Gainsville Race Weekend

After a week of cold weather, it was nice to wear a t-shirt and shorts while watching the intense racing this weekend in Gainesville. The time trial on Saturday was placed in the small town of Archer, the course being out-and-back on a country road with rolling hills and a light wind. At 10:00, John Paul Russo was the first Colavita off for the day, placing 11th in category 3. Jos Chalmers came in 2nd place in 15-16 out of a total of 8 riders. Anselm Teather raced junior 10-12, winning the category, and his teammate, James Mertens, came in 3rd. Michelle Blake got a pleasant 5th place in womens 4 and Christian Teather settled for 2nd in junior 13-14. Later on in the day was the Team Time Trial and Colavita arranged a team of four: John Paul Russo, Jos Chalmers, Brad Gordon, and Stephen Rusnak (Team Cycle Science). With a strong finish, the team brought out a fantastic time of 29:23, putting them in 4th place in their category.



Sunday's course was in downtown Gainesville, somewhere much easier to find on a map than the day before and even equipped with flush toilets. The junior race was combined, 10-18 all at once, making for some interesting racing. Anselm Teather and James Mertens came in 3rd and 4th in the youngest category. Christian Teather, Michelle Blake, and Briana Luthman placed 2nd, 3rd and 9th with the 13-14s. Jos Chalmers made podium with 3rd and Brad Gordon finished in 7th in the older junior pack. The race was a real scorcher with TWO national champions driving the pace. Jos Chalmers had to settle for second in the 15-16s while Brad Gordon was 7th and Brandon Foreman came in 12th. Some of these racers also went on to contest the category races later in the afternoon. JP came in 26th in cat 3, and Brad got 3rd place in cat 5 with his team mate Brandon (26th). But, saving the best for last- Jos pulled out a spectacular win in cat 4, launching himself to the front on the final straight to win convincingly. We predict upgrades of category in the future for both Jos and Brad!
Photo credits go to Brad Gordon and Michelle Blake.