2008 Zimmerman MS Bike Ride

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Race Report - Deland Circuit Race



Day one of Florida State races and we already have our first Victory. We awoke to a chilly 39 degrees, but what is a little cold for Florida's premier race team?

We started off the day in typical grand ZMotion style with our tents and z-chairs between the z-van and the new team RV. The support among the teams was amazing as we had over 25 guys racing.

The Masters 45+ was first and proved that age is no barrier as those guys were rolling! This race started the days trend of lots of breaks but finishing in a field sprint. Shaun, Chuck and Raife wound it up over the long finishing straight to come in 2nd, 4th and 5th respectively. What a way to start the day!

Then the Masters 35+ started and magic happened. There were three different primes available that were all snatched up by our very own Julio. Continuing our domination, after being involved in all of the doomed breaks, ZMotion put the T in Team as Karl started pulling with one lap to go. Team captain Jeff took over pulling duties in the very front with Amir glued to his wheel. Out of no where Vinny crossed the line first with Amir and Joe giving us one, two and three!


In the Cat 4 we had less guys but still made or presence felt with Joe again coming in third and Alex Y coming in 7th. Joel said he got a flat at the very end but winesses swear that they saw him letting the air out.

The Pro 1,2 field was 75 strong and was loaded with the who's who of Florida racing. From the gun it was blazing with the field strung out single file almost every lap. Any breaks were squashed by the massive horsepower present in the field. To add insult to injury, the second to last lap had a $250 prime that pushed the pain meter to max. Our man Wayne manuvered into the front for 9th place. All in all a great day of racing. The day ended on a high note with a massive feast at the Brick House restaurant and a much needed rest.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

ZMotion Masters Team Training - 1/29/09

This comes directly from Captain Pat..

Ok ok ok , so here it is the “Line Of The Day” …. zMotion Masters training ride this morning, we looked good, about 10 of us in-line high speed tempo ride with really smooth rotations all the way to Spanish River where we met up with “ Mike’s Ride “ . So now were going south, all zMotion again in-line , fast, fast pace and were leading the ride all the way south with a unified team rotation and everyone from Mikes ride hanging on to our draft and we catch the light at Pompano road. We stop, someone from another team yells out “ hey, I thought zMotion was supposed to go slow today “ and yes, yours truly , Captain Pat, turns casually looks this person in the eyes and says “ WE ARE ! “ yea, …………

Monday, January 26, 2009

Race Report - Brian Piccolo #2

ZMotion is in the house!!! Wow, what an awesome turn out and a really fun day. This is what racing is truly about, a bunch of people who love the sport, enjoy being together and a really fast set of races.

A special thanks to Joel for bringing and setting up the tents. Of course, ZMotion did things in typical grand style with energy bars, bananas and drinks on hand. We also had these folding chairs that said "ZMotion Racing", how cool is that? As far as race support, this is the best I have ever had!!

Now onto the racing. There were 4 different races and we had a big presence in each of the 40+, 50+, Pro 1,2,3 and Cat 4,5 races.

ZMotion raced the 40+ very tactically, as we had coverage in all of the breaks. Around the half-way point a break formed that had both Jeff and Jody in it along with 6 other riders. This looked like a perfect break, so ZMotion (temporarily) teamed up with Herbal Life to "Shut it down". We sat up front and basically let the other guys stay away. Up at the front, Jody did a lot of work to keep the break going and pulled Jeff up until the 2nd to last turn. Jeff hit the gas to come in a very respectable 3rd.

The 50+ race was very fun to watch and we even got to see Pat dragging the whole field behind him. The Pro 1,2,3 was definately faster than the 40+ and had numerous attacks and pain for all involved. Our very own Wayne Burgess emerged from the pack at the end to snag a 4th place, congrats!! We finished it off with the Cat 4,5 race where we got to see our local strongman Chris single handedly bring back the most dangerous break of the day.

