A friend and I had just built a bike like no other. It was a state-of-the-art looking fixed gear with no brakes. We were poor high school kids and hadn't found a spare set of brakes yet.

For this maiden voyage I rode in front of my friend so he could put his hand on my back to slow down.

We were riding alone Hazel Blvd in Fair Oaks. The light had just turned green and we started to accelerate. We were going faster than the cars to our left when one of them decided to turn right. I turned with him but my speed was such that my turn radius required more real estate then his. He taco'd the front wheel of my precious Bianchi. I flew over the bars hitting his hood and landing in front of his still moving car. Still strapped into my clips (this was before the days of clipless pedals) I held onto his front bumper as I watched his front tire move towards the rear wheel of my bike. I thought he would never stop.

Before coming to Chico I lived in eastern Washington, where I spent years developing a fine appreciation for the ups and downs of mountain biking. Especially the downs, which tended to be more fun than the ups. It seemed as if every rider in that area rode a mountain bike, so there were always friendly rides and unofficial races to be had.

When I moved to Chico it was much the same, except most of the people I met rode spindly little road bikes with skinny tires and no suspension. And they rode those bikes on the street, at higher speeds than I could manage on my full-suspension knobby-tired bike. There's only so many times one can do a solo mountain-bike ride in Upper Bidwell Park before starting to wonder if maybe owning a road bike wouldn't be so bad.

Meetings: Our next club meeting will be at 6:00 PM, Friday, May 7th at Woodstocks Pizza.

Race Results:
Race results are posted to the Chico Corsa Website in the race team section. (You will need a login and password to post your results)

Breaking News:
The Chico Stage Race has been rescheduled to June 26h and 27th. Volunteers are still needed and for volunteering you will get a tee shirt and we feed you!

Chico Corsa Event Calendar:
Chico Corsa

NCNCA Road Racing Calendar:
NCNCA Road Calendar

NORBA Calendar:
NORBA Racing
TBF Challenge MTB Races
MTB Calendar - California

Western States Ride Calendar:
Ride Calendar

Out Of Your Comfort Zone
By Jeff Ochs

So you've been challenging yourself by riding in the various weekly practice races and learning how to ride better and safer. Are you hanging longer in the Fast 50, maybe making it to the finish with the group? Are you feeling good at criterium practice and have placed well? Are you thinking about entering our stage race on June 26-27? Maybe it's time to get out of your comfort zone and try a sanctioned race as part of the Chico Corsa Racing Team. There are currently 33 licensed racers on the team and many of us will be riding in three races in May that are less than a 2 hour drive from Chico. These will be good races to enter as an introduction to sanctioned racing.

May 15th - Winters Criterium The course is a 0.6 mile L-shaped loop in downtown Winters. Flat course on moderate pavement with five 90-degree left turns and one 90-degree right turn with the finish on Main St. and 1st St. This course is very much like our downtown crit course and will give you an opportunity to race on a different course layout.

May 22-23rd - Golden State Stage Race Series (Rancho Cordova) The criterium is Saturday in a business park with wide streets and 5 right turns. Sunday is the circuit race featuring a 2.3 mile course with 7 rights and 4 lefts. You can do either the criterium, the circuit race or both for a weekend full of racing!

May 29th - The Bicycles Plus/Sierra Nevada Criterium (Folsom) Chico Corsa has done very well at this crit and on this course. It is a D shaped course with wide streets in a business park. There is plenty of parking and services are very close by. This is a good one to bring the family to as well. Lots of places to watch the action.

You can register for these races online if you purchase a racing license from USA Cycling ($60 for the year). Or you can sign up the day of the race and purchase a one-day license for $10. Go to our website calendar and you'll find the links to registration and information on these races. We do carpool to races if that is an issue for you. Get out of your comfort zone and give REAL racing a try!

