First of all, we want to just thank all the team sponsors:  BMW (The Ultimate Driving Machine), Litespeed Bicycles, Georgia Natural Gas, Guinness, Rudy Project, Cytomax, Clif Bar, 3 Verb, All 3 Sports, etc., etc.  Without your support this year would not have been possible, thank you all!

We are pleased to report that our Chattanooga rider Chris Brown won the overall category 1 TBRA (Tennessee Bicycle Racing Association) series championship for 2012.  This makes him the TBAR champion (Tennessee Best Area Rider).  Chris accumulated points throughout the year at all the Tennessee races to win this series title.  Great job Chris!

Chris Brown, 2012 TBAR Cat 1 Champion

Charles easily won all of the timed events, including the flying 200m Sprint qualifier. Although favored in the Sprint tournament, he was beaten in the semi-final by the wily Ryan Pumpian, setting up a battle for the jersey that would last until the final event.

With the pressure on, Charles knew he had to win one of the final events and place in the other.   He won the Points Race (This race is run a predetermined amount of laps with sprint laps every 5 or 10 laps. Riders sprint for points during a sprint lap.) in the tightest race of the night, edging out Pumpian 20 points to 19 by winning the final sprint.  Then it was simply a matter of placing in the Scratch Race (a race which is a predetermined amount of laps and the rider who comes across the finish line first on the final lap wins), which he did taking 2^nd place to Pumpian’s 1^st.

At the end of the day Charles “The Chaz” Rossignol had the most points and was crowned 2012 Georgia Masters Track Champion!  Way to go Chaz!

The Chaz leading the field!

The 1st lap of the 5 lap race saw a few attacks go, but the field remained mostly intact. During the 2nd lap a number of cat 1 riders went up the road including Chris, and a break quickly got organized and established a solid gap on the field. With no cat 2 riders up the road, Anders sat in the bunch for another lap, as the gap hovered between 1:30 and 2 minutes to the lead group of cat 1 riders. Moving on to the 3rd lap, Anders and a group of cat 2 riders managed to get away from the group, and organized a rotation which established another gap to the main field. This was an ideal situation as both Chris and Anders were in contention for their respective jerseys, and each break was working very well together.

The fourth lap saw a decisive move out of the cat 2 break, initiated by Stephen Bassett from Texas Roadhouse on the short but fairly steep climb near the midpoint of the course. Anders followed this move and soon he and Stephen were moving up toward the break with Chris, eventually catching them just at the start of the fifth and last lap. Although the cat 1 jersey would be decided out of the group of riders in the break, Anders and Stephen were being pursued by Jeff McGrane of FGS and Matthew Meunier of NashvilleCyclist.com. Chris and Dirk Pohlmann (Texas Roadhouse) moved to the front to help drive the break and maintain the gap for Anders and Stephen, providing great teamwork for each of their riders. As the break reached the base of the climb for the last time, Stephen and Anders moved ahead on the climb to solidify their position. As the rest of the break started to climb, Chris attacked and was able to establish a gap and catch Stephen and Anders near the top and the three riders rolled down the back of the climb to the final stretch of road before the finish. Chris was able to attack again on the rolling hills on the back of the course and move away solo, rolling in for the win and the cat 1 state championship jersey! Anders and Stephen continued to mark each other down to the last 1k, where each attacked but was unable to push ahead of the other. The cat 2 jersey came down to a final sprint, with Anders taking the win and the 2nd state championship jersey for LITESPEED-BMW by a tire width! The result was a tremendous day for the team, surreal really as rarely do riders from the same team finish 1st and 2nd in the same race. Both LITESPEED-BMW and Texas Roadhouse rode strong tactical races right down to the finish.

