Georgia Cup (www.georgiacup.com)
Gainesville, Georgia
Thomas Brown

Just like the weather, the racing scene in the southeast is really starting to heat up. The weekend of March 24-25 featured the next round of the Georgia Cup in Gainesville Georgia. Three races were on tap for the weekend, an 11k time trial, a 60 kilometer Criterium, and a 100 kilometer road race. The Team Myogenesis Nutrition presented by Landmark Dodge boys came into the weekend with high hopes and high fitness.

The Thurmond Tanner parkway time trial started off the weekend. The course was a straight forward 11 kilometer test in which the big powerful time trialists would come out to play. Team Myogenesis held their own with Cleve Blackwell powering to 11th while the wise saved energy for the Criterium that night.

The nighttime downtown Criterium course is one of the fastest courses in the southeast. This, along with the lack of lighting produced a night of fast aggressive and exciting racing. With average speeds close to 30 miles per hour the majority of the pack was content to simply survive the onslaught of attacks. Most of the breakaway attempts proved futile as Jittery Joes was intent on keeping the pack under its control. Despite this, with 20 laps to go a group of 8 riders were twenty seconds up the road. In that group was the hyper aggressive Cleve Blackwell, who was intent on getting away from the raging peloton. With cooperation waning in the breakaway, Cleve along with Seth Hansley????(LAST NAME) from Loco’s hit it hard and dropped their breakaway companions. The remnants of the breakaway were then picked up by the raging peloton with close to five laps to go. The rest of the Myogenesis boys swarmed the front trying to keep Cleve away while setting up Thomas Brown for the sprint. Coming into the last lap, the break was still away, but a hard attack by Bruno Langlois proved to be the winning move. Bruno blew by the breakaway duo, Cleve held on for 3rd and Thomas came in for 6th after a last lap incident.

The 100k road race would determine the GC for the entire weekend. After pumping Myogenesis’ Blood Booster along with Triple Threat recovery drink over night, the Myogenesis boys were feeling fast and looking good. Aggression and attrition was the name of the game for the day. With two KOM’s per lap with time bonuses, the impetus was high to make the race hard. Two flat tires took out Jafer Beizer along with Tim Barrett early in the race. With this development, survival over the vicious climb became paramount. With over 6000 vertical feet of climbing in the race, the peloton became smaller and smaller each lap. With two ten kilometer laps remaining, 5 riders were off the front and the remaining peloton was dying a slow death. With 2 k to go, Cleve Blackwell attacked hard and soloed in to the finish for 6th, while Thomas Brown came around Jittery Joes’ Aussie sprinter Jeff Hopkins for 7th. Overall the weekend was very successful for Team Myogenesis Nutrition p/b Landmark Dodge and the results bode well for upcoming races.