Lonestar Tri is over part 2

Trent kicking in the run on lap one...by lap 4 his grin was not as evident...
Richard Cairns killing the bike! I love how he lined up the HED decals for the pic! hahaha
A common theme of the day from my first race Guru riders...the bike felt so good I think I want a bit too hard and paid for it in the run a little. Gotta love it!
Fred Johnson, had a goal of sub 5hours. He was 21 seconds off but still a PR! Also his fastest bike split...using the new Quarq Saturn power meter. Racing with power is HUGE!
Brett Cole was also out on his first race on his new Guru Crono. His quote

Wanted to let you know – my 2:31 Lonestar on the Guru was 8:00 faster than Longhorn in October and nearly 25:00 faster than Lonestar in 2008. The bike felt so good I probably pushed a bit too hard and took away from my run some – but it was fun and I won’t complain about being under 5:00 on a hot and windy day.

Makes me proud!

Lisa Tilton McCarthy looks to be out on a leisurely stroll but in fact is rolling along on her way to 3rd in the Aquabike. Her Kona aspirations this year are more important than racing doubles every weekend. Which is a first for her as the Aquabike was raced instead of the Half. Saving the legs for the BIG ONE is the way to go. Good job Lisa and that Guru will take you to Hawaii all the way! Look for more postings on Lisa and her beautiful Guru Crono. Hers is one of the first ones I sold several years ago and one of the nicer builds as well.

Lonestar Tri is over

Trent Stephens showing what a custom bike and wind tunnel testing and Retul fitting will do for you. 7th Elite Male finisher!!
Kathy Sanford won the overall women's title in the Aquabike! We did some last minute upgrades to her rig last week as well.
Ann Hughes got 4th in her AG with the 2nd fastest bike split!

One great highlight was Ann Smith taking Masters Female in the quarter distance! Funny, I just repositioned her on Wednesday, and about to do more to tweak her bike fit for some up coming races. She has never really been slow...but she can be faster...and soon she will be faster!!!

Also of note, Hugh Ferry, Wayne Kehr, Augustina, Sherrill Garland, Robin Campbell, Kendall Gray, Jacqueline Fein, Peggy Yetman, Mac Sustala, Chris Sustala, Tommy Sustala, Drew Torres , Margie Connolly, Kathleen Woodhead, Chad Fikes, John Startz, Angie Balentine (of Jack & Adams), Colleen Kelso, Jillian Horn, Jenny & Jerry Holzaepfal. CONGRATULATIONS out there on a tough yet fun day of racing!!!

Saturday's ride...

Chris Lockwood always plans these great routes, always takes pics of everyone else, but never gets shots of himself. So we put him in the middle of the girls and got a shot as a bit of thanks!

Stopped at a light...Still not tired yet....

What a great way to wipe our mouths after a bit of food but with beaver napkin from Buc-ee's. hahaha

Getting ready for the races....

Trent is rolled in the Elite wave this weekend with his disc and 808 front of course.

The biggest weekend of tri racing in Houston, maybe even in Texas. 2600 athletes over 2 days in 2 distances. Sprint, quarter, and half. So needless to say I was slammed all week with athletes wanting their bikes tuned up for the race, race wheels put on and check shifting, a last minute upgrade and even picking up a new bike before race day. Gotta love

Ann was race ready with her set up. Purple never looked so good on a bike.

Full titanium frame, Zipp carbon basebar, Profile Carbon T2aerobars, Shimano Ultegra SL group, Rotor SABB ceramic bottom bracket, Adamo saddle, HED clincher wheels, Nokon cables, Deda Zero stem, Qrings, Xlab Sonic wing...20lbs flat!

Well, Greg Witherow committed the ultimate RACE SIN this weekend. He raced on a bike that he only got the Friday before the race...a brand new custom Guru Merus. Which means he only rode about 30 minutes on it on Saturday before racing it in the Half on Sunday! Did he pay the price??? No sir! Half Ironman PR by 33 minutes. Last year he did the Aquabike half at the same race where he left it all out on the bike last year, this year conserving on the bike in windy conditions to save the run...still 5 minutes faster. All on a bike he still needs a little time to get used to. Another example where custom just can not be beat. Good job Greg! You make me proud!

