A Great Weekend for BlueSkyVelo Colors

I met a guy out on the road on Saturday who jokingly asked, "is everyone on your team Polish? what is this 'blooski velo" anyways?

Well, with how many 'blooski's' there are in the races, on the roads, on the trails and even just hanging out in the stylish new Felpe Trainers (get yourself one today at the shop - they rock!) the Colorado Frontrange will never be the same... Here's a few of the weekend's Blue Sky Velo exploits - many reports I'm sure I'm missing (what mountain bikers, triathletes, group rides, etc happened).

It seems Isaac Dancy and his SHWIT (Steep Hills With Isaac) group ride on Sunday was a serious endeavor leaving everyone 2,000 - 3,000 calories empty. And I know there was at least one mountain biker out in the hills (check out Mike Bernhardt's blog). I'm sure there were a lot of other BSV colors flying. I can't repeat them all (not for censorship reasons, just because they are too many and I was only in 1 place. But there've been lots of good reports on the Blue Sky Velo Yahoo group. If you are a BSV'er, make sure you read your email to hear what's going on and if you're not, well, there's always room to join the club!

Whether you're on the team or not, keep on eye on the Recent Top 10 Results box on the www.blueskyvelo.com homepage. Even though this is only the 2nd week of April, Blue Sky Velo is really flying the colors on the race scene!: Kirk Nelson got 1st at the Lake Havasu Triathlon, Ryan Lewandowski got 5th at the Mad Cow Classic, Max Arias got 8th at Koppenberg, Leanne McAllister got 3rd at the Running of the Lucky Green 7k, Horatio got 3rd at the Frostbite TT and I got a 2nd in a MTB race. And now for this weekend:

Haystack TT and TTT:

• Great Blue Sky Velo presence - both cheering on the side of the road and racing.
• The SM4 TTT and the SM3 TTT both got 3rd in their respective categories.
• In the SM4, 35+, Kyle Fredin got 2nd, Horatio got 4th and Chad Elmendorf got 8th
• In the SM3's, Barry Schmidt got 8th and I got 10th
• Greg Hall got 2nd place in the Citizen's category
• Max Arias got 9th in the Juniors 15-16 category
• John Schimpf got 8th in the SM4
• whew! that's a lot of top 10's
• check out a couple pictures of the SM3 TTT squad here
• And for the geeks in the group, here's a TT power file to digest:
http://www.trainingpeaks.com/tny.aspx?a=sw&key=c5ii2Gj%2FKuQp1im9tc%2Bfo%2F7e8u1zg05B

• feel free to dowload into WKO+ to analyze further
• I was able to keep the recommended 49/51 split both by time and by distance and by power which made me very happy and honestly with where my fitness is at right now I don't think I could have done much better (course that still only netted me 10th place :(
• Comparing my Normalized Power to Barry's however its quickly obvious how important to a TT aero equipment and position are - he recorded a faster time and used less energy (15 NP watts) to do so. arrrgh!
• Regardless, I posted my peak 5 minutes of 334 watts and peak 20 & 30 minutes at 324 watts

AST/Tokyo Joe's Criterium:

• Mike Dancel deserves serious props cause he raced and quickly got pulled in the early morning SM4 crit, but decided to "just keep trying" and he came back for a 2nd race later in the day and not only finished, but got a top 25 out of 75 guys.... lesson to us all - the only way to get better is to keep trying.
• Speaking of getting better - Jose just moved up to the SM3 field and raced his first Criterium in the new pack yesterday. Here's a picture of him right in the mix - great work Jose!
• 
• Barry Schmidt and I also raced with Jose and had great fun trading breakaways back and forth or just hiding 5 back from the front.
• Here's a picture of Barry in a break
• 
• I managed to get 4th in the race which I've got say feels pretty damn good being the best I've placed yet in a SM3 race of any sort. And although it was a 30 mph sprint, it just wasn't quite fast enough. Kind of entertaining to see us going in circles - check out the file: http://www.trainingpeaks.com/tny.aspx?a=sw&key=c5ii2Gj%2FKuR%2FHwLmkRMnDAy0%2FrxSrEz8. Hoping that this points to what will be a good season. And with the great SM3 teammates I've got this year, I guarantee it will be a good season for all of us.
• 

Group Rides:

• Besides all the other groups rides I heard about, a few of us (Suzanne, Barry, Rob, Jose and myself) took off from Golden after the AST crit and explored a new canyon up towards Golden Gate State Park. If you haven't been to Golden Gate State Park or riden/driven up that road, you've missed an incredible part of Colorado's front range. With steep pitches up to 16% and sustained climbs at around 10% its not just the scenery or the view of Denver that makes your heart skip a beat....
• For those of you who have Garmin Edge or Forerunners, you've got to try this: create a course in MapMyRide, export as a .tcx, import to your device as a Course, then start the course. So much fun to
• watch the elevation profile and know exactly where you are on the hill and how far you have to still climb before the top
• very helpful to switch to the course map view to make sure you're taking the same route at the Y in the road as the riders who are up the road out of sight
• entertaining to watch the % grade and realize that what feels steep... really IS steep. Today's climb had up to 16% grades and a lot of 8-10% grades
• topped out at 8,738 feet with 4,040 feet of elevation gain over the 23.6 mile ride.
• Finally check out the post ride file here: http://www.trainingpeaks.com/tny.aspx?a=sw&key=c5ii2Gj%2FKuQPvjVqVh9fB18%2FBHi9867d
• And wow! don't those new kits look HOT! not to mention functional - the wind vest wasn't too hot, even with the gallons of sweat that poured out of my helmet at the top of the climb, but zipped up it kept me warm descending back from 9,000 feet and out of the snow and ice.
•