= Larry
= Mike
Greetings Race
Fans!!! Here we are for the fifth year with the Tour De Schwinn!!!! Yes folks
against my better judgment we are having the 2008 Tds. Once again for the next
seven weeks we will be reporting the on goings of this indoor race. With me is
Larry Barnhart, winner of the 2007 TdS and owner of Kokomo Cycling and Fitness.
A man of many talents some of which involves bicycles, others that are just
strange... Larry?
It's going to be
another long winter folks. But welcome to the start of the first stage of the
Tour. However before we start I would like to suggest if you readers would like
to have an idea of what has gone on in the tour over the last four years you
should visit the Tour History pages. Those can be found by going to the
LINKS PAGE , there you can read a short history
of each year. This year Mike has decided to expand the field to add another
team. Why is that Mike?
Well Frankly...this
being the 5th year I thought that we might be able to handle a few more riders,
plus there is the fact that we have a second velodyne to use this year.
The velodyne is the machine we use to torture the riders on. Plus I had hoped
that we would have seen more ladies entering this year since we had 3 last year,
then we could have had a ladies only team. However we actually have gone down to
just one lady rider, Roxane Burrous, who has actually ridden the tour every year
so far. Any how what else has changed for the tour this year, Larry?
Like I would know,
your the one running this circus. Oh wait, ah notes for me to read, cleaver
Mike. Let's see, ah I see to shelter himself from all the blame Mike put the
choices for the stages up on the BreakAway Bicycle Club Message Board with polls
so the riders could vote on the courses. How did that go Mike?
The voting was light
but we got enough to for me to say I tried. So with the voting mostly done and
the courses determined... I might add that the choices were past courses. The
first course we are going to use is for the prologue stage and the choice was
the 2006 course. This was and will be a 4.6 mile course featuring a 8% climb
near the middle. One other note: this year the commentary will not be done with
the actual times. It I hope to be able to do will be done off the handicaps. So
things will be a bit more confusing to say the least.
So who will be our
first rider? I am assuming that you are doing this in some organized fashion?
Yes bottom-up. That
is to say that riders have been placed according to how they placed last year in
the tour with the rookies just thrown into the mix where ever I saw fit. One
expectation was Ron Moore who I gave the wrong number but who cares. Let me also
note that times reported here this year will be the handicap times not the
real times. There will be no reality here this year, my reality has crashed
totally so I see no reason anyone else should enjoy theirs.
Ah organized chaos. I
would expect nothing less. And I see that means rider #24 goes first, and it's
one of our Rookies: 19 year old Stephen Sehr. Stephen is a Purdue student
and has been a member of the BABC for many years along with his mother Barb.
Barb is one of the clubs wonderful volunteers, she has done most the planning
for the food for our Sizzlin' Century for a number of years now.
So with that
introduction let's send Stephen on his way... Stephen is underway on his Giant
OCR 1(that's a bicycle). He looks relaxed as he climbs this first shallow hill
while he gets up to speed. We will check back in on Stephen a little later as we
get the time checks in.
Starting next will be
rider #23 Kevin Wisher. Kevin is a returning rider although he did not race last
year. He did ride the '05 and '06 Tours on the American Flyers Team. Just a note
here, Teams will be decided after the prologue which is how we do it here.
That's right we
use the results from the Prologue (Stage1) to determine the teams, that way
teams should be fairly even. We hope. And speaking of hoping looks like Kevin
Wisher is hoping for a god ride as he gets the start. Kevin's best placing in a
prologue however has only been 18th, so we are not expecting him to make the top
of the list today. So whose next Larry?
Next we have another
Rookie to the Tour, Rider # 22: Mark Bettinger, Mark is known for his strong
riding and with his wife Karen has, on their tandem , pulled many riders along the
courses of the local club riders. It is unknown how he will do in the Tour
however, we expect him to be one of the top actual riders but since this is a
handicapped race we have no clue. Mark will get the start in a moment or two.
This just in, time checks will be kept down to a min. this year as we will wait
until the first five riders have hit the 2.2 mile mark before we give any
reports. Reports will be the Handicapped times.
The only place to see actual times will be the results page where both will be
posted.
So while we wait for
that let's go ahead and list the rest of the riders in order of their number and
as they will start. #21: (Rookie) Walt Kosiak : #20 (Rookie and BABC
President) Cory Jackson. #19 MissTerryRider.
#18 Charlie Skoog. #17 Shawn Leonard. #16 Todd Brandenburg.
#15 Mitch "Superman" Reeves. #14 Rick Weaver . #13 (Rookie)
Tom McMahan . #12 Markus Naegeli. #11 Andrew Maibaum. #10
(Rookie) Stan Shuey. #9 Adam Cloud. #8 Ron "the Instructor" Moore.
#7 Jeff Bell. #6 Tom "Capt. Ironlegs" Linn. #5 Roxane " Wonder
Woman" Burrous. #4 Ryan Hulce.
#3 Clark Griffin. #2 Francis "the Professor" Manfred. and last to
start your 2007 TdS winner Larry Barnhart (Rider #1).
A very good list
there Mike. Shall we look at the first 5 riders at the 2.2 mile mark then?
Sure. At the
2.2 mile mark after the first 5 riders it looks like this:
1st
Stephen Sehr @ 6:49
2nd Mark Bettinger @ 6:53
(+:04)
3rd Cory Jackson @ 7:03 (+:14)
4th Walt Kosiak
@ 7:09 (+:20)
5th Kevin Wisher @ 8:27 (+1:38)
Not sure how long
Stephen will keep that led since Charlie Skoog is soon to get to the 2.2 mile
mark.
