Springtime Racing is here. Weekend Race Round Up and more...

Before I dig into this past weekend's races i wanted to clarify a mistake I made in my last blog post. I had a reader let me know that I was incorrect when I said that Tyler Hamilton's first race back since the '07 Tour of GA was not the Denver City Park Criterium a few weeks ago (Tyler was 2nd). Tyler's first race after the Tour of GA was the US Pro Championships in Greenville where he placed 5^th behind Bobby Julich. Tyler also competed in the road champ's too last year.

Wind and snow make for great criterium racing:

Promontory Park Criterium, Saturday March 22nd

The threat of snow always makes early season racing in Colorado a bit stressful. Saturday had a 30% chance of snow predicted and a 100% chance of strong winds. A hearty 60+ guys showed up for the Pro 1-3 event in Greeley even though the weather was better for football than for cycling. I have to hand it to the UNC cycling team as they put on a great race. Good job guys and thanks for organizing that.

This 75-minute event kicked off with about Colorado's best riders including about 10 local pros. Henk Vogels went on to win by attacked the 7-man breakaway on the final lap. Local 40+ year old rider Jim Mohan placed 3rd and may be having his best spring campaign in 20 years.

I placed 8th after having missed out on the early move, but made the most of the situation. My power data showed just how hard the race was with a normalized power of 350w for 70 minutes.
Feel free to view my file here. Pull down the menu in the top right of the file and download it for additional analysis in TrainingPeaks WKO+. If you need WKO+, get a free trial of WKO+ here.

I skipped yesterday's CU criterium for Easter festivities, but heard there was yet again a large pro contingent that showed up. I guess a 5 or six man move took off with about four Toyota-United riders. I heard that Tom Danielson and Tom Zirble chased late in the race but could not quit close the gap to the leaders.

Up next is the infamous Koppenberg Road Race. Yet another local, yet National Calendar Quality event.

Above is a picture taken from the Koppenberg course during a training ride.