In final preparation for our first attempt at the Masters National Championships, at the end of this week, in Louisville Kentucky, Chad Madan and Chris Brown headed to the Dalton Grand Prix critium last Saturday night and from what I can tell, they are ready for Nationals! A field of approximately 25 riders showed up to race with riders from Team Type 1, Gary Fisher/Subaru, Ion/United Heath Care and Birmingham Velo so fairly small but stacked field.
With bad weather looming and it starting to sprinkle Chad and Chris decided to attack from the gun knowing that if the weather got really bad, a solo or small breakaway would succeed. One turn into the race and Chad is attacking and off the front, playing the Brown card. Gotta love it! Off Chad goes, like a bullet from a gun, for the first 5-6 hypoxic laps, with riders attacking left and right, and Chris jumping on to each to get a free ride. As Chad is being brought back Chris comes around with two other riders and yells for Chad to get on as they had a small gap over the field. Brown, being the every patient dandelion, drills it so hard to try and pull them away from the pack that he gets a gap on everyone…way to go Brown, now what?
In this case, the answer is “keep on rolling”, thinking that Tim Henry from Team Type 1 or an Ion/United Heath care rider would bridge up, and maybe Chad could hop on and get brought up with one of them. So Chris keeps going, and going and gets into a good rhythm and the gap goes from 12 seconds, to 16, to 20, to 25, to 32, to 40…well you get the point. Brown laps the field …SOLO! Unbelievable! While Brown was out on his self exploration of pain solo move, playing the role of the hammer, Chad was aggressive and followed moves in the group and was very attentive to not let anything get away, allowing the group to play the role of the nail. Once Brown lapped back in the field, and with the win in hand he did what he could to help Chad. Chad made several aggressive moves near the end of the race with Tim Henry of Team Type 1 but the moves didn’t quite stick. On one of Chad’s moves right when he got brought back a two rider move got away that just barely stayed away to the end but Chad was aggressive and got away again with three other riders bridging to him. This had Chad sprinting it out with some of the best sprinters in the southeast for fifth out of the group and sixth overall! So a solid final ride for the boys before heading to Nationals. In fact, in looking back at the race the duo of Chris Brown and Chad Madden of Litespeed-BMW Cycling led every lap of the Dalton Grand Prix criterium, a feat that may never be repeated. Nice work fellas!
You can see from this pic that Brown went so hard and fast, that nobody was even ready for the Podium when he got there!
Thanks for reading!