Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Clujul Pedaleaza - City Night Stage


Last week end, Saturday to Sunday, happened the Night Stage from the local championship called "Clujul Pedaleaza". For me was something new, because the was my first race on tarmac, in the night and with the mountainbike.I've fitted my Continental Sport Contact tires so the rolling resistance was minimum and I had an awesome grip. Now I am confident that these tires are the best for road riding/racing for a mountainbike. Super fast, great acceleration and awesome gripy on corners and pavement.
The start was at 1 A.M. so it was pretty strange for me as at 11PM usually I am already sleeping. I felt like a zombie.

The start was fast, the race even faster. We had 10 laps of 2.7km rolling with a 31km/h avg speed and a maximum speed of 60km/h. I am not used with this, but was nice. We had a lot of spectators on the track considering the hour when the race took place.

I felt pretty good, from the start to the end I was in the leading group, but as I am not a brilliant sprinter, I've finished 4th at 2 seconds behind the winner.
I would like to congratulate my team mate Tudor which finished 3rd.

Thanks again to to Maros Sport for all the support but also to the other sponsors and partners:Ashima, Continental, Cratoni, Syntace, Joe's No Flats, Xpedo, Adidas Eyewear, Sapim,Thule,Grip Grab, Rest Wise, VDO, KMC Chains, Power Cordz, Kool Stop, Zakudo and Buff. Thanks a lot for reading and next time hope you'll read better news.

More photos will come, updating this post with a link to the gallery.

For me and some of my team will come a free week end and after that the Duna Marathon, near Budapest.

Cheers,
Vlad

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Once again 2 in 1

Being busy lately with the final exams and training I didn't had the time to post here the news about the latest news.
So I am coming back with the review for 2 race in 1 post.

I would like the start with the Ardealul Trophy Race. This year the race was managed by my team mate Eli. I've helped a bit to mark the course the day before
the race as the budget was really low.
I had a good race, being like a training for the upcoming events. I've finished 2nd at Men Elite, 3rd overall all 2 minutes behind the winner.


I liked the course because is pretty fast with some technical zones, but I prefer races with more than 40 riders. Overall was a nice friendly event.

After a week was the Concordia Cup. There was always a nice event with nice people. But this year we all noticed the global warming. There were 32C and from the 7.5 km of race track that we had to run over 5 times, only a few hundred meters were in the wood. Half of the wood section was covered in sticky mud. In the last two laps I had to stop and clean the wheels because the mud was to thick.

I had the lead of the race 3 laps out of 5, keeping a good
pace for me but in the last two laps I was feeling like I had a heatstroke. I had to keep a lower constant pace, but I've managed to finish behind my two team mates Tudor and Eli. My other team mate Zoly finished 4th. So 4 riders from team.marossport.ro finished in top 4.

I felt the legs pretty strong and I hope that this week end at Medias Marathon they will feel at least the same as the mud seems to be part of the race after watching the forecast. I hope that this time I am wrong and it won't be too much mud as in the Medias area is really sticky. I will prepare also my Continental Mountain King II and X-Country Tires. I wanna use wide tires, but the rain will make the final decision.

Thanks a lot to everyone that cheered me up, especially to my girlfriend Simona, who was also in charge with my spare water bottles, it was really motivating to have her next to me! I like to race like this but not when is so hot!
Thanks again to to Maros Sport for all the support but also to the other sponsors and partners:Ashima, Continental, Cratoni, Syntace, Joe's No Flats, Xpedo, Adidas Eyewear, Sapim, Thule,Grip Grab, Rest Wise, VDO, KMC Chains, Power Cordz, Kool Stop, Zakudo and Buff. Thanks a lot for reading and next time hope you'll read better news.

You can find more photos from the Ardealul Trophy here and from Concordia Cup here.

Also I have some movies from the previous stage of Clujul Pedaleaza, that I've forgot to post.




and a short movie from Concordia Cup, both edited by Eli.


Hope to come back with good news after Medias Marathon.

Thanks for reading guys.

Cheers,
Vlad