Here are the "Numbers":

Masters 40+ - Jeff Fleming in 3rd (I believe that Jody was 9th, Chuck 10th, Shaun 11th and Mark 13th)
Masters 50+ - Billy Tittle in 7th, Pat Patregini in 8th
Pro 1,2,3 - Wayne Burgess in 4th, Shaun Redman in 9th, Charles Lisa in 10th
Cat 4,5 - Joe Vietro in 10th

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Race Report - Brian Piccolo #1

I got intel and pictures from my onsite race reporters Raife and Joel about this weekends exciting first race of the season. Even though it was "only" a training race, ZMotion was there to help spool it up.


From Raife,

Good racing on Sunday...

In the 40+ it was just Jody and me and Jody still managed a 5th place. We should do well when the team shows up in strength.

In the 1-2-3, Vinny managed a 5th place. I think Jody was his only help...again...the team should do well...



The 4-5 race was a lot of fun. Pretty decent finish considering we're just a bunch of guys that ride together on weekends. If we continue to race in that category, I suggest at least a team meeting before the race. With a little organization, these races will be more fun for everyone and we should own the podium.



Congrats to us!!!

Kristen, Gina, Dana and the rest of you that showed up for support...Thanks for that...We love you...

Raife


From Joel,

Myself, Raife and Chris were out front most of the race and I felt good the entire race. With one lap to go, I was on the left turn before the straight away up in the top 5 or so just taking a breather to get ready for the last lap to sprint. Then a couple of guys swung wide right in front of me and it was either let them run into me and have a massive wreck or ride off the shoulder. I was lucky to keep the bike straight and it was tough to try and get over the lip from the grass back onto the pavement and I barely avoided going down. For the 1st race for Category 4 it was very competetive and averaged 24.2 mph.




Well there you have it..

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Masters Keys Training Camp - Day Two



Well, the consensus is in, Jeff really can cook. We also had to give Dave some grief because he couldn't fathom how Jeff managed such a yummy salad with such few ingredients. The biggest travesty of the evening was what Julio made Jeff do the steak. While the rest of us like our meat nice and rare, Jeff had to kill that steak deader than dead before Julio would touch it.

So back to riding.. The plan for the day was to head to Key West for the Seafood Festival which was a 75+ mile ride one-way, so I took the ZMotion Van down and then rode north until I met the guys. We had a new addition as Tim showed also and when I saw them they were cruising 25-26mph in yet another smooth paceline (go team!!). A recap afterwards tells the real story with Chuck blowing things up on 7-mile bridge and Jeff panting on his wheel leaving the other three out in no-mans land. I even heard rumors of cell phone calls asking Chuck to slow down. The ride rolled into Key West with Jeff snagging a tow from a dump truck, so he he won a dubious "victory".

Now onto the good stuff, the food!! Julio peeled off the group in search of the "perfect hamburger" (are you kidding me?) while the rest of us feasted on Lobster, Shrimp, Conch Salad, Stone Crab with rice and beans. Wishing you were here...

Friday, January 16, 2009

Masters Keys Training Camp - Day One



Well, for anyone that missed it (you know who you are), a good time was had by the rest of us. Day 0 (Thur Night) started with a nice dinner at the Lazy Days restaurant in Island Morada with Jeff, Julio, Chuck, Mark and Dave in attendence. Then a short drive later, we crashed at Jeff's cool Keys pad.

Day 1 started around 8am (soooo nice to sleep in) with the five of us hitting the road around 9am. We headed north on US1 and wow, what beautiful views. After around 2 hours of easy pedaling we had to stop for some kick-butt Cuban espresso and my day was complete. We went north for a little longer, then with a small tailwind started crusing south at a nice clip. We stopped for lunch at a quaint little Cafe before the final few miles.

After getting back, some of us (yes, I mean me) had to get our little nap before we decided to take the boat out. Over by the dock we saw this Manatee and Jeff "fed" it some fresh water from a hose.



