Cycle Logic Dominates Lake Louisa Series!!

Cycle Logic showed up IN FORCE last night with 6 riders at the last of the Lake Louisa circuit series hosted by Team 19’s Adam Baskin.

First, I’d like to say thank you to Adam and everyone that helped put on the series. It is definitely a breath of fresh air to be racing in a smaller series with smaller groups. The smaller races take a little more tactical decision making, and with all of us being able to race together, I think it helps with the team dynamics, and gives everyone the chance to see what it’s like to race as a group.

Now, on to the race. James Penrod and Steve DeRoche came to defend their tie for 1st place in the series, knowing that they really only had to get minimal points to keep their lead, but more importantly, keep points from the 2nd placed riders that were nipping their heals in the overall rankings. Showing up to assist in this effort were Veronica Geist, Ron Palsgrove, Ed Sabol, and Josh Pittman. Everyone came with their own level of expectations, limitations, and abilities, and I think everyone used what they had very wisely.

Ron, knowing he probably wouldn’t be able to stay in the race the whole time, jetted off the front early in the race on the first hill, picking up the pace a bit to thin the pack. Later in the race, he provided some more accelerations until the effort really took a toll on him, and he popped. Even off the back, he provided updates to the CL riders still in the pack as we passed on each lap, giving us key information as to the status of the breakaway.

Ed, who admittedly had no clue what to do did a wonderful job doing whatever needed to be done from sheltering James in the head wind, to showing off his time trialing skills to assist in catching the breakaway.
Veronica, Josh, James, and Steve all worked hard to assist Steve in his positioning, as well as aiding in capturing the breakaway.

From the beginning of the race, we all had an idea of what was to come. The Team19 guys were talking about Cycle Logic even as we lined up at the start. We heard murmurs that we were “the pace setters”, and we were “the ones to watch”. Even during the race, they were literally counting us to see how many Cyle-Logicians were left.

On the first hill, in the first half lap, Veronica provided her best acceleration to make sure everyone was taking her seriously, and to prevent anyone from breaking away.  Half of a lap later Soon after the start, Ed broke off the front, and being a time trialist, we thought he would stay out there. It soon became evident that everyone else in the pack may not have been riding for Team19 (although some 19’s were obviously riding incognito), they were definitely not going to help us out. Several riders bridged up to Ed, and as they dropped off one by one, the single Team19 rider staid out there. After a lap of Cycle Logic cutting the gap, only to have everyone else hold back, Ed noted the rider off the front was an excellent time trialist as well. Trying to relay this to the remaining Orange and Grey still in the pack, we all knew that in order to catch anyone, we were going to have to do all of the work ourselves.

We sporadically came to the front, after recovering from our previous efforts, and worked our quads off to decrease the lead of the one man breakaway, and with half a lap to go, we caught him and the group became one, albeit a much smaller one. Soon after the catch other riders, sensing some weakness in the ranks of Cycle Logic, picked up the pace once again on the climb to the finish. Josh Veronica and James came to the front to assist in Steve’s eventual sprint to the finish, and soon had to leave it up to him to complete the last π mile by himself. Steve ended up with 3rd place with a decimated, but very satisfied Team Cycle Logic left in his wake.
After discussing our efforts and achievements over pizza after the race, it was evident that we all had a blast, and were all very satisfied with our efforts, and especially the results of our efforts. We all got a laugh at everyone talking about how we were the ‘strong’ team to watch, when we really just came out to have fun, and enjoy racing with each other. It is very satisfying to know the principles of having fun that we set for the team early on are still alive and kicking.
Final results for the series:

1st Steve Deroche – Cycle Logic
2nd James Penrod – Cycle Logic
9th Josh Pittman – Cycle Logic

Congratulations!! and congratulations and thank you to all that helped achieve this. We really couldn’t have done it without you.

JP/ CL