# Silver Spring Grand Prix



## bikeboy389 (May 4, 2004)

Anybody coming up to Silly String MD on Sunday for the SSGP? It's a great day of racing, and if you play your cards right, you could get to meet...me.

I won't be racing or anything, but I'll likely be wearing my official CSC Jens Voigt t-shirt, and will be ringing the bell for a couple of primes I donated.

It should be a good time, even without the added bonus of my attendance.


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## nate (Jun 20, 2004)

bikeboy389 said:


> Anybody coming up to Silly String MD on Sunday for the SSGP? It's a great day of racing, and if you play your cards right, you could get to meet...me.
> 
> I won't be racing or anything, but I'll likely be wearing my official CSC Jens Voigt t-shirt, and will be ringing the bell for a couple of primes I donated.
> 
> It should be a good time, even without the added bonus of my attendance.


I didn't even know about it, but I wouldn't mind stopping by. Since the course is so small, I assume the crowds won't be a huge issue once you're a block or two away? I ask because I'm wondering about finding someplace to lock my bike so I don't have to drag it around with me. I might even pull out the mid-80s beater so I don't need cycling shoes.

Cool that they have kids races.


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## bikeboy389 (May 4, 2004)

nate said:


> I didn't even know about it, but I wouldn't mind stopping by. Since the course is so small, I assume the crowds won't be a huge issue once you're a block or two away? I ask because I'm wondering about finding someplace to lock my bike so I don't have to drag it around with me. I might even pull out the mid-80s beater so I don't need cycling shoes.
> 
> Cool that they have kids races.


You can park it at our house, if you want. I'll PM you my mobile number and you can call for directions. We'll probably head over around 10:00.


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## fabsroman (Jul 14, 2006)

I wish I saw this thread before the race. I was there. Got 4th in the Cat IV race and had breakfast afterwards with my wife, daughter, dad, teammate, and teammate's girlfriend at Eggspectation. It was a good Sunday. The course was rather rough. My hands were starting to get numb toward the end of the race.


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## nate (Jun 20, 2004)

fabsroman said:


> I wish I saw this thread before the race. I was there. Got 4th in the Cat IV race and had breakfast afterwards with my wife, daughter, dad, teammate, and teammate's girlfriend at Eggspectation. It was a good Sunday. The course was rather rough. My hands were starting to get numb toward the end of the race.


Congratulations! I ended up taking my kids and they loved it. They especially liked watching the racers speed around the corners. We only saw the last race but we were right before the finish line the final lap.

My 6-year-old boys both said they are entering the kids' race next year.


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## bikeboy389 (May 4, 2004)

fabsroman said:


> I wish I saw this thread before the race. I was there. Got 4th in the Cat IV race and had breakfast afterwards with my wife, daughter, dad, teammate, and teammate's girlfriend at Eggspectation. It was a good Sunday. The course was rather rough. My hands were starting to get numb toward the end of the race.


Dang. It would have been fun to meet. Did you pick up any primes? I couldn't believe the size of the cash primes in the women's and men's pro races. Huge. 

I was talking to Greg, the guy who ran the show, and he said they're pushing for either Bonifant (the downhill section after turn two) or Fenton (between turns 3 and 4) to be repaved for next year. It's possible. The downtown folks are pretty committed to making this thing work--they even took the speedbumps out of Ellworth (start/finish straight) for the race. I just saw today that they have replaced them with some kind of rubber ones that can be removed and put back.

Both sections looked terrible to me--especially Fenton. It didn't look like there was any kind of clean line wide enough for a full pack to take. Must have been a real bone shaker.


