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By John Zaccone, Sunrise Sports Cycling Team
My perfect summer vacation started with myself, two of my cycling team teammates and one of their fathers road-tripping across the American west to race bicycles. With 3 bike racers, 5 bikes and 1 parent crammed into a 1998 Chrysler mini-van we set out from Ann Arbor, MI for the trip to the Junior Road National Championships in Park City, Utah. There would be a total of four of us from the Sunrise Sports/Ann Arbor Velo Club Cycling Team (www.aavc.org and www.sunrisesports.com) making the trip; me-John Zaccone, Alex Keomany, Jordan Stohl and Stephen Christy. My first impression was that it seemed like we'd never cross through the state of Nebraska, then we got into Wyoming!!! Thank god we had our MP3's and DVD players. How did the pioneers ever MAKE THIS TRIP!!! After three days we arrived in Park City, Utah and instantly I realized that the trip was definitely worth it. The scenery was beautiful and the riding was fantastic. Nice roads, great hills, warm weather. Even though we left Michigan in mid-June we had yet to experience "summer" weather. The temperatures in the mid-80's were a nice change. Our first race would be the 20km Individual Time Trial on Antelope Island. We had ridden the course the day before and noted that the wind would be in your face on the outbound section, which was also the downhill part, and at your back on the way back, which was uphill. The day of the race the wind had changed so that on the return trip of the course you had a headwind and were climbing up hill!!! My race went badly as my cleat came loose half-way through. The times set by the top riders were blistering. I knew our team would have our work cut out for us in the upcoming road race and criterium. Two days later was the road race. This was the crown jewel of the Championships. Winning this race would mean automatic qualification for the World Championships team. This was by far the most fun out of all the races. It was a nice course- 75 miles or so, with two major climbs that you did on the way out to a longer circuit and on the way back from the circuit to the finish. The circuit in the middle of the race was relatively flat which we completed twice before heading back to the finish. This race was pretty cool since there was close to 140 riders in the field. I remember right in the beginning of the race, we were riding through town, and I felt like I was at the very back of the race already. I looked back and found that there were just as many people behind me as there were ahead of me. The first of the climbs was not so hard but the second one broke up the entire race. The pace going up was fast and I just concentrated on efficiency because I knew from when we rode up this climb earlier that it takes about 15- 20 minutes to get up it. I was doing fine, pushing my limit but fine, when near the top Alex Boyd of the Hot Tubes Team attacked and really got things rolling. At this time I decided to back off and pace myself up the rest of the climb afraid of bonking within first 10km of the race. After the climb I felt like I had 80 miles in my legs already, definitely not a good sign. I got in with a group on the descent and pretty soon we started picking up more and more riders, gaining speed as we did. Eventually we caught up to a small group that Jordan and Alex were in and pretty much after that the whole group lost motivation to work any more, since there was nobody in the distance that we could catch. I ended up rolling in at 88th place, with Alex a little behind me. Jordan got a flat and got dropped but still finished. Steve I heard had problems with his breathing and the altitude and had to drop out at the feed zone. The final event was the criterium. Since there was so many riders in the field (140) they made two heats with 65-70 kids in each and the top 30 from each heat went on to the finals. Alex, Steve and I were in the first heat while Jordan was in the second heat. The race didn't start well for me as I started in the back (not totally my fault everybody starting lining 20 minutes before the start!). So I pretty much worked my butt off just trying to stay in contact with the group. The officials of the race were pulling people like crazy and about half way into the race they pulled me, yet I was only 10 meters off the back of the group! Well that stunk! I found out later that the ref. kept pulling people until there were about 32 people left in the race. That way there was a minimum number of people racing for those top 30 spots. I think I was in about 33rd place when I got pulled. Alex and Steve both got pulled right before I did so we had nobody make it in the first heat. Jordan did the best, he finished the entire race of his heat, yet he finished in 32nd place so we didn't have anybody make it to the finals…oh well! Our team was fortunate enough to be one of six nation-wide to be selected to receive a sponsorship from Jittery Joes Coffee (www.thebeanteam.com). Since November we have been selling coffee at races, to our neighbors, to our team mates and to our parents co-workers. The money we made from this allowed us to pay part of our trip expenses, which was great. I'm already starting to look forward to next year!
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