Tour de Bowness

(JOEL) Well for a debut of a newly formed team, I have to say that Niklas Group held its own for the whole event. Congratulations to Brian Green for taking First overall. When Brian punctured in the CRIT and then took a 45 psi tire of Charlotte's cruiser and then still finish 2nd, that was impressive. Brian really ripped it up in the RR and was a well deserved win!

David Pick placing 5th in his first CRIT, 4th in the RR after being edged out by Rick Courtney (a very strong rider for ST). David finished 4th overall which was an awesome contribution.

Ryan Barr had a great Hill Climb placing 5th. During the latter part of the RR Ryan got caught back with me (Joel) from the Speed Theory attack. Since we had two of our Riders (Darren and David) get away before we could react, we let them go and did our job not to get the pack back to the our guys who broke away with ST. So Ryan had to settle for 10th and me being inched out to take 12th . Not catching that attack and being there to help David and Darren was a little disheartening but nonetheless, we were ecstatic for the team and the end result. It would have been nice to have caught that break as Ryan had a good sprint up that last hill and would have surely done some damage.

Darren did a great job working with David and placed 7th in the RR. So all in all 4 Niklas Group riders in the Top 10 with one winning the race was a completed success.

A big thanks to Cam who did a great job attacking. There was one point where I was fading a bit and he let me catch up on his wheel where I could recover and get back into the game. Also that final attack on the last lap allowed Ryan and me to get away from the pack and have a strong finish.

Ian has got to get the award for tenacity and doing all three races after spending almost a month in Europe eating pizza, pasta and drinking fine wine. For a guy who just got back in the saddle a short time ago, he did great. The Speed Theory Race you will probably see some fireworks from Ian...

Sky Mitchell was also no slouch. Sky, since she was our solo female, had no Team on the road to support her and yet did an amazing job by placing 5th in the hill climb, 2nd in the CRIT, 5th in the RR and 4th overall.

I was totally impressed on how we all came together for this race and everyone contributed to the end result. I am really looking forward to the next race being put on by Speed Theory. It should be a great event.

Thanks for all of you making it out to my house for the post race barbeque as well. It was nice to have that make a part of the day and I certainly enjoyed those few beers! I believe Brian is doing the next post race barbeque so stay tuned!

Here is a link to some great photos... http://www.flickr.com/photos/camkeith/3786692796/

Also an excerpt from an email sent by Ryan Barr which I think sums things up....

"Again, I'm very impressed with how everyone rode throughout the tour. Brian of course was amazing, but everyone else worked very hard and as a team I think we did an excellent job of controlling the rr and the crit. I've already had a couple people asking about Team Niklas and as Joel said, I don't think anyone will be dismissing us like they did at the first of the year. Oh, and how many of you are looking out the window and thinking 'thank god it's raining, I don't have to train today!'. Great Job everyone! " RYAN BARR