Litespeed's Very Own Chris Brown Wins Aaron Shafer RR

LITESPEED-BMW pulls in first victory of the season!

By LITESPEED-BMW, on April 25th, 2012

Chris Brown of Litespeed-BMW won the 3rd annual Aaron Shafer Memorial RR on Saturday, April 14, in convincing fashion – a solo win!  Brown knew he was on good form as he had been gearing up for Sunny King Professional Criterium the following weekend.  Brown was on his own at this race as most of the team was in Macon racing the Georgia State Criterium Championships, but he was able to race wisely and come away with the win against teams such as Sonic, Friends of the Great Smokies Mountains, Swiftwick Factory Racing, Treehouse, Marx-Bendorf Cycling and Krystal.  Chris attacked out of a five man breakaway group with a little over five miles to go to come in with the solo win, a minute ahead of the breakaway group and over four minutes ahead of the pack!
 
Later that afternoon was a 7.3 mile time trial.  Chris had a bit of bad luck in the TT but was still able to finish 2nd!  In the TT, Chris first had a car get in his way on a fast downhill corner in the first mile, then Chris was going so hard at the turn around that he turned around at the spray paint turn around markings on the road, and not the cone where he was supposed to go to turn around!  Come on Chris, don’t go quite so hard so you can see straight!  So he got yelled at by an official, had to turn back around, go down to the cone, then get going again.  Needless to say without Chris’s bonehead move he would have won the time trial but that is all part of racing!
 A bit about this race, Aaron Shafer was an avid cyclist who desired to put on a premier cycling race in his area.  Aaron had everything set up to put on the 1st annual race three years ago but was tragically killed in a car wreck months before the first race.  Instead of the race folding, the people in the community of Sparta Tennessee rallied together to continue Aaron’s passion and have successfully promoted this race now for the 3rd year in a row.  Thanks to all the volunteers and people of Sparta for making this race so much fun and continuing Aaron’s passion for cycling.

Team Litespeed BMW Fouche Gap Road Race

By LITESPEED-BMW, on April 17th, 2012

Fouche Gap Road Race – Rome GA

On April 7, three members of LITESPEED-BMW headed to Rome, GA for the Fouche Gap Road Race. Chris Brown, Matt McCarthy, and Hank Beaver would be taking on a dozen Team Type 1 Devo riders, 8 Irondata riders, 3 Hincapie/BMC development riders, 3 Kenda/5 Hour Energy pros, 1 Exergy Pro, 4 United Healthcare of GA riders, 2 Global bike riders, and Competitive Cyclist pro Cesar Grejales – as you can see, a very stacked field! The course was a rolling 78 mile course that finished on a 1.2 mile, 7.8% grade climb near Rome GA called Fouche Gap.

The guys were attentive from the gun but didn’t go with a very early move knowing Cesar, Sergei, TT1, Irondata and United Healthcare of GA were not represented and would need to chase. This move got 2 minutes on the group and an organized chase began to take place with LITESPEED-BMW rider Hank Beaver contributing to the chase (basically sacrificing himself) so Chris Brown could save his energy for the later part of the race when the break was brought back.

With 14 miles to go the break was brought back and other attacks started heavily at which point Chris went with several and instigated other moves and Hank still had some snap in his legs from chasing and went with some other moves. Since a lot of the peloton was able to sit in most of the day while 10-12 guys chased the break a lot of riders had fresher legs than normal and wouldn’t let any moves get more than a couple of seconds up the road. So coming into the finishing turn before the finishing climb Chris made sure to put himself in the top five and in fact hit the bottom of the climb first but was then passed by several pros. Chris dug deep and finished 8th, dukeing it out till the end and within sight of the 5th place finisher. Hank was smoked from his chase effort all day for Chris (nice work Hank) but still finished up in the top ½ of the pack.

So a great sign for the team as Hank and the most of the team head to the GA State Criterium Championships in Macon, GA and Chris Brown hits up a TBRA series race in Sparta TN en route to his quest to win the TBRA series this year (his first attempt to win the series). Reports coming soon!