Busy, working and racing

ABOVE
The rig that got me through the TT in style.

The portion of the 10acres of the home we stayed at for the race weekend. The kids could care less that we were gone racing...

BELOW
Euan's Guru Crono complete with matching TT helmet. The bike is done, raced, and 11seconds below his goal TT for that race. 15:19 for 6.6 miles in the hills. Good for 3rd in his race. Nice job!

I hope to have some pics to post up very soon. But lately its been, work, eat,work, sleep, work, ride/race, repeat. Things in the shop are moving along. A Guru display has arrived along with a Retul and rotating fit stand. Time to really open and get to doing what I do best...bike fitting.

Up to now though I have had fun racing and riding. I did my first stage race in 4 years which really was highlighted by having my daughter out there with me along with some other kids of my team mates. The fun was racing the Guru Praemio. A full titanium rig. I had been road racing the Geneo and done well on it and love that bike. But I gotta test and feel. (its tough I know)
Well, the bike was a little heavier due mostly to using Shimano 7800 DuraAce instead of the Sram Red that is on the Geneo. One thing that I like about getting the Praemio from Guru is they can use different tubing to tune the ride they way the rider wants it. So of course...I got it beefy. Larger down tube, thicker chain stays, yeah...its a beast and I LOVED IT! What a ride. Since my first bike was aluminum and forever struggling to get to the ultimate with carbon, I was hesitant to want to race metal again. Sure, there are plenty of people who trust metal over carbon but the feel of carbon in a race is pretty nice. I have loved the Praemio on the road in fast rides and such, but racing it made me fall in love with it. Plus on the chipseal roads often found here in Texas racing, the ti does seem to be more forgiving than my Geneo would have.
I also raced the Merus (ti tt bike) in the time trial and loved it there too. Titanium is super nice and great for those who like to ride the trainer for alot of work outs, who are rough on thier stuff, don't like to clean thier bikes, or often lay them down in wrecks and don't ever want to worry about it and basically just want to have one bike that you will never get ride of.
While the Geneo is up till crit season is in full swing I race the Praemio again this past weekend out near Austin with the Edge tubulars and new Schwable Durano tires. Last race was on the Fulcrums. The bike weighed in right at 15lbs...nice! Even nicer is Rob Van Manda is a pretty flat course. I rolled the first lap and followed the pack, then when Aimee (one of the girls on the team supporting that weekend) yelled at me for being on the back, I moved up next lap and started to have fun. FINALLY it was flat and not windy! I came through the feed zone on the front and not a photographer in sight. Aimee did not even have hers. AAAAGGGGHHH!!!!!
Oh well, so the bike was solid, Ti is super race worth, even in the age of carbon everything.
Another good find was the new tubulars I was rolling. I came into a corner in a descent on the front WAY too hot and thought I was gonna slide right out. Instead I dug on the Duranos that I glued Friday night and came out of the corner gapping everyone else. Wow...not bad. Seems I found some new tubies to be racing.

Now its back to work. Lonestar Tri Weekend is upon us and all the triathletes need to get thier bikes race ready. The fun never ends....

End of a crazy week and beginning of a great weekend.

The all nighter bike...

Below: Guru Merus, ready to race/ridden for this first time trial. Finally I barely had time to do it.

TGIF!!!! I think. The weekend is upon us and I am up at 11:30 pm blogging when I have my first stage race to race this weekend in 4 years. Which means that since I am supposed to be getting up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to get ready for a 7:40am roll out...I should probably be asleep.
This race will be a bit different than the other 3 I have done already this season, its the firsts one I will get more than 3 hours of sleep the night before and won't have to drive 3 hours in the morning to get there. I am about 20 minutes away thanks to my team mate Andrew Strong. Plus I have my daughter with me for the weekend as well as some other kids here so she is good and I will not be missed at all while racing in the morning. I have 5 teammates with me in the 3 stage race this weekend which makes it even more fun! This weekend is one of the perks of the way I run Shama Cycles, schedule out every thing to be done before or after an viola, I have a weekend off to race.