Chico Corsa Junior Program
By Jeff Ochs

One of Chico Corsa's priorities is to get kids into cycling. Cycling is a wonderful family activity as can be seen during the Wildflower and other organized rides throughout the year. We've seen an increase in kids coming out to crit practice and even showing up for weekend rides. Two of our original junior members, Anthony Ferretti and Maggie Jones, have done very well racing in the past two seasons! We'd love to see more kids getting involved in the sport we all love. So far, we have one new rider, Owen Thomas, tearing up the crit course on one of Chico Corsa junior road bikes. Here's what we are offering kids that want to be part of the Chico Corsa Junior program:

1. Junior riders will have free membership and be provided a free Chico Corsa kit (jersey & shorts-if available) and race mentoring provided they:

i. Must join Chico Corsa and have parent signature on membership form.

ii. Must be licensed through USA Cycling as a junior racer and must register as a Chico Corsa member at races.

iii. Junior riders must be between the ages of 10 and 18 to be part of this program.

2. Junior members may be provided a Chico Corsa junior road bike if needed and if available in the right size.

i. Parent and rider must agree and sign a contract for the bike loan.

ii. The bike must be returned if the junior rider decides to pursue other athletic interests or purchases a bike.

iii. Juniors do not need to purchase a race license to take advantage of the bike loan program.

We currently have plenty of Corsa clothing in smaller sizes and there are currently 5 bikes ready for kids to borrow. Please contact Jeff Ochs if you or your child would like more information on the Chico Corsa Junior Program.

Those of us who play ball-striking games like baseball, tennis and golf are familiar with the term "sweet spot", that striking point that sends the ball flying off with almost no effort. The more I climb hills, the more convinced I become that there's a similar effect in cycling, one that I call the "sweet speed". It's the perfect matchup of gearing, leg strength, aerobic ability and hill grade that lets you feel like you're moving up the hill with less effort than you expect.

Think about those flat rides with a good tailwind; how it seems like the bike is almost moving on its own accord, without any effort from you. Those "no chain" days, as the pros call them. I've found that with training, you can get almost the same feeling on a climb.

So there we were, naked and crying. Wait, that's Jeff Ochs' story! This story starts in 1996 on the mean streets of Loma Linda California. I've recently finished my surgical internship working 80 to 120 hours a week but at least I got one weekend a month off. I'm in the worst shape of my life and have reached an all time high for myself on the scale, 178 lbs. While not morbidly obese, I'd noticed that there had been a slow but steady increase in the amount of my "insulation". My family are all obese and I had always told myself, "I'll never let myself go like that," but here I am heading in that direction. I decided right then to make a lifelong commitment to staying fit.

In 1986 I became involved in the management of a cycling team. It was hastily created on the heels of a team I had been recruited to race for as a first year senior. Unfortunately that team folded by March due to financial problems which left the riders high and dry for most of the racing season. Still, the team was solid, even if the prior management had been incompetent.

Rather than jump ship to new team we decided to soldier on together. I had a friend who was leaving cycling after directing one of the more successful teams of the era so we acquired his club license and set about building a brand new program, from the ground up. I would work and train during the day, and at night I would identify promising companies and write sponsorship proposals until the wee hours.

As the informal local crits and big races are starting, I decided to re-post the article 'It's Crit Season!' this month. Whether you read it last year or not, I hope you'll take the time to read it this year. Those that haven't read it will benefit, but if you read it before, you may get even more from it. If you have tried racing your first crit (or just read the crit race reports posted by other team members), it's likely you'll get new insights from these tips. Pay attention to the diagrams... especially the "Pick your line in a pack" one. If you've done a crit, I'm willing to bet that you have come across someone taking the wrong line in the middle of the pack. Hopefully someone else hasn't seen YOU doing just that!!

A lot of new folks have been coming out and doing the crits and it is easy to see a great improvement in bike handling skills since last year. But at the beginning of each year these tip/techniques should be reviewed by EVERYONE, no matter your skill or experience level. Everyone gets a little 'rusty' over the winter so it's good practice to review your technique. Learning these cornering and bike handling skills, and the confidence gained in cornering will transfer automatically to your everyday/group riding.

Everybody has his/her 10 minutes of fame. Here is mine.

After a particularly tough test round I was past frustrated and was beginning to second guess my career choice. I was in my second year of medical school and my semi monastic lifestyle at the time consisted of class-eat-study-sleep(some)-repeat. It was getting old.

HOLY@!#%, there has to be a break at some point!

I looked over at my red Centurion bicycle and then out the window into a sunny, early autumn day in the Midwest. I seized the break in the action, donned my beat to crap leather Cinelli shoes, strapped in (yes that's strapped in), and took off for my first ride in a loooong time.