Category: Miscellaneous

It is difficult to write enthusiastically when a friend is severely injured so this post will be a brief intro to a post for later in the week. As I mentioned in the post-Louisville recap, the velodrome is the only place to attain high quality training on a regular basis. Things are happening behind the scenes to make the Major Taylor Velodrome even more viable than it has been over the past few seasons and fate has landed me right in the thick of the action.

Please join me over the next few days in sending as much positive, healing energy to Bret Neylon and then check back late this week for an update on what’s going on at the Major Taylor Velodrome. If you even have a remote possibility to utilize the facility, you’ll wonder, like me, how you ever could have gone so long without incorporating fixed gear training and racing into your regimen.

Friend and competitor, Bret Neylon of the Heroes Foundation Team, was severely injured in a bike racing accident over the weekend. His injury has left him paralyzed from the neck down. Spinal surgery was performed on Sunday morning and a Heroes Foundation announcement posted at http://www.truesport.com stated the doctors want to give the surgery two weeks to heal before making any further prognosis. All of us here at Team Tortuga send our heart felt concerns and well wishes to Bret, Tracie and Bret’s entire circle of loved ones; his family, the students he teaches, the athletes he coaches, and his teammates. In these trying weeks Bret, know that you have an entire community taking your pulls until you return to full speed. When you are ready to reach out, do not hesitate for we are all here as necessary.  

Like the elephant sitting in the corner, the upcoming MMSFRR is difficult to ignore for those of us who plan on tackling it both for MAG7 points or just for the ‘fun’ of it! Therefore as this weeks worlds were planned as the forest loop we took advantage and rode Bean Blossom the hard way (upward). There was a smallish group for the ride this week but that didn’t stop the pace picking up well as we rolled onto Anderson road. However as we approached BB the pace slackened slightly until A.Frsyka (know as the ‘attacker’) kept the pace decent. On the climb Ren-jay gave it some stick and a small group went away. Those of us further back were grateful for mssrs Kehrberg and Cox keeping it steady and then helping us back to the front. A regrouping and a steady paceline ensued all through the forest and up Hindustan. Back onto Anderson the racing began again as ‘attacker’ and Myron Lewis held off the rest of the pack for the best part of the road. Onto BB a general truce was called and our group was marshalled at a reasonable pace up the hill….all except ‘attacker’ who once again put in a big effort up the hill. This sadly was the last we’d see of ‘attacker’ as once the group bridged it was sayonara and goodbye as the ‘man with the hammer’ was observed to be hitting Mr Fryska about the head!
The attacks started in the Forest and the pace was high troughout until the expected showdown occurred on Hinudstan where Kehrberg and Caughlin rocketed off of the front. The remaining turtles and one or two others got together in a fierce paceline mostly driven by M.Brauner who proceeded to blow more than one of us off of the back…on the downhill! Alas the two escapees stayed away until the finish but all who rode got in a good workout in preperation for the race on June 25th. Sadly on that day it’ll be 4 laps and not 2. Ouch!