We then took a beautful cruise flying through the mangroves and looped out ocean-side to come back in the other end. Of course we had to have a little drama, with Jeff shearing off his antenna as we tried to sneak under a short bridge.





So to finish a great day, Jeff decided to cook for us and we picked up some CRAZY BIG steaks and even made some salad as our attempt at eating healthly. As of this writing, I cannot tell if they are any good or if Jeff really has the skills. Only time will tell..

Thursday, January 15, 2009

ZMotion Masters Team Training - 01/15/09

It was that time of the week again, time to get up before what is normally sane (say 4:30am), time to brave the dark and cold (~50degrees), time to HURT. Yes, I am referring to the weekly Masters Team Training ride where we had a starting group of 16+ people, but we sure didn't finish with that many.

We started with our typical double paceline warm-up at A1A/South Atlantic at 6am, but this time we kept it going till almost Linton and it got faster and faster. We tried some new training methods today (compliments of Jody) and of course, the first couple of tries were not very pretty as people were blown off the back and our nice clean paceline broke to pieces.

We finally regrouped as a team at Linton and had a team talk and our next effort went sooooo much more smoothly. That is the best part about this team is their ability to work together and learn, which is certainly a major ingredient for success.

Today we practiced a "Surge" interval which is intended to help us stay together when the pace changes and replicates what it’s like to control a race. What we did was to get a smooth fast single paceline going and after three full rotations at "base" pace (a brisk 26+mph), someone attacks (Steve G was our guy) and our job was to follow and then maintain the surge effort for just one full rotation of the group. Then when the attacker got back to the front he would back off down to the base effort for 3 rotations again. What we did today was a 3-base: 1-surge effort.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Please send me your stories and pictures

Writing for the blog is getting more fun as people read it and share photos and their thoughts with me. I am hoping to get stories from your point of view also as I can only write about what I know. Here are some pictures from Joleen from Saturdays ride down to 17th St. Causeway.






A smiling Joleen


Bridgett on her new Pinerello


Oh, that bridge








Pat ponders the bridge

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Inaugural ZMotion MS Ride



What an amazing day, we had a turn out of well over four hundred riders with a mix of very new riders to the entire ZMotion Racing Team. Several people spoke including a beautiful teenage girl with Multiple Sclerosis that shared what it is like living everyday with this disease. Listening to her only made you want to work harder to support MS and rid the world it.

We had a pre-ride breakfast and pulled out with a police escort (I could get very used to that) blocking all of the intersections. It almost felt like we were doing the MS ride today. Everyone rode up to Boynton Inlet where we stopped to enjoy a quick drink and some fun yapping. That is one thing about Team ZMotion, this bunch LOVES to talk.

On the way back, things got a little more serious with the team getting up front and Victor pulling like a race horse. We even had the B&J van taking movies and pictures and with the draft the speed got over 35 mph, ouch! Then everyone chowed down to a great breakfast at The Cove and a good time was had by all.

Safety First


We all enjoy the feeling of cruising in a long fast paceline, but that sickening crunch you hear when someone crashing just turns your stomach. No matter how talented the riders, then an accident is always possible. Here is a picture yesterday at the scene where even experienced riders like Chris and Jody can take a spill (luckily with no major damage) if the circumstances are such.

Please always be careful in any size group and use a combination of hand signals and verbal communication to prevent issues. Pat mentioned this morning that he has someone working on a pamphlet on hand signals that we can use to promote this most important communication.

We have also been experiencing a series of tickets (I got one) and some very upset police officers up and down A1A. To resolve that, we need to focus on two things: Never ride more than two side by side and stop at all lights and stop signs.

We are having a great time together on Team ZMotion, so lets be accident and ticket free.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

ZMotion Masters Team Training - 01/08/09

We had over 16 guys (with Lisa representing the women) show up at 6am at Atlantic/A1A for the Masters Team Training. Someone gave Jeff the sadistic idea of not only doing our team pacelines but to add a multi-group pursuit ride in there.

