Ride Studio Cafe’s cat 3 men’s team will be targeting these races in their summer road campaign.  As you can see, summer is crit season!  Criteriums are generally shorter races on courses with 1 mile or shorter laps, making for action-packed, spectator friendly events.   If you’re in the area for a race, check out it out and make sure to say hi!

The Ride Studio Cafe men’s cat3 team plans to target these upcoming races in Spring 2012!  Other races will be contested as well, but these major races are the focus of much of their training.  Wish them luck, they are often found at the Studio!

The race schedules for the RSC women’s team, the endurance team and cat 1/2 men will be published as soon as they are available.

John B. out of the fog - or, into the fog

On Saturday 9 July,  the Studio Team’s John Bayley took 1^st place in his age group, and 7^th place overall at the Newton’s Revenge Bicycle Hillclimb on Mt. Washington!  As John’s riding partner and better half Pamela said, “John had a great ride, finishing seventh on his Seven. Maybe we should get him a Three!”

Congratulations to John for slugging it out on a challenging course in hot and humid conditions.  We are proud to have RSC represented among the top ten finishers in this lead-up to August’s Mt. Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb.  We’ll have several Studio Team members participating in that race, and we know that John will be racing to beat his Newton’s Revenge time!

Pamela also rode Newton’s and unfortunately it took its revenge.  She tells the story:

Pamela heads for the hills

“Pamela rode the Pixie Fixie, but has now learned her lesson about making sure everything is tight. About halfway up, the three piece crank came apart. It has a lockring to hold the spider onto the arm. That lockring came loose and suddenly no drive! Pamela walked to the next aid station about 4/10 km away. There the volunteer ham radio folks on motorcycles were able to get the lockring rethreaded and hammered on tight using a couple of screwdrivers! The repair held, and Pamela eventually made it to the top, although not as fast as she had hoped.”

A fine vehicle for shopping at the farmer's market

On 15 May, the Studio partnered with Rialto Restaurant and hosted a benefit for Team Rialto – of Rialto Restaurant – and the Pan-Mass Challenge. The event was dubbed “ride.reception.raffle”, and we had a lot of fun raising money for this important ride that benefits the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

We wanted to share with you the experience of one of our raffle winners, Michele Ming Shan Smith. Michele was the winner of an incredible prize: a signed copy of one of Rialto Chef Jody Adams’ cookbooks, and a spot for two in one of Jody’s cooking classes.

Jody Adams teaches the art of grilling

Michele blogged about the experience, and took some amazing photos.

On the day of the first class, Jody took the group to the Cambridgeport Farmer’s Market.  The class then headed to Rialto, where Jody taught them how to prepare, grill, and serve the farm-to-table vegetables they’d bought.  Oh, and there was also instruction on how to grill lobster, along with a tutorial how to grill fruit for dessert!   It sounds like one of the best parts of the day for Michele was the eating–and we aren’t surprised:

“Ed and I had a great time.  It’s been a while since we’ve gotten to go out for a classy meal … and we thoroughly enjoyed it!

The Team Rialto Raffle is ongoing, and you could still win a Seven Axiom SL.  Please contact Rialto to purchase tickets and to support Team Rialto as they raise money for this worthy cause.  And thanks to Michele for generously sharing her experience with us!

What

When:  April 18 – 22, Monday through Friday

Start Time:  9 am

Where:  Base-camp is the Ride Studio Cafe

Why:  It is school vacation week!  And it’s less expensive than climbing on a plane for a training camp in some remote location; stay here and get some serious early season training with Dan.

Notes

• Please rsvp to Dan at debutler39@hotmail.com
• Pack limit:  There is a limit of 20 riders per day so email Dan if you want to reserve a spot in the paceline.
• These rides are open to anyone as long as they know they can ride the distance and the pace; these rides are not for the beginner cyclist.

• These rides will adopt the K.I.T. www.ikeepittight.com philosophy.
• Be familiar with the routes and areas in case you wish to turn off at a different point to return home or back to the Studio on your own.
• Weather:  Rain cancels rides if is below 60 degrees, or if it is really pelting out there.  So 65 drizzle and the ride is on.

Ride Details

We hope to see you there!  It’s going to be a great week.

Unfortunately, as Jay explains, “I crashed out of the most anticipated race I have ever entered and was forced to switch gears…pun intended…and have been shooting around, also trying to get every face that crosses the finish line.”

Check out Jay’s photography here.

Read more of Jay’s Cape Epic exploits here.

We hope that Jay and Alex recover quickly from their racing accidents.  The Club needs them!

The Cafe Racers are excited to finally unveil their new kits on the race course. Marblehead is always fiercely contested and tests riders’ fitness at this early season classic.

There are a lot of great reasons to race and spectate at Marblehead.  We’re trying to add a few of our own:

• This will be the first race that the Ride Studio Cafe race team will contest as a team and we are thrilled to finally put all those hard winter miles to use.
• It is the first chance this season to check out the Ride Studio Cafe’s Sul Posto Cafe–our portable “on-the-spot” mini cafe.   Come by and try some great pourover coffee and some light pastries.  The Sul Posto is our cafe away from the Cafe; we can’t seem to survive without good coffee within arm’s reach.  Our goal is to bring the same great coffee and sense of community people have come to love in Lexington, to the bike racing scene.  The Sul Posto Cafe is a way to get the same great coffee served at the Ride Studio Cafe–but at the bike races.  We hope to be on hand at many of the races that the Cafe Racers contest this season, with our booth, great coffee, and pastries.
• rOti Cycling‘s Oscar Jimenez will be on hand with his Club support truck.  Oscar will be offering mechanical support for the Cafe Racers and any Club members who are at the race in need of bike mechanical assistance.
• We will have an assortment of Clif Bars and other items to help fuel hungry racers and their fans!
• We’ll have a few chairs so people can relax while waiting for a pourover coffee or pre-race brake adjustment from Oscar.

Come by and hang out with us and learn more about the Cafe Racers, the club, and to enjoy some great coffee with us.  See you at the race!

Anyone can sign up for the Club at anytime.  Check this Club Blog often for the latest about what we’re up to and what we’re planning.

See you on your bike!