Newsletter May 2009

Thursday May 07, 2009  

Rocket Pockets Two

 

What a start!  New Zealand's Emma Petersen, one of Team Ultralink's  newcomers for 2009, kicked off the team's season with a victory in the Good Friday Road Race.  The Ontario Cup victory was a result the entire team could take pride in, having worked over the race all day long, and set up conditions for the final sprint.  In the finale, Emma hit out from a long way, felt some pressure from a closing rider, and kicked again, showing a clean set of wheels on the finish line, and winning her first race in Canada.

Last weekend, Emma took win number two at the venerable Springbank Road Race in London.  After being on the attack with teammate Krystal Jeffs much of the day, the race came down to a bunch kick.  Emma was able to time her sprint to perfection, coming around Merrill Collins (J.Lindbergh) on the line, and taking the victory in a photo finish.  Read the details on both these races in the results section of our team website.

 

Defending Home Turf

 

Home turf for Team Ultralink is the Ultralink Calabogie Classic Ontario Cup, Presented by Cyclelogik. In its third year, the race grew to attract almost 400 racers this season, and under sunny skies at the beautiful Calabogie Motorsports track, the event was a huge success thanks to the tireless efforts of Race Director Paul Chedore. 

As for the racing, the women's team dominated the day, rolling off a number of attacks early, capitalizing on both speed and guile to stack the eventual winning break, and finally seeing team captain Julia Farell take the victory with a long, powerful sprint .  The race story is detailed below In Their Own Words, and the final sprint is captured on video on the team's website.

In the Masters Men's race, an 18 man break spent the second half the race off the front, with Team Ultralink putting 4 riders into the decisive move. Further attacks were nullified, and Andrew Lees represented by taking third in the small bunch sprint.  Detailed results for the entire race also available on the team's website.

 

Carrie's European Breakaway

 

Following an extraordinary second half to her 2008 season, Carrie Cartmill found herself squarely on the radar of the National Team selection committee. Carrie kicked off her season by attending an Arizona-based training camp and then competed at the Redlands Classic, her first time riding in Canadian colours. Following a strong performance, she was then selected to represent Team Ultralink with the National Team on their spring campaign in Europe.  She'll be racing for the month of May in some of Europe's most important races, culminating with the Tour de l'Aude. Carrie will be back in time to race with her teammates at one of the team's major goals for 2009, the Tour de PEI. Look for more on Carrie's adventures with the National Team in our next newsletter.

 

In Their Own Words

  

Allison Lampi's Race

 

Report from Calabogie

 

On a brisk and beautiful sunny day in April, Ultralink Products teamed up with CycleLogik Racing to put on an impeccable Ontario Cup race on the Calabogie Race Track, not much more than an hour west of Ottawa. As the race hosts, and on our "home" course, the pressure was on for a podium, with top step preferred!
 
A review of the course, the competition and the strategy before the race prepped the team for the challenge. The Calabogie race track is a 5km track with many turns, mostly banked, some small hills, and lots of flow. It is not a race course that naturally separates the strong from the weak over time. As such, it is up to the racers themselves to create opportunities. The competition was the top elite women from all over Ontario (and some from Québec). All were considered strong and fit for the race season.
 
The team approached the start line (in style, with our now recognizable Green and White Apogee clothing, white Cervélo R3s and white Challenge tubulars) with a quiet confidence.
 
About 2km into the race of 75, Ultralink fired the first round as Carrie ("I'm going to attack today!") put in a fiery attack up the road. Ready to go, the peloton reacted fully and pulled her back, only to see round two fire off on the left and establish a lead. Joined by one other rider, Katie Spittlehouse, Allison's breakaway lasted almost 3 laps, pushing out a lead on the women's peloton before being caught in the confusion of a passing men's pack.
 
Immediately, Ultralink (a full team of 7 that day) fired off our next attack. This time the peloton would let no more breakaways go and caught it immediately. One after another, attacks from Julia- Emma-Allison-Shanie-Emma-Julia-Allison, short getaways, and chases. Other teams' riders answered every move. The peloton was chasing and tiring but no one would get away until finally, about half way through the race, Krystal Jeffs "took a flyer" up the hill on the left and into a very strong head wind. Two riders, Julia Bradley and Christiane Knobbe, followed. With both big teams represented, it was left to the rest of the fatiguing peloton to pull them back. Even with a fairly coordinated effort of riders at the front, Krystal's courageous breakaway remained up the road and out of sight.

With about 6 laps to go, a move from a rider off the front caught Julia's attention. Immediately she reacted, followed by another rider-Sophie Matte. Before too long, there were two bridging the gap to Krystal's group, the initial rider unable to keep the pace. 
 
Up the road, Krystal and her two companions set a tough pace. Julia and Sophie gave their all and eventually, with less than 4 laps to go, the five came together. Now there were two riders from each big team in the front group. The group of 5 rode well together and extended their gap to over a minute. Back in the peloton, the rest of the team policed the group.
 
Julia, recovering from her effort, thought only of victory. In the final sprint, she uncorked an acceleration that could not be matched and won with conviction Ontario Cup #2- the team's 2nd win of 2 starts.
 
After two races, Julia leads the Ontario Cup Series.

 

 

Next Up...

 

Team Ultralink's upcoming schedule for the Pro Women and Master Men includes:

Bristol Mountain

Bear Mountain

GP de Granby

Niagara Ontario Cup

St-Raymond Stage Race

Syracuse Stage Race

Bruce Country Ontario Cup

Montreal World Cup

Grand Prix de Charlevoix

Tour de PEI

 

The team's full results are available on the team's website at http://www.teamultralink.com/

To date, the team has accumulated 37 race starts, 4 podiums and 3 victories.