In a crit that is on a Thursday night in Downtown Dallas, Texas.  This race is one of the newer events on the calendar.  It definitely has made a statement that it will rival the best one day events in the US.  Even with rain all day and a forcast for winds and more rain all night.  Tens of thousands of fans lined the streets to catch a glimpse of their favorite Pro / Am riders go by @ 30+ mph and then were able to look up into the skyline to see the huge Jumbo Trons lining the course.  To our amazement, even a Helicopter was flying above the buildings to catch all the action.  This entire night was to benefit the Childrens Medical Center.   Here is a photo of the 1st neutral lap that was for the passing of Chris Hipp.  The Tx Tough organization did a great job with this event and fund raiser.  The fans that attended in the weather made it that more exciting.  TSD is now off to race at the USA Crit Finals in Las Vegas Nevada, Sept 24, 2009.

The team got a nice mention on the Campy Only blog. Riding Campagnolo attracts attention – especially when it’s an amateur team on the blingy, wonderful Italian stuff.

Check out the article here.

Ten Speed Drive recently teamed up with Sabertec, a company that specializes in vehicle emissions reduction technologies. Sabertec is providing their Blade product to team vehicles for the race season.

The timing was perfect for Ten Speed Drive – they were just getting ready for a block of big races, and a whole bunch of driving in between. Just before heading out for the Boise Twilight Crit, they installed a Blade onto the team van. After Boise, it was an 8-hour drive to a charity criterium in Vancouver, Washington, a 3 1/2 hour drive to Bend, Oregon for the Cascade Classic stage race and National Championship road and time trial events, and a return trip to Portland.

Central to Ten Speed Drive’s mission is its efforts to “Go Green and Kick the CO2 Habit.” Sabertec’s Blade is the ideal tool to help in this endeavor. The Blade is an inexpensive add-on that installs over the end of a vehicle’s tail pipe. Its primary purpose is to filter out pollutants from the exhaust. Laboratory studies have shown a decrease in CO2 emissions by as much as 12% as well as a decrease in particulate material emissions. The Blade also increases a vehicle’s fuel economy – reported by Sabertec to be as much as 30+% for smaller 4-cylinder vehicles.

“Working with Sabertec and their Blade product is ideal for us,” said Ten Speed Drive team member Josh Liberles. “Unfortunately, long drives to the country’s biggest events is an inherent part of bike racing. The Blade is an inexpensive, easy way for us to decrease the pollution we create, improve fuel efficiency, and, overall, save the team money.”

Follow the links to learn more about Sabertec and how you can Blade Your Ride!
Blade Your Ride: http://bladeyourride.com/index.html
Sabertec: http://www.sabertec.org/index.html

In an ideal City for cycling, El Paso, Texas has sunshine almost 355 days a year.  The City Councel has always decided not to build bike paths for making room for more roads.  Ten Speed Drive Racing and other local clubs have been looking into where, when, who, and why to show the City that spending gov’t money to build a few bike paths as test routes would be a future for the city.  For a long time many cyclists and TSDR have been asking for more bike paths in and around the city.  Our message along with several other clubs finally got through.  It is very sad that a cyclist, Judge Pat O’Rourke was hit by a car and killed on his way to work, to bring the city council to see the light of our message.  Over the last year, TSDR was able to help arrange a meeting with the State, County, City, Parks / Recreation and International boundries to build 2.3 million dollars in bike paths for an estimated 65 miles of bike lanes.  These paths will link several parts of the city from one side to the other.  The major project will be right next to the Rio Grande for 21 miles.  This will be done in 4 parts over the next 5 years.  This is a huge advancement for the City of El Paso and cyclists in the area.  The test area on Resler, built a couple years ago in honor of Pat O’Rourke is now the busiest bike and walking path in the area.  We plan on making commuting on a bicycle from either side of town to downtown quick and easy for all to get to work safely or enjoy a fun ride.  We have been using Portland, OR and Albuquerque, NM as examples and ideas to help kick the CO2 Habit. 

Top photo is the 2.2 mile bike path on Resler dedicated to Pat O’Rourke.

Bottom photo is the 1 mile walking path to be extended 20 miles south along the river to downtown.

After racing Saturday to regain his Florida Cup Lead.  Garrett attended the Labor Day US 100k.  The team was really spread thin and the riders wanted to do at least one of the major races this weekend.  Being the last NRC of the season.  This was another very important race for the team.  Garrett was able to place 16th of the 107 finishers in the  Pro / Am Event.  As many have said, this was a hard pace and painful race to finish.  In the photo, many times Garrett tried to set up a breakaway and found no one was willing to follow.

Great Job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5XV5_YLqXo

With to many races on the same weekend.  TSDR sends riders in several directions.   Riders are attending races in Vermont, Atlanta, Austin, Mexico and Nicaragua.  TSDR is spread out really thin.  Jesus Zapata attends a prelim race in Mexico representing TSDR solo.  There are points up for grabs to earn an invite to the UCI 2.2 Vuelta Chihuahua.  This 1 day event is a 90 mile, 150K race through the heat of the desert with strong cross winds.  Chacho was able to get in a break that left the field 25k into the race.  This break of 7 was well stack with other pro teams from Mexico and Central America.  The break got up to a 4 minutes lead and when entering the 3k to go banner, started playing games, attacking each other, and watching each other.  With 1k to go, Chacho made his move and solo’d in for the Victory.  Wish I could of been there to see it. 

Well done and well deserved!

The Green Mountain Stage Race in Burlington Vermont started on Friday just before the Labor Day Weekend.  This 4 day event has been getting more popular every year.  With Several Pro teams splitting half the riders to do this event and the other half going south to the last NRC event, The US 100K in Atlanta.  The GMSR has a field of top pros and amateurs.  With a time trial rule of no TT bikes, only road bikes, no clip on bars.  This stage 1 is a real test of man, machine, and raw power.  Adam got to a slow start in 91st place of 130 riders.  Stage two with the rolling hills and the race in his back yard.  He was able to pull out a nice 8th place finish, moving up in the GC.   The third stage can be a punishing up and down the hills and mtns and finishing on an extremely hard climb.  An impressive 49th place again moved him up in the standing. This stage showing who is fit this late in the year and who is burned out and just needs to go home.  Adam proving is TT was just nerves getting to him.  Stage 4 is a crit with a beautiful scenary on every road.  Adam finished 15th and was able to move into 40th place GC.

Great job

Adam Carr and Garrett White headed up to the Northeast part of the country to race in the Chris Thater National Racing Calendar event.  128 riders started the Criterium which was fast and exciting.  With the Pro teams sacrificing riders to keep the pace high.  Only 63 riders were able to finish this exhausting event.  Great job guys.

In cycling events all year long all over the state of Florida.  Garrett has attended as many Florida Cup races as possible.  Several he has missed due to traveling to National Racing Calendar events (NRC) with the Team.  His large lead early in the year has been deminishing slowly since he was not in attendance.  He lost his first place ranking for only a few days.  He returned to Florida to race the last two races.  This last weekend he got the title back and there is only one race left and he plans to keep the title.

Good Luck Garrett.

We as a team work hard to promote cycling, promote going green, and limiting our impact on the envirnoment.  It helps our slogan is ”kick the CO2 habit”.  Road Bike Action Magazine takes the time to talk with us and help deliver out story to the public in their Oct 09 issue page 22. Thank you RBA.

http://www.zinio.com/reader.jsp?issn=1069-2649

John Freisen DS and GM