The afternoon presented a roughly 8 mile time trial of flat to rolling terrain, held near the Y-12 Security Complex at Oak Ridge. Looking to duplicate the morning’s effort, Chris and Anders both rode very solid races and were able to place 1st and 2nd again, with Anders taking the win in 16:09 and Chris coming second in 16:18! The time trial result was shocking to Anders and Chris as they never would have guessed that they would pull in the top two places in the TT, amazing ending to a hard day of racing for LITESPEED-BMW. The team’s sponsors played a huge role in the road race and time trial results, with Chris taking the cat 1 road race win on his C1R, and Anders riding his L1R to the cat 2 jersey. In the TT, Chris & Anders raced on Litespeeds sister brand of bikes Quintana Roo which specializes in TT/Triathlon designs. Chris raced the QR Cd0.1 and Anders the QR Seduza. Cytomax kept the team fueled and hydrated for the road race and Clif Bar provided much needed nutrition and recovery during and after the road race. For a complete list of the team’s sponsors please click here – http://www.litespeed-bmwcycling.com/partners/, as their support has been vital to the amazing success the team has had this summer!

After the amazing day on Saturday Anders and Chris kept their heads on straight and got ready to race the Oak Ridge Velo criterium on Sunday. Chris did his usual and raced the Masters crit earlier in the day. With a late race attack came away with the win as Chris was away in an early break with riders from FSG, Swiftwick, Asheville Bicycle Racing Club and Austinbikes. Then the Pro/1/2 race was later that afternoon with most the same teams and riders racing from the state road race the day before. The team’s plan was to get a rider in the break and then try to have the teammate not in the break bridge up. This almost worked out perfectly as Chris got into an early move with Travis Werts from Sonic, Dirk Pohlmann from Texas Roahouse, Andrew Beckman from Clarksville Schwinn and Jeff McGrane from FGS Cycling. Once this move was gone Anders attacked the group hard and got away with Ben Knoernschild of Marx and Bensdorf, so things were coming together…but the break had a pretty good lead and were rolling a good pace even with Chris sitting on the back (he saw that Anders was trying to chase) so Anders and Ben end up getting stuck in between the break and the group. Eventually the break lapped the field and Sonic began leading it out for Travis to the finish, this disabled Chris from being able to attack and try to get away because Sonic kept the pace high for the last 6 laps or so of the crit. So a bit of a chaotic field sprint ensued as the riders in the group and the riders that had lapped the field were all sprinting it out for the 10 deep payout. Chris got a bit boxed in but sprinted hard to the line for forth, with the top four guys coming within a wheel length of the win, it was a close finish! Anders got away from his breakaway partner near the end to come in 6th which was a great result especially considered he and Ben were out there chasing the break for 20 or so minutes by themselves, that is some hard riding! So not a perfect day like Saturday but still a good, safe day none the less. Next up the Litespeed-BMW criterium on August 18th and the Grant Park criterium on August 19th. If you are in Atlanta come on out and enjoy the races!

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The road race was up first on Saturday morning, and presented an interesting situation. Although the field was quite small, it was stacked with very strong riders. Anders and Chris had originally planned to attack and get in a breakaway early, but with the small field it proved difficult to get anything organized. Nate Robinson took the initiative and managed to get away for a lap until the field worked together to bring him back. As soon as he came back the attacks started, and eventually a promising move got up the road that included Brian Toone, Christian Parrett, and Anders. Chris also bridged up and at that point it looked as though the move would stick, however the field clawed its way back and everything was back together heading on to the last lap.

With it clear that a break would probably not stick, Anders began attacking in an attempt to force others to chase and allow Chris to sit in for the sprint. With about 3 miles to go, Anders attacked one more time on his LITESPEED L1R up a small hill which brought 4 other riders including Chris, an ideal situation for the sprint. After rotating through, Anders came to the front and kept the speed as high as possible coming into the last 500 meters, and then pulled off as Chris rocketed through to the line taking the win! Jacques Cartier (Harpeth Racing Team) was 2nd and Brian Toone (Tria Cycling p/b DonohooAuto.com) was 3rd.

