Team Roaring Mouse

The team blog has been on something of a hiatus in the post-cyclocross and pre-road season overlap, but the road season has started in earnest in the past couple weeks, first with the Snelling Road Race/OG Merced weekend and now with the Merco Credit Union Cycling Classic weekend.

Merco is a weekend near and dear to the collective Mouse heart.  Team Roaring Mouse racers Matt Peterson and Ben Stern swept the E4 races in 2008 bringing home two river rocks.  This just one week before Matt was killed along with Kristy Gough (fellow Merco rock winner in and up-and-coming Olympic potential) in a collision with a car during a training ride. 

This weekend the team went back to Merced in even greater numbers galvanized and ready to do Matt’s memory justice.

Saturday featured the Merco Credit Union Downtown Grand Prix which Matt won in 2008.  The Mouse women threw down, and while a W4 managed to narrowly beat Bev and Marissa to the line for the rock the Cat 3 Mouse women had a win and double podium under their belts before the guys had even started racing.

The guys fell a little short of their goals in the E4 race due to some unfortunate crashes and interruptions, however their teamwork was nothing short of awesome. Isaias and James drove the pace early on while Jeff took Ryan to the front in the final few laps to get set up for the sprint. Despite having to work around a crash Ryan still managed to pull out a top ten.

The E3 guys weren’t able to produce a podium either but Ben, Nole and Seth put in some excellent work. Ben spent most of the race attack off the front either solo or in a break.

Merced was already infested with Mice on Saturday, but their numbers doubled for Sunday’s Merco Credit Union Cycling Classic Foothills Road Race.  Sunday’s story was similar to Saturday’s.

The Mice were 10-strong in the E4 race and while playing coy the first lap drove the pace during the second lap to get Josh set up for the final sprint.  Jeff, Isaias, and Hank set a fast tempo through Keyes before turning onto Cox Ferry where Hank attacked on the rollers to help shed any stragglers.  Isaias took and massive pull with 1km to go to get Sam, Ryan, and Josh set up for the sprint.  Unfortunately Sam got boxed in and Ryan couldn’t get around.  Josh still managed to get through for a top ten.

The E3 Mice had 72 miles of racing and a big portion of that was some very hard work done by Ben, DP, Nole, and Ammon to bring back a break up the road that had nearly a minute on the peloton.  They made the catch with a few km to and DP and Ben set Seth up for the sprint, but all the work realing back in the break left them with little to give for the finale.

Once again the Mice women made us look good and Bergen pulled off an amazing win in the W3/4 race and brought home a river rock.  Here’s a video of the W3/4 sprint by NCNCA Racing guru Steven Woo.

Huge thanks go to Tom Lollini for providing accommodations and fast healing vibes go out to all the racers that went down this weekend.