After we warmed up with a double paceline and turned around at Palmetto, we broke into 3 groups which were supposed to start 20 seconds apart ending in a lead-out for the designated group sprinter.

Group one was 6 or 7 guys and made the light, so group two started more than 20 seconds behind. We never saw group one again until the turn around at Hillsboro inlet. Group two consisting of 6 riders was off. Somehow I got stuck in group three with some big guns like Chris, Jeff, Steve and Raife and 20 seconds later we were off. We immediately got into a very smooth rotating paceline after Chris pulled us up to speed and we were moving out at between 28-30mph and slowly started catching group two. Just before the sprint line we did our lead-out and Jeff was the designated sprinter, but I was between Chris and him. Chris pulled and pulled and pulled until he managed to just drop me from his wheel and Jeff had to come around. By this time, we had passed group two and Chris and Jeff took it. Wow that hurt.

But unfortunately the pain wasn't over since we rode back up north again so that we could do it a second time. This time we broke into two groups with a 25 second gap. As group one took off, I was wondering who was left for group two. We ended up having five guys and again worked smoothly together. We slowly gained on group one with big pulls from Julio and Vinny getting us really close until group one blew apart near the end with Amir going off of the front. Jeff dragged me behind him and we ended in that order.

The best part of this whole thing is that it really feels like we are starting to work together as a real team. Our single pacelines are getting really smooth and we are starting to understand each others strengths and weaknesses.

25 Reasons Vinny needed to show up

Prior to our Master's Team training ride this morning there was an absolute avalanche of emails (around 70) concerning the ride. I was starting to think that I was riding with a bunch of chatty junior high girls. Over half of them had to do with bets about Vinny showing up at 6am on Thur for the ride and what his "punishment" should be if he didn't show. This is a slightly edited list but still conveys the point. We sure do have an "interesting" race team!!


If Vinny didn't show he needs to:


  1. Serve everyone breakfast on Saturday

  2. Wash everyone’s bike before every race

  3. Fix every flat tire on every ride

  4. Shave your head like Alex

  5. Treat Flaco nice for two weeks…

  6. Ok one week…

  7. Make that a day!!

  8. Pull China Doll for 10 miles

  9. Ride behind Mark Hewitt for 10 miles…

  10. Ok, 5 miles…

  11. Second thought 1 mile!!!

  12. Adjust Scott Chiacks bike when needed

  13. Wear Kroupa’s Knee High’s

  14. Feed Alan B lox for a month

  15. Sleep with Ira on a road trip

  16. Chase down all breaks in the first 3 races

  17. Respond to just one email

  18. Not say a word for an entire group ride… impossible

  19. Be nice to Shaun for a day!

  20. If he doesn’t win the first 35+ field sprint, he has to start with #1 on the list and go thru all again…

  21. Sell us bike parts for cost

  22. (Oh, he all ready does...)

  23. Give us all 20% discounts a the shop

  24. Make that 40%, because the 20% he says he already gives us is really 0%!!!

  25. Answer his cell when people call

Monday, January 5, 2009

Gina and Shannon's Muffin and Birthday Ride

With the holidays and great communications from Chris (Team Compliance and Safety Officer), the ZMotion team had lots of great miles together and we even did some long slow miles with paces under 20mph (hard to believe). One ride worth mentioning was Gina and Shannon's Muffin and Birthday Ride last Friday. Around a dozen of us met at The Cove at 7:30 and headed north for a leisurely ride where we stopped at the Ritz for a muffin and espresso.





Chris and Flaco were entertaining us with their usual "smack" and a good time was had by all. What really made the ride was the fact that it was Shannon's birthday (just turned 23, ahh to be young again) and Gina had a surprise birthday cake on ice back at her SUV. After some yummy calories we went our separate ways to meet again on Saturday.