The omnium wrapped up with the downtown criterium in Huntsville on Sunday. This was a combined P/1/2/3/4 field, so it was much bigger than the road race, and fast from the start as the race organizer called an omnium point prime on the first lap. Chris secured his omnium position by winning the point prime, and Anders slowly moved up after getting near the back at the start. After a couple of laps Christian Parrett (Globalbike) took off on a dangerous solo move and Anders went to the front to bridge, and brought Will Stoffel from Marx and Bensdorf with him. Christian was able to get a sizeable gap quickly, and although Anders and Will were able to bring the gap down for a few laps, Christian caught and lapped the field and was able to drive the pace from the front of the group. With Anders in no man’s land and the gap between the field and the break starting to shrink, Chris and Brian Toone bridged to Anders and Will for the last 3 laps. Chris took 2nd and Anders took 4th in the final sprint, with Christian staying away for the win with a great ride.

So the unique aspect about the Rocket City Omnium is it combines points from all the races a rider can compete in throughout the weekend to award an overall winner for the omnium. Very unusual and encourages riders to race as many races as they are eligible. So Chris, being he is a bit long in the tooth, raced the Masters 35+ road race, TT and crit in addition to all the Pro/1/2 races. He duked it out with Brian Toone all weekend long, also winning the Masters Crit and TT, to take the overall Rocket City Omnium for the 2nd year in a row. So needless to say LITESPEED – BMW had a great weekend of results and stayed well fueled and fed throughout thanks to team sponsors Cytomax and Clif Bar!

About 2 miles into the race, Chad decided to make the first move. He had hoped somebody would come with him to share some of the work, but it was not to be. Chad immediately got about a 30 second gap and would keep that for the next 5 or 6 miles. Finally a few riders upped the pace and brought him back into the peloton. After a brief chat with Hank, Chad decided to go again. This time about 5 other riders came with. This group of 6 would work together and end up staying away for the next 25 miles or so. After a long chase by the peloton (90% of the work being done by strongman Jan Kolar), these guys would be brought back a few miles from the end of lap two.

Coming through the end of the second lap with 54 miles to go, AJ Meyer attacks through the feed zone, immediately splitting the group of 50 racers a part. Picking their way through the scattered field, Hank, Chris and Artur chased back on to what was the rest of the main group. At this point, AJ Meyer and a few others were already up the road 15 seconds with the gap quickly growing. Hank jumped across to the break and the six of them immediately began taking up their share of the work. They were riding strong and the break had all but one team represented, so they knew that it would be difficult for the chase group to catch them.

For the next 30 miles or so they continued working well in the break but by now the weaker riders were showing signs of wear. Hank could tell AJ Meyer and Casey Magner would be the ones he’d have to beat to win.

A few miles out from the start of lap 4, Artur and Brendan Cornett bridged up to them from the chase group. Now with Artur in the break it gave us an advantage which AJ and Casey didn’t like too much. So, AJ and Casey started to attack which Artur and Hank easily covered and subsequently dropped the weaker riders from the group. After a brief chat, they decided that Artur would do more work and Hank would sit in as much as possible to conserve as much for the finish.

5 miles to go, the break is 5 strong with everybody rotating except for Artur. He takes a longer turns on the front and as we get closer he takes up the leadout with Hank on his wheel. Artur pulls off and its down to Hank, AJ and Brendan Cornett. Hank jumped as hard as possible with 200 meters to go and the two of them just came around him with 50 meters to go. Hank picked up 3rd which was silver for the GA Cat 1 RR state champs!! Artur was able to roll across the line just behind for 5th place.

Meanwhile, Anders had escaped what was left of the main group with about 30 miles to go and would come across in 6th place, almost catching the leaders! Over the last two laps Benjy and Wes had patrolled the main group and would end up coming home in 13th and 16th places. Although we just missed out on the win (and the jersey), the team rode extremely well and ended up placing 5 riders in the top 16, so not a bad day!

