community. And if you want to see what cycling has done for him just ask him to see the infamous drivers license photo from many years ago.
I have a tendency to move back and forth in the group. If I can mix it up in some way during a race I'm happy. My only move for this race came when I bridged up to a small group that was a bit off the front. You can see my vicious attack in the photo below. No, that's not George Hincapie it's me. I'm mistaken for him often when I attack.


I bridged up successfully, but so did the rest of the pack shortly after. It was pretty clear that it was going to turn out to be another bunch sprint. We did manage to avoid a big pile up later in the race and finished together in the sprint.



The Sunday road race consisted of a 50 mile loop starting from Cheney. The weather was horrible to say the least. Once I warmed up I was feeling pretty good and moved up to the front. It's not easy to move up in a pack of 70 riders on a narrow road. The only way to move up was to move to the windy side of the road on a narrow shoulder and just hammer to the front. No easy task when you're already doing 22 mph into a headwind. I did make it to the front and took a short rest and then a pull at the front. It's always fun to be in the front of the race even if it's early in the race. As I was pulling someone attacked on my ride side and Troy was on his wheel. They got a bit of a gap so I dropped it down a notch on the front. Then another person attacked to bridge and I got on his wheel. He didn't make it, but the pack then picked it up fast and came around. At that point I was pretty tired and shot to the back of the pack. I struggled for a bit but was able to find a good wheel and recover for a while. Troy was still hanging towards the front and seemed to be doing fine. Soon after the race turned horribly wrong for me. We were going down hill and a nasty storm hit that dropped razor sharp hail. At that point is all I can say is that I had a brain melt down. I was struggling hard maintaining focus and let a gap form in front of me. As riders were coming around me it didn't even dawn on me to grab a wheel. The front pack gapped me by about 20 feet as we started up a hill. At that point 3 other riders that were dropped came up and I grabbed their wheel. We were maintaining all the way up the hill, but once we crested it was all over. Meanwhile Troy is still having a great ride in a very hard race. In the end, and I'm going on what Troy told me since I wasn't there, the race split up on what is called "the wall" and Troy finished in 20th.

It was a very hard race and 20th was a great finish. Troy has now had two successful races without flats, it's only going to get better. The next race up is the Tour of Walla Walla next weekend. I think I'm flying solo on this one. Troy's next big race is the Wenatchee Omnium on May 17th. It's a road race course built for Troy, a lot of climbing. I'll be there for moral support and cheering after I drop out on the first climb.

Erin and Larry were off to the Esticada Time Trial this weekend and Charlie is at Sea Otter. I'll post a blog on their weekend when I get the low down. Sorry for the long blog, but it's my blog and I like talking about bike races