For the Glory of Brother Brigham

We had a great time in St. George riding an early season century. There were about 800 riders total, 5 from the BYU Club (Patrick Davis, Devin Athey, Dylan Pratt, Clayton Pratt, and Jonathan Wait). It was a 107 mile ride all over southern Utah. The day started rather cold at 8:00 am, but warmed up as the ride went on. There was a head wind as we went out, and when we turned around so did the wind. We had a head wind almost the whole time. Along with the wind, we climbed about 4000 ft. All the BYU riders finished great, with times from 5:35-5:55 placing from 5th to 15th. I wrecked about 40 miles into it, clipping a wheel in front of me. I got some road rash but it didn't hurt much till the next day. We didn't get a picture with everyone but below left to right is; Jonathan Wait, Devin Athey, and Patrick Davis.

There will be a ride this Saturday March 7th. We will meet at the bike racks south of the RB at 11am. I am open for suggestions on where you want to go.

Devin Athey and Leipheimer Win!

After a great Tour of California Devin Athey won the BYU Cycling Club fantasy cycling tournament with a correlation coefficient of .643. He has won all our respect and admiration.

We had a great ride last Saturday around West Mountain. It was a prep ride for the century coming up this next weekend. If you haven't heard we are doing a century (see below post). And some great news is we have a place to stay for about $5 a person. A member of the club is letting us stay at his place in St. George and the $5 is for the little expenses like a club breakfast. Let me know if you are (1) going down and/or (2) needing a place to stay. I am organizing carpools and everything so I need to know who is going.

A fun opportunity is presenting itself to the club. The Rex Lee Run is a large running event here in Provo and the club was asked to lend a hand in leading and following the race. We will help keep organization. We need around 4 riders who have a BYU jersey to participate. Let me know if you are interested. ycycling@gmail.com

Riding in the Clouds / Century at the End of the Month

This morning four of us went our for some steep climbing on the east bench that took us into the clouds. Provo is somewhere behind us.

As a club we are going to go to the Zion Country Early Spring Century on February 28th. It is in St. George. We will work out carpooling, and for those of you who don't have a place to say, we are working on finding something. Worst case scenario we will share hotel rooms. If you do have a place down there and can take in other riders let me know. I hope to have all the details worked out by next weekend, so if you are interested in going let me know. It should be a great early season ride, I am looking forward to being there with people I know out there.

In preparation for the century, next week's ride will be around West Mountain. It is a relatively flat but long ride. I am not sure how long, if someone knows put a comment down. There is a change on the where and when. We will meet at Racer's Bike Shop (South East corner of Freedom and 500N) at 10am. They have a group ride leaving there and we will join them.

See you soon. Don't forget to send in your Tour of California predictions for the previous post.

JWait

The Amgen Tour of California

The Tour of California is going to start Saturday February 14 and run till February 22, and the club is going to participate in the tour... fantasy cycling style. You don't have to be a club member to do it.

This year has a deep international field, but the real excitement is around all the great American cyclists that will be there. It is going to look like a US Postal/Discovery Team reunion with seven former teammates who are all now potential GC contenders on their own respective team. They are;

Floyd Landis (Ouch)

Christian Vandevelde (Garmin)

Dave Zabriskie (Garmin)

Lance Armstrong (Astana)

Levi Leipheimer (Astana)

Tyler Hamilton (Rock Racing)

George Hincapie (Columbia)

For the fantasy Tour of California send me your ranking (ycycling@gmail.com) of these seven riders ranked 1-7. I know I am leaving out a lot of good riders who could win, some of them are even Americans, but we are just going to do it out of these former teammates. Their order, regardless of their place, compared to the predicted orders will determine who wins the ranking. A regression model will be used to determine who had the best predictions (dork!). Predictions are due by the 13th of February. The tour will be broadcast on Versus.

Satuday Ride With a Sprint Win by Clayton Pratt

Nine cyclists came out today for a relaxed 17 miles, all flat, with some sprint points. The sprint went to Clayton Pratt. Clayton is in the yellow jacket (center) coming out of Taylor Rhien's (blue top left) slipstream just before the finish. Patrick Davis, the former club president, is just behind. On the far right Colin Gill also finished well.

As the semester goes on we will start going further and faster. However, if you are not all that fast don't worry, there is still a place for you on the club. Almost all skill levels will be represented, chances are you will have someone to ride with. If you have a ride you want us to do just email it to me and we will work it in. If you haven't already it is time to get back in shape!

On another note the Tour of California is coming up, which will feature some of the best talent in American cycling. We are going to do a club fantasy cycling competition where we rank the American cyclists. Start thinking about who you like, I will have a list of riders to for you to rank soon.

Hope to see you all at a group ride soon!

JWait

Friday Morning Ride Too

There will be a riding Friday morning 1/29/09. This is a last min. plan. We are going to head up Provo Canyon and see how we feel, it might get fast. We are going to meet at the bike racks between the RB and Smith Field House at 11:30 am. Hope to see you there. THE RIDE ON SATURDAY IS STILL ON.

Ride on Saturday 1/31/09!

I want to invite every one to our second ride this semester. It might be a little cold, but it will be fun. Hope to see you all there.

When: Saturday 1/31/09 at 11:00 am, weather looks ridable.

Where: Starting just south of the RB (near the bike racks).

What: An easy, flat ride that will be under 1 hour. Same ride as last time, unless someone has a different ride they would rather do.

No Ride this Saturday

Unfortunately the weather is going to be wet the next few days, so it does not look like there will be group ride this Saturday. Let me know if there are times midweek that people want to go out. We will see what the following Saturday brings.

A Freezing 18 Miles to Start the Semester

Ten people showed up this Saturday for a much colder than expected 18 miles. We went down near Springville by way of S Industrial Pkwy and Kuhni Rd, then did a loop and came back. We took it easy with a moving average of 17.7 mph. There were, however, a few sprints along the way, getting up to 32.7 mph (not quite Mark Cavendish speeds but it was cold). Hope to see even more people out for the next ride. Next Saturday is looking like it will have some snow, but I will keep you posted.

First Club Ride of 2009

I am excited to announce the first group ride of the semester. Please let me know if you are planning on coming, I would like to know how many to expect. Email ycycling@gmail.com

When: Saturday 1/13/09 at 11:00 am, weather looks good, about 40 and sunny.

Where: Starting just south of the RB (near the bike racks).

What: An easy, flat ride that will be under 1 hour. A good opportunity to get to know each other better. There will however be an opportunity for sprint points half way for those who want to try out their legs.

Red vs. Blue Time Trial

We had a time trial against the U of U last fall. It was up Traverse Ridge Rd. A very steep three miles. We got beat by the U of U, they had quite a bit of talent. The winner, from the U of U, Rob Squire probably will not consider this his most important race of the season (http://www.usacycling.org/news/user/story.php?id=3678) for good reason. It was a good event.

Squaw Peak Tryouts

Squaw Peak Tryout

Last September we had a tryout to decide the ten riders who would race in the Red vs. Blue race. The race was from the bottom of Squaw Peak Road to the top, just over four miles. A good time had by all... once we were done vomiting at the top.

Going to Squaw Peak on Caynon Raod.

The lead pack after about half a mile

Near the end wondering why I do the sports I do.

On top of Squaw Peak with Provo behind us. The result of the top ten are;

Jonathan Wait 23:36

Clayton Pratt 25:28

Jeffery Christianson 25:48

Mckay Polli 26:07

Patrick Davis 26:34

Taylor Rhein 26:45

Austin Hackett 26:54

D Pratt 26:52

Jayson Johnson 26:59

Josh Bradley 27:08