After a few more weeks of racing, it is time for another look at the standings in the Pennsylvania Bar Points Race for Category 4 Men. The results speak for themselves, and our team has some exciting, reinforced goals for the season. It is still very early in the season, but this isn’t a bad way to start in the least.

Saturday was the 2008 Turkey Hill Road Race, where Doug, Jonathan, Amos, and Kerry all took part in. Kerry was feeling quite ambitious, so he entered the 3/4 race with Jonathan and Amos.  Amos held the most notable finish at 9th, and Kerry finished a solid 19th.

On Sunday morning, Noah and the Jordans traveled to Philadelphia to race the 2008 Memorial Hall Criterium. Quaker City Wheelman had twelve, yes thats right, twelve guys in the field, while Human Zoom had six. We had three. Well, in typical form, we represented. Binkley won the stage and Noah took sixth in a commanding sprint across the line!

Early Sunday morning the racers again assembled in preparation of the Pain Mountain Time Trial, Stage Two of the 2008 Tour de Ephrata. The 8 mile time trial is quite grueling, and concludes with a 4 mile stretch uphill. In the Cat 4, Kerry Werner posted the second best time of the day, 25:08 with a blazing average speed of 23.9 mph. Doug Kauffman posted a time of 26:21 for a very close 11. Positions 7 through 11 were separated by a total of 3 seconds. Manny came in 13th just seconds behind, Jordan Binkley came in 29th and Noah finished up 35th in the 90 rider field. Again Elliott O’Brien of Team Traveller won the stage, killing the time trial with a time of 24:53 at 24.1 mph.

Early in the afternoon, Stage 3 of the race was a criterium held in downtown Ephrata right on main street. Kerry had to bail for a Mountain Bike Nationals qualifier event, which he won by the way, and put him on the US Junior National Mountain Bike Team! This was after his second place finish in the early time trial, and he will now be headed to Italy to compete in Worlds! Amazing! Congratulations Kerry!

Alright, back to road racing. Results are not yet available online, but the criterium was very fast and exciting. Manny got in a break early with Kyle Murphy from The Bike Lane, Elliott O’Brien, and a junior from NCVC/Inova Health System. The four opened up a commanding gap of about 15 seconds, while Noah was at the front of the chase group mixing it up. For some very questionable “reason”, four Inova riders got to the front of the chase group and pulled the breakaway group back in, including their own rider. The claim was to prevent a Shirk’s rider from gaining any points in the GC, but it wasn’t very justified or intelligent, to say the least. So the break was caught, but Doug attacked immediately in excellent form and response, then Jordan Binkley went off the front, as well, not giving an inch to the competition.

Both Shirk’s and the Inova riders were looking for a strong finish, and both got it. Final results are not up for the criterium, but in the General Classification for the weekend, Jordan Binkley finished 6th overall, Manny came in 8th, and Doug came in 10th! That’s three riders in the top 10 for the weekend! Everyone on the team did an excellent job this weekend tearing it up, and props to Jonathan and Amos Glick for gutting it out with the Cat 3 race the entire weekend! Full race results will eventually be posted at Red Rose Races, and photos are showing up on The ShutterWerks.

Saturday our team kicked off the 2008 Tour de Ephrata Stage Race. Stage races are comprised of multiple events and an overall classification. Points are earned through the top 15 places, and whoever has the most points after completing all of the stages, wins. The first of three events for the race was a 40 mile road race located in Lebanon. Heavy winds and the mostly unprotected 5 mile course made for a trying race.

Manny, Doug, Noah, Kerry, and Jordan Binkley took off in the Cat 4 race along with about 80 other guys. The five rode together the entire race at towards the front of the pack. A lone rider, Elliott O’Brien of Team Traveler, took off the front with three laps to go and opened up a gap that held to the finish. But our guys came in together at the finish and took some major points. Binkley finished 3rd, Manny 7th, Doug 8th, Kerry 23, and Noah 30th in the Cat 4, while Jonathan and Amos Glick had field finishes in the Cat 3 race. Three guys from one team, our team, are in the top 8, where the top 15 award points. A good start to a big race. 

Sunday offers an early morning uphill time trial at Pain Mountain and an afternoon criterium race in the heart of Ephrata on main street. The time trial will open the door to our climbers, and allow for the strongest and fastest riders to build significant time gaps to gain more points before the criterium. The Tour de Ephrata crits start at noon on Sunday, come cheer us on! Race results can be found here, and race photos can be found here. 

So I was perusing the PA Cycling Association’s website today and thought I’d look at the Senior Cat 4 standings and the overall Cat 3/4 team standings. We’re largely Category 3 and 4, so it is a big deal to our little team, relatively speaking. The top 30 teams are ranked in a big team competition of about 60-70 Pennsylvania based teams. Anyway, here’s what I found:  Now granted, Amos has since moved up to Category 3, but Kerry Werner is now a Category 4 racer, and we’ve got a very solid group of guys riding together, riding strong and finishing consistently well. And for a very small team (us) to even be ranked among the top teams list for the PA Bar competition is pretty neat. There are a lot of very strong teams out there with many more riders than what we have (anywhere from 20-50 or more) and to be included along side of them is an honor. This coming week is the Tour de Ephrata, three events lasting from Saturday to Sunday afternoon, and we hope to have another good showing there. Come out and cheer us on! For detailed race information, click here. Race results for the 2008 Tour de Ephrata will also be made available on this page in the future.