Philadelphia -
Most teams just fly in and race the Philadelphia International championships . . . Not the boys in yellow. They had a full schedule of events. They kicked the Philly week off with a meets and greets party at Cadence bike shop. Land Rover and ORBEA stepped-in and provided tons of food and drinks for everyone, the guys signed autographs and talked to everyone who walked into the door. -a really good time was had by all . . .including birthday boy, Bobby Sweeting who had a round of happy birthday sung to him by everyone in the shop.
Next up, it was the Bicycle Therapy Philly LIVESTRONG fund raiser ride Saturday morning. In two weeks with the help of some very active LIVESTRONG chapter mentors from Philly, they where able to get the word out to tons of people and about 25 souls should up to ride and donate funds to the LAF to send a Philly cancer survivor to the Philly LIVESTRONG challenge in August.
Photos will be coming soon of both the Cadence party and Bicycle Therapy Ride -
Justin of ORBEA-USA with the team at the “tail-gate” water stop, provided by Land Rover, half way into the Bicycle Therapy ride. Again, Land Rover step up and provided water bottles, Hammer Nutrition provided Heed and gels for everyone and SRAM sent a support car to sag the ride –We truly have Awesome, Awesome sponsors!
However the fundraising didn’t stop there! Nicole and Bob of Land Rover came up with another brilliant idea for raising even more $$ for the foundation. Instead of just giving away swag at the Philly expo, they asked for a small donation for items given away . . . They emptied out the yellow bucket 3 or 4 times –total count donated to the Philly LIVESTRONG challenge chapter -$751.02 -WAHOO!
That meant we raised enough funds for not one, not two but FIVE, that’s right, we raised enough funds to send FIVE cancer survivors to the Philly LIVESTRONG Challenge this year thanks to everyone’s hard effort! Did I mention we have the most AWESOME sponsors and supporters around!
Photo of David and myself handing over the cash to Geoff, Philly’s LIVESTRONG Chapter mentor.
Now onto the race itself. Keep in mind, Land Rover-ORBEA is a brand new UCI team this year and this is the very first time we attended the biggest one day race in all of North America . . . So for the first time, we rode a little conservative, something new for this team, usually we go on the attack, but with a 156 miles up Manayunk hill 10 times that has a steepness of 17% and with pro tour teams in attendance, such as team Columbia and Liquigas –we wanted to make sure we had a little something in the gas tank at the end of the race. . . .and it paid off! Evan Elken finished 15th, besting some of the US domestic teams and one pro tour team. -more on this in a moment.
Getting the guys ready prior to the start of 156 miles.
Our feed zone helpers! Best team ever, they are already planning on next year’s event and what they are going to do to support the Land Rover-ORBEA team . . .guess we’ll be going back to Philly in 2010 for sure –can’t let these guys down.
Team on the start line just prior to call up.
Racing up Mt. Lemon for the 10 or so time. Can you find the boys in yellow?
Team Line-up for the Land Rover-ORBEA squad:
Aaron Tuckerman
Evan Elken
Josh Bartlett
Jim Camut
Mike Northey
Logan Hunn
Roman van Uden
Bobby Sweeting
Here’s the race report from Bobby -
It's always tough to predict how a 156 mile race will unfold, and it was much different than last year. After two riders, including my former teammate Andrew Talansky, went from the gun the field rolled around at 18 mph and just talked for the first 30 miles.
The women, who started directly after us, were racing hard and we got word that they were going to catch us. For the first time in the history of the race the men's field was neutralized while the women passed us. During that time the gap to the two guys up front went up to about 14 minutes, and teams began to chase once we were allowed to race again. We hit the Manyunk "wall"(about 1k at 17%) after a couple minutes and caught the women's field. It was a complete mess and they made us come to a stop at the top of the climb. Once we got down to racing again it was hard from there on out. I got gapped going up Manyunk on the 10th and final time up but was able to chase back on the decent. Only Evan, Jim, Mike, and I were left in the field and Evan was feeling good. We were trying to get him towards the front but I was really starting to hurt. I figured that if I could make it to the three final 3 mile circuits that I could help Evan and still finish in the front group.
Not so much. The Columbia-High Road guys were completely fresh and put 8 guys on the front with 9 miles to go. It's pretty rare to be riding in a draft on a flat road and just lose the wheel in front of you, but that's exactly what happened. We were flying through town at 35 mph doing almost 500 watts while drafting. Gaps were opening and guys were just pulling out of line and getting off their bikes, it was nuts. I blew up with 6 miles to go and rolled in off the back with Zirbel and a couple Swedish guys. Mike went off the back in the final circuits as well, but Jim and Evan road great together and Evan was able to sprint for 15th place. I guess he was on Andre Greipel's wheel(the eventual winner) with 1k to go but someone put him {Evan} into a curb and he was forced to stop pedaling. The race was really sketchy this year and there were tons of crashes.
Unfortunately Roman got caught up in one and now has a broken wrist. He crashed about 90 miles in but continued riding just to get bottles for the rest of us. I didn't even know he was hurt at all, and he continued to get us food and take us to the front of the race for another 40 miles. He couldn't get out of the saddle going up Manyunk and eventually got dropped the second to last time up. Then he chased back on to help us some more. It finally took an official pulling him out of the race after getting dropped the last time up the wall, he was just too far back to chase on again. What a teammate, huh?
All I can say is, all the guys from Land Rover-ORBEA gave it their all and rode very well, doing their jobs from chasing water bottles, leading Evan up to the finish straight and raising funds and awareness for the Lance Armstrong foundation . . .the only sour note of the whole event was Roman crashing and breaking his wrist. -he will be going in for surgery on Wednesday to have a pin put in his wrist to speed up heeling and recovery.
Here’s a couple of links to some online video of the race going up Manayunk wall –check out all the spectators!
http://www.vholdr.com/video/philadelphia-international-cycling-championship-mens-2
http://www.vholdr.com/video/philadelphia-international-cycling-championship-mens-3