Hank on the podium! 3rd on the day, 2nd Category 1

After spending the second half of the 90 mile state championships in the break yesterday Artur was motivated to do something even more during Sunday’s much shorter criterium. Although the team was thrilled to have Hank finish a solid 3rd on Saturday, LITESPEED-BMW was still searching for a win on the weekend.

With more than enough power for the 60 minute criterium, they each took turns controlling and taking part in anything that went off the front. Feeling hesitation in the peloton, Artur initiated an attack in the 23rd minute. With 4 riders sticking onto his wheel, they quickly established a realistic gap and began rotating. Thirty minutes in, a group of 4, including teammate and solid sprinter Tim Henry, bridged and they all began to work together. With two laps to go the threat of two other terrific sprinters within the breakaway loomed. Tim calmly rolled next to Arter and told him to attack with one lap to go. Using this tactic, Tim could rest and the others would have to use valuable energy to pull Artur back. Either he would win, or Tim would be sprinting against riders who were much more tired than he was. Trusting Tim’s experience, Artur attacked on the finishing uphill straight with only one lap to go. One rider glued himself onto his wheel only to pop off as he crested the hill. As he looked under his shoulder to check the gap, Artur saw the group hesitate and mushroom out. This was a sign to peg it and not look back. In the final 200 meters the group was quickly closing in but the white line came faster and Artur rolled across for the win! Tim placed 3rd in the sprint, for 4th overall. After masterfully controlling the peloton for the entire race, Chris, Neil and Chad all finished safely in the group.

What a way to finish off a great weekend for the team!!!

With temperatures already in the high 90s at the 9:25 start, the team aimed to place a rider in any early breakaways, and then keep one or two riders fresh to counter if the break was reeled in.  LITESPEED – BMW rode the plan to perfection, as Chris Chotas helped initiate and drive an early break of 4.  They were joined shortly after by a few more riders, including Andrew Reardon of Swiftwick, Matthew Munier of NashvilleCyclist.com, and Ben Knoernschild of Marx and Bensdorf.  As this break went up the road, Chris and Anders were content to let other teams go the front and manage the work of bringing the gap down.  Temps soared above 100, and the field began to shrink under the incredible heat and the rolling and sometimes exposed course.  Fortunately, LITESPEED – BMW was well fueled with plenty of Cytomax and a variety of Clif Gels and Blocks; if there was a day where nutrition and hydration could make the difference, this was it!  The gap to the break hovered between 1:30 and 2:30, and as the main field approached mile 40, the pack had shrunk to about 12 riders in pursuit of the break.

Seeing an opportunity to break free of the remaining parts of the field and potentially bridge to the break, Chris Brown put in a splitting attack up the 2^nd to last climb at mile 42 – a short but steep punch that flattened out enough on top to successfully ride a gap on to the finish.  There was no response from the field and Anders launched as well, riding with Chris up and over the climb.  After reaching the top of the climb, Chris and Anders rode up to Chotas, who after an amazing effort for 40 miles in the break had just slipped back from the remaining group of 4 breakaway riders.  More on Chris C’s efforts later, which were all the more impressive at the finish.

After descending, Chris and Anders settled in to a two man rotation to bring the remaining riders back.  Following some huge efforts from each rider the break eventually came in to view, but just 45 seconds too late as they hit the final climb out of reach.  Anders ended up 4^th, Chris Brown 6^th, and despite the extraordinary amount of work he put in early during the break, Chris Chotas held off the field for an 11^th place finish.  A pretty amazing ride given the record breaking conditions!  Andrew Reardon of Swiftwick took the win after his effort to bridge early and join the break.  Although the team just missed the podium, having all three riders finish in high places was a testament to a well raced effort, great teamwork, and clutch nutrition from Cytomax and Clif Bar!  Despite the heat, it was tremendous effort from the LITESPEED – BMW team on a course which made a very welcome return to the racing calendar.  The team is already looking forward to returning to the course next year, but hopefully with some cooler weather!