Logan Owen comes to the line with his teammate. Photo courtesy of Tim Rutledge.
by Kat Statman
The middle of summer is quickly approaching. Molly Cameron has an FMB tire order ready to go out. Challenge and FMB are releasing new mud treads to challenge the famed Dugast Rhino. New disc ready bikes are hitting the tech news pages. So, with all that happening, where are the pros? Amy Dombroski is on her way to Italy for Marathon Cross-Country Worlds. Katie Compton hangs up the knobbies for a night. Stybar as Boonen’s lead out man? Putting two and two together for the new Cannondale–Cyclocrossworld.com rider. 2011 Blitz to the Barrel attracts ’cross stars. Tom Meeusen knocks off two mountain bike specialists. In this week’s Working Man’s Edition: Brady Kappius takes on the Rocky Mountain Ultra Endurance Series and Logan Owen is destroying the Washington state road races.
Amy Dombroski makes it to Italy for a long day on the mountain bike.
As Amy prepares for her most ambitious cyclocross season to date, she heads to Italy for a shot at the rainbow stripes in cross-country marathon. So how will Amy fair on the long knobby race? Well, Amy has a long racing history on the road and mountain bike. Currently most euro marathon races are a mix of dirt roads, paved roads and singletrack, meaning smart racing is important, and someone with plenty of road racing experience will do well easily.
Katie Compton hangs up the fat knobbies for a fixed gear track bike at the Colorado Springs Velodrome.
Katie has an amazing ability to get in shape for whatever type of event she is preparing for and that is more than corroborated by her racing triumphs; so when you hear that she has hung up her knobby tires for some skinny ones to ride around an oval circle, you can bet that she is prepared and ready to go for that even if a little track racing is just to build her speed and strength for later mountain bike races and ’cross season. As we hit the middle of summer and come into the thick of off-season racing, expect to see Katie breaking out quite a bit more on her quest for the London Olympics.
Stybar as Boonen’s lead out man?
After scanning over the results from a few of the Tour de Suisse stages something popped out a little bit. In stage four Stybar finished an impressive ninth behind stage winner Thor Hushovd. But what was more impressive was that Stybar’s ninth place finish was one up on Tom Boonen, the team’s sprint leader. From that it looks like Stybar was in charge of shuttling Boonen to the finish line but didn’t quite make it on the difficult finishing circuits. Quite a big job for the newly converted road racer, and maybe we’ll see him doing this more often if he heads to the Vuelta later this summer, hopefully with a bit more success.
Putting two and two together, new Cannondale–Cyclocrossworld.com rider possibly a euro?
This past spring we reported that there may be a euro ’crosser coming over for the 2011–2012 season here in the US. Last week we reported that Cannondale–Cyclocrossworld.com is bringing in another rider to take over Jeremy Powers’ position on the team, adding more firepower that might keep the boys in green a dominant force in the US. Well, by putting two and two together, maybe, just maybe, we’ll be seeing a euro race for an American team?
2011 Blitz to the Barrell attracts a bunch of ’crossers.
A Super-D, Cross Country and cyclocross race all wrapped into one for the cycling town of Bend. So who shows up for this Wednesday night bike racing fest? Well, a few of the names on the list are Adam Craig, Ryan Trebon and Chris Sheppard, all known for their cyclocross antics. In fact, all of them are current or previous ’cross national champions from their respective countries. So who took the cake? Well, Adam Craig decided that it was time to get down to business for 2011 and he ripped through the course faster than anyone else.
Tom Meeusen takes home the Elite win in Averbode, knocking off Rudi Van Houts and Kevin Van Hoovels.
Tom Meeusen has been a pretty regular face at the front of the ’cross circuit, especially when the courses are on the more technical side. Well, his ’cross technical prowess comes from a clear source and that is his off-season mountain bike racing. At the Belgian mountain bike race in Averbode, Meeusen showed the current Belgian mountain bike national champion Kevin Van Hoovels and stand out world cup racer Rude Van Houts that he not only has the engine but the skills to shake off the old guard and in style with a wheelie across the finish line. With Telenet-Fidea losing a bit of firepower and in a rebuilding phase, Meeusen will now clearly be one of the top riders for the team with top billing and clearly his riding shows that he deserves it.
Working Man’s Edition
Brady Kappius takes his second win in the Rocky Mountain Ultra Endurance Series, putting him in the overall series lead. Brady has always been one of those riders that is in the mix and has a huge engine ready to take on the best. This spring and summer he is clearly coming into huge form, as he is now two for three in the Rocky Mountain Ultra Endurance Series and winning the series overall. Brady may not technically be a “working” man, but as a grad student at the University of Colorado he is definitely running on the same time constraints as the working men out there.
Logan Owen takes the win in an Olympia, Washington road race and takes second in the crit to his teammate. If we head out up to the Northwest and see what is happening with ’cross racers, the young stand-out Logan Owen is kicking it into high gear with some big results on the road. Racing for the Hagens-Berman road team, Owen worked with his teammate in the crit on Saturday taking second in the sprint and then winning the road race the next day. Keep this up, Logan, but don’t forget about your roots in the mud!