Has Charlie regained
his form after his crash during a training ride last October. That crash kept
him out of the 2007 Tour.
We kind of were
expecting Mark B to be in the top spot at least for now but things are far from
over.
So True.
So while we wait for
the next set of results to come in ,what other strange things do you have for us
Mike.
Well I was thinking
about a word from our sponsor or should I say Host, not that we are parasites or
anything.
Well you have been
called worse Mike.
Any how now for a
word from our Sponsor/Host. Kokomo Cycling and Fitness. Here's the owner
Larry Barnhart. Larry...
Thank you Mike, I
would like to thank the riders for once again doing the Tour and remind them
that Kokomo Cycling and Fitness is the only Shop in tour dedicated to Cycling.
Thank you for that
Larry now back to the race. We now have the first 10 riders pass the 2.2 mile
mark and the times look like this. Larry?
Sure. They look like
a bunch of numbers that make little sense to anyone.
Thanks. Here they are
folks.
1.Charlie Skoog 6:39
2.Stephen Sehr
6:49 (+:10)
3.Mark Bettinger 6:53 (+:14)
4. Cory Jackson 7:03 (+24)
5. Walt Kosiak
7:09 (+:30)
6. Shawn Leonard 7:13 (+:34)
7.
Todd Brandenburg 7:16 (+:37)
8.Mitch Reeves
7:23 (+:44)
9. MissTerryRider
8:03 (+1:24)
10.Kevin Wisher
8:27 (+ 1:48)
I am sure things will
change a bit as we still have Markus Naegeli, Clark Griffin and Francis Manfred
to ride.
Yes with 14 more
riders yet to come things will defiantly change. Bored yet?
Yes.
Ok Well Rick
Weaver just pasted the 2.2 mile with a time of 7:05. It is a good
time but he will have to do better if he wants to stay in the top group.
Next to come to the
2.2 spot is Rookie Tom McMahan, @ 7:27 which about mid-field so far, he is an
unknown in the tour this year so we really can't say much more.
And here comes Markus
with a time of 6:54. That changes things a bit as Markus takes over the 4th
spot. Just ahead of Cory Jackson. However there are at least two more riders that can
best these times , for both Clark Griffin and Francis Manfred are yet to start.
Coming in far down in
the list is one of our past winners Andrew Maibaum with a much slower time of
8:03 which ties him with our "MissTerryRider", who is a rider who wishes to
remain unknown at this time so their name will not appear in the program at this
time. I bet a lot of other riders would have liked to have thought of that
themselves.
Well we will
have to announce it sooner or later. Don't we?
Don't know, never came
up before. But speaking of coming up here is our next rider , Stan Shuey.
Stan is another of our rookies this year and is the oldest rider we have this
year as well. Stan's time .... 7:43 which puts him ahead of Andrew so far.
With nine more
riders to go let's look up the road to the finish line and see how the first 10
riders finished.
Ok
1.Charlie Skoog
11:41
2. Mark Bettinger 12:11 @ :30
3.
Stephen Sehr 12:17 @
:36
4. Cory Jackson
12:34 @ :53
5. Shawn Leonard 12:38 @ :57
6. Walt Kosiak
12:41 @ 1:00
7. Todd Brandenburg 12:43 @ 1:02
8. Mitch Reeves
13:12 @ 1:31
9. MissTerryRider
14:01 @ 2:20
10.Kevin Wisher
15:49 @ 4:08
Looks like Mark got
by Stephen but could not conquer our tallest rider Charlie.
One has to wonder if
Charlie's experience did not help him since this is Mark's first race on the
Velodyne and Charlie had done three year's of it.
Or Charlie is just
faster. The real surprise so far however is young Mr. Sehr, we did not expect
him to be this high up in the standings.
Well not we did not
but if you will recall another young rider a couple of years ago did some great
things in the tour, that would be Seth Wall from the 2005 tour. A great rider in
the making was he.
To speed things up a
bit we are going to list all 24 riders 2.2 mile time here and then go to the
finish line, call for a pizza and see what happens.
Ok then here we go.
1. Francis Manfred 6:20
2. Charlie Skoog 6:39
3.
Stephen Sehr 6:49
4. Clark Griffin
6:50
5.Adam Cloud 6:50
6. Markus Naegeli
6:54
7. Mark Bettinger 7:02
8. Cory Jackson
7:02
9. Rick Weaver 7:05
10.
Walt Kosiak 7:09
11. Shawn Leonard 7:13
12 Roxane Burrous 7:16
13 Todd Brandenburg 7:16
14 Jeff Bell
7:18
15 Ron Moore
7:21
16 Mitch Reeves 7:23
17
Larry Barnhart 7:26
18 Tom McMahan
7:27
19 Ryan Hulce
7:35
20. Stan Shuey
7:53
21. Tom Linn
7:58
22. MissTerryRider 8:03
23 Andrew Maibaum 8:03
24.
Kevin Wisher 8:27
An impressive
list of times.
There are a few
surprises but how will it all hold up by the end? I say we just let every
go to the Results page and find out for themselves. But before we go I
would like to say hello to RooCycler from down under. Hey Roo and congrats on
the December win in trivia.!!!
Well this was short
and still somehow boring, but I guess you get that when it gets done late at
night and with Mike still being a basket case. So until next time folks when we
will try to have something worth while to read, enjoy the results and don't
forget to look at the Team pages as the TEAMS are now set.