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## fabsroman (Jul 14, 2006)

Like I said, we had 5 + crashes in the race, the majority of which were behind me. The worst corner was the one from Georgia Ave onto Bonifant. Early on, we had a 3 or 4 rider pile up in that corner that I avoided on the inside and sprinted hard afterward to regain contact with the group. Then, on the last lap I had the guy slightly behind me and on my inside strike his pedal on the pavement going through that corner and he went down like a bag of cement (i.e., hard). He barely missed clipping my rear wheel. At that point, I looked back and there was a huge gap between the 10 of us and the rest of the field. The sprint was pretty much over before the last corner because that was a pretty tough corner too. For next year, I will know to put my sprint on before the last corner and follow through with it coming out of the last corner. Fenton and Georgia are wide, and they both feed into Bonifant and Ellsworth which are narrow. Had one guy in front of me rub tires with another guy turning into Ellsworth, but he kept the bike upright which amazed me. I knew him from the Reston Town Center Race because I chased him down in that race and beat him in the sprint, so I talked to him about it afterward and saw that his rim was way out of true. I guess that is what he gets for using Mavics. LOL

The worst section of the road was turning from Bonifant onto Fenton. There were potholes, manhole covers, and bumps across what appeared to be the entire road. Some guys had waterbottles come out of holders in that section. Luckily, nobody hit any of the bottles. I came close to hitting an errant bottle during warmup, and that had my heart racing. Speaking of waterbottles, with 1 lap to go some nimrod threw his waterbottle into the crowd at the start/finish line to prepare for the sprint. My wife said it came close to her and my daughter who were sitting at a table by the start/finish line. If that bottle had hit my 3 month old daughter, there would have been hell to pay. Honestly, I have no idea what that guy was thinking when he threw that bottle. A waterbottle isn't going to hold a person back that much during a sprint.

By the way, the women on my team (i.e., ABRT/Latitude) collected all the primes in the women's race and they also won the race. Me, I rarely go for primes unless they are cash, and even then, I have a hard time hearing what they are while I am trying to race.

We will have to try to get together at the race next year, because I plan on doing it again if it is still around.


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## bikeboy389 (May 4, 2004)

fabsroman said:


> By the way, the women on my team (i.e., ABRT/Latitude) collected all the primes in the women's race and they also won the race. Me, I rarely go for primes unless they are cash, and even then, I have a hard time hearing what they are while I am trying to race.
> 
> We will have to try to get together at the race next year, because I plan on doing it again if it is still around.


I saw that ABRT took all the women's prizes. Awesome performance. I didn't know you rode with them. Do you know the status of Von's calves? I know she hurt them a few days before, and it seemed like she was suffering quite a bit in her race (finally getting waved off in the last few laps). I suppose I could PM her about it, but since I have you on the line...

We'll definitely be involved in the race--my wife is doing the website now, and I'm just a cash cow for the prime people to bleed dry. At least I got a t-shirt and meal voucher out of the deal. You shoulda gone for the primes in your race--I think there was one or two cash ones courtesy of me. I asked them to put my money in the races that don't get many cash primes.

So I guess I'll see you there.


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## fabsroman (Jul 14, 2006)

I've been racing for ABRT for about 3 to 4 weeks now. I joined them because I know one of their members, Lance Lacy, from when we both raced as juniors. He was 2 years older than me, so he always raced a category up in the junior's races, but I raced against him and his teammates a lot at Greenbelt and in a points race out in McLean. After being away from racing for 18+ years, it is fun to come back and see people that are still in it. Used to race against Dave Osbourne at Greenbelt too, and that was when he was just getting into bike racing too. I think he rode a Cannondale back then. He was my krptonite back then, and I will really need to do some sprint training in the off season to try and match him next year.

Even if I had known that the primes offered in my race were cash primes, I seriously doubt I would have gone for them. I hung out around 30th position until the last 2 laps when I decided to move up. I was just trying to stay out of harms way (i.e., avoiding going into corners 3 abreast or half wheeling anybody), so I would move up and then drop back to what looked like a safe position for the corner.

I have no idea how Heidi's calves are doing. I have only talked to her once, and that was at the Church Creek Time Trial. However, I think she wrote a journal entry on the website about it, and how much it is killing her. I think she got the calf problems from starting her running training for cross.

I tried to make it to the "team" ride yesterday out of the Davidsonville park and ride, but I was 2 minutes late and the group left without me. Hence, a solo ride with one heck of a nasty wind. It sucked. If I see her next Tuesday or Thursday, I'll ask her about the legs.

By the way, it is nice to know that we can disagree about Lemond/Armstrong/Landis and still be civil. LOL

I found these pics on the gamjams website:

I'm the last one in the pace line in the first pic and I am the guy with the red helmet in the background in the second pic.


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