UNIVEST pre-race

After the last stage of the Green Mtn stage race I had an awesome dinner in Burlington with Peter, David and his parents, David's girlfriend's family and some other friends of theirs. I stayed at David's girlfriend's parents place that Monday night north of Burlington, before the long drive down to Philly the next morning.

Tuesday morning we packed 2 sedans worth of stuff for the 8 hour drive to Philly for the start of UNIVEST on Friday. We made a quick stop in Jersey on the way to pick up Nick, and rolled into our host house outside of New Town, PA around 8.

The next morning Peter had an interview with a local news channel, so after we got a morning ride in we all met at the FUJI warehouse outside of Philly. FUJI is the JBCA sponsor for bikes, and key in helping out Bernard and Ann and the their team throughout the season, especially during UNIVEST. We got a tour of the facility which consisted of a warehouse and a front office off engineers, sales people and marketing staff. We met a lot of different employees and got to talk about everything cycling from racing, technology and the upcoming Interbike convention in Las Vegas. FUJI was in full swing getting everything prepped to ship out to the convention in time for the week long dirt demo and showroom extravaganza that is Interbike. They had at least 4 or 5 mechanics building up the newest models of racing bikes and TT rigs to be inspected, before they were then disassembled and boxed for shipment. The warehouse consisted of rows upon rows of cardboard boxes filled with inventory to be shipped to retailers across the globe. FUJI actually is under the larger company Advanced Sports that owns SE bikes, Breezer, Kestrel and Fuji, so the building housed all 4 brands with their varying type of 2 wheeled products and accessories. I especially enjoyed seeing the new shimano Di2 gruppo installed on FUJI and Kestrel's latest time trial creations. I had only seen pictures of the new electric shifting, so it was neat to finally be able to see it up close and personal. We had a great lunch with the employees and left with a few freebies.

Afterwards we drove to Allentown to preview the TTT course from the car. It was about an hour drive from the house, and supposed to rain the next day, so at least a few laps in the car was better than showing up on race day with no prior knowledge. The course was situated in a very urban city center, which would either mean good or bad news for the new stage and how it is perceived. Out of the start gate there was a right hand turn to a long downhill over a bridge. Very exposed to the wind yet very fast. At the bottom was a sweeping right hand off camber turn to a short uphill. The course then weaved through some neighborhoods before making another small bridge crossing to another right hand turn and a fast flat section. The last few kilos switch backed steep city blocks before the last right hand turn into the flat finishing straightaway. After 2 laps in the car we called it a day and drove home for dinner and some rest.

On Thursday morning our 5th teammate Alex arrived and we got some pre-race practice in a nearby neighborhood taking corners at speed in a tight formation, focusing on communication at all times. Time trialing is a very delicate balance between raw power teamwork. You could have the fastest and strongest guys on a team, but if there is no communication and formation within the group, you won't get the results. A team can move the fastest when everyone is in sync with a good rotation, taking advantage of optimal drafting at all times. This allows the group, not just any given individual, to use its power effectively to produce the most speed. That night there was a race dinner at a grocery store that was sponsoring the event. Yes the dinner was inside the grocery store, it was a bit weird at first, but there were bunch of tables set up for teams and free access to the buffet bar, so it was cool. After another great dinner we went home and got some rest for the start of the weekend.