What led up to me laying in this amazing bed in this super nice "weekend home" is down side of owning your own business. If there is such a thing in a high end bike shop. LOL
Suddenly everyone wanting their bikes for the weekend. For example, a friend of mine ordered a complete DuraAce 7900 grouppo and other parts last week. Should have been in Wednesday but instead they came in Thursday. So at8pm Thursday night I got a bike with old DuraAce and I left the shop at 4:30am Friday morning with bike that was 1lb and 2oz lighter down to 16.07lbs.
Fun and amazing but I was exhausted and slept till 8:45 when I was awakened by a customer on his way to the shop. OMG this sucks. Tired as can be I made it over there and worked till 5:30pm...time to get my daughter and our stuff and head to Fayetteville! Of course I worked on 5 bikes today which was only a tapper from how I was earlier in the week. But I was able to build myself a time trial bike. A Guru Merus. More on that to come.
For now I am fading and need sosme resest.

A weekend of riding in cold wet Houston

The Saturday ride...I am back left, Jeff is cold back right, Andrew is good left, and Gary is staying as warm as can be.
Above: Post charity ride breakfast at the Pearland IHOP. They were not down with egg whites and no butter there.
Below: Myself on the left and Steve on the right. As you can see above he is still wearing his kit like a good Shama Cycles faithful. I know how to push myself and my business but this guy puts me to shame sometimes...what am I talking about...almost all the time. LOVE THAT GUY!!!

In the midst of the horrible weekend weather of cold and rain I was able to sneak in two rides with out getting rained on. Good training and good hard miles with friends. You can't really complain about that. I rode the Ti Guru Praemio (which with the new HED Ardenesse wheels I am trying out weighs 15lbs) both days as I think I might race it in the stage race this coming weekend. Just to further get the feel for my customers as to help selecting whether they should do ti or carbon. Yes, its a tough job but someone has to do it. ;-)
Points that stand out from the rides?
Saturday was a pretty good 50 miles. Parts were easy, then parts were fast. There were 4 team mates on the ride so we did hill repeats Houston style by going back and forth over this series of 4 overpasses team style. LOL It was great. We were thinking of riding longer as we headed close to the park but we felt a couple rain drops and the cold was settling in. So we packed it in for the day.
I went to the shop at 11 am and went home at 2am. That whole work thing gets int eh way sometimes of quality napping and recovery time.
Sunday morning I was up at 6:20 am to meet up with Steve and his lovely wife Evelyn to head down to the Great Escape MS150 charity ride. No clue of what mileage or anything. We met up with another friend/hammerhead down there and we knock out 7omiles with a vengeance. Matter of fact...I think we won that ride. LOL I know what you are thinking, but of the 70mile groups, we caught the "leaders" at mile 30 something which was tough cause we started like 10 minutes after the ride got underway. We knew this cause we finally stopped at a rest stop after that and asked who all had been through. We were the first ones to roll through is what we were told. I ate like 4 cookies in celebration of having the lead. Only to watch the two guys we just passed roll on by and take the lead away from us. But oh what fun cause we had a "carrot" again. We rolled back out and the three of us taking turns made quick time and caught the two and kept it rolling. By this time we had already started to run into riders out on the shorter routes and kept it safe as we sounded like a broken record with the whole "ON YOUR LEFT" business.
Towards the end of the ride I was REALLY CRACKING! Maybe I didn't eat enough cookies...or maybe I ate too many...but I was trashed and was so ready to be done. Finally the school was in sight and I could dismount. Proud of my riding and happy to have missed the rain...it was time for IHOP!!! Which was great...till I went to stand up from the table...my legs...oh my poor legs. Did I break them? Why aren't they working? What is this pain? ahhhh nothing like a good weekend of hard riding. Which at 12am Wednesday morning I am still feeling. Gotta love it!!!!