Paris-Roubaix 1996

Its Official!

The reults are now posted and complete for the Illinois Cycling Associations Illinois Cup Series and our man Elvis Falbo has won the Masters 30+ 4-5 category for the 2008 road season.

While he did not race all of the ten races in the series, the 5 races that he did compete in he scored valuable points. Perhaps his biggest achievement of the season came early when he took his first victory at the 2nd Annual Vernon Hills Grand Prix. It was in fact this win that secured his place in the overall. Initially the ICA had recorded his points as a Masters 40+ 4-5, not the 30+ like it should have. This oversight would have placed him 4th overall. However a bit of detective work and a few emails later and Elvis was back at the top of the standings where he belonged.

Congratulations go out to both Elvis and the team for this great achievement in just our first year of racing.

AND THE GOOD

Bensenville had those two tricky turns from parking lots to street. Day one seemed like it was all out for all the races. In the 4/5 with 7 laps to go around an easy left turn half the lead pack went down. Unfortunately Clark and Elvis were behind the crash and were not able to bridge the gap. Credit goes to Joe and Jorge who worked good together in the back and this was with Joe riding on a leaky tire which he did not pit for. Results:16th Clark, 17th Elvis, 25th Jorge Maters 4/5 result: 18th Jim


Day two was our moment of glory. May we ride the positive karma wave for a while! It seemed like the pace was a little more tame than day one, but there was the Xers with flier after flier. With 3 left a Half Acre went on a flier and stayed out until the bell lap when he was caught then Tony attacked and was able to hang on for the victory in front of the gentelmanly Nate from xXx by 4 bike lenghts. Masters 4/5 Jim played it cool the whole time with team Mack and the Xres doing all of the work coming in 9th with little effort at all.

BBVP Scores First Victory of 2008!

Sunday dawned bright and sunny with liitle wind for the 2nd Edition of the Vernon Hills Grand Prix. As a team we would be racing in two events, namely the Cat 5 race and the Masters 4/5 later in the morning. While limited to a field of 50 we managed to have 7 members available including Tony, Damon, Elvis, Jorge, Dan, Sergio and Joe. The course proved a relatively smooth trouble free course with just one slightly tricky corner depending on which line you picked.
The Cat 5 race went pretty well with myself, Joe, Tony and Elvis sitting in the top ten all morning with little difficulty. However, being a Cat 5 race there were quite a few shouts to "HOLD YOUR LINE!" as some of the corners proved tricky for a few of the riders. Everything was staying together after an attempt at a breakaway was brought back. Things looked good for us with 2 and a half laps to go and four of us sitting up front. Well those good times didn't last long! There was what sounded like a scrape of a pedal in turn 3 which resulted in one rider losing their line. Unfortunetly Joe was in the wrong place and was forced well outside towards a curb, he managed to correct for a moment when he was hit from behind by someone else ending his race in a pile outside of turn 3 with 3 other riders. At this point the front of the group attacked hard with only 2 to go and quickly split the field. Elvis and Tony stayed with the front group and I chased hard for the last 2 laps.
Elvis managed 9th in the sprint, while Tony came in 15th. I finished 26th, Sergio 30th, Jorge 36th and Dan was 40th.


The Masters 4/5 race went much better although I believe there was still a crash towards the end. Joe and myslef did not line up for this as Joe toasted his front wheel, and I had to leave early.


Tony, Elvis, Sergio, Jorge and Dan rode a smart race and let other teams do most of the work for the entirety of the race. When it came down to the final sprint Tony managed 20th this time around. With about 200 meters to go Elvis was blocked in with riders on both sides and one in front as well. At 150 to go however, the door opened up and thats when Elvis started winding up his sprint. He looked up at 50 meters to go and realized he was off the front and powering towards the win, when he was pipped at the line for 2nd. The good news was that he was beaten by a 40+ master, thus making his 2nd place overall good enough for 1st Place in the 30+ race.

All in all we had a great showing on Sunday and vowed to return next year to defend the win. Barring Joe's unfortunate crash we rode a smart race and hopefully earned the respect of our fellow racers. This win will only be the first of many for 2008, and we can't wait to prove ourselves at the Tour de West Lafayette in a few weeks.