Rough Road Ahead
It was a dark and stormy night… wait, no, it wasn’t. It was a mild evening, although the wind was certainly howling down Marginal Road as 23 riders set off, in pairs, on another step toward the one true Grail of Cleveland Cycling Glory: The Spin Cup.
The Two-Headed Beast, the third in the Spin Cup Time Trial Series, was a 10.4 mile, two-man time trial on North Marginal Road. The Marginal has to be the bumpiest, windiest, most godforsaken road in all of Cleveland– which is saying a lot because most of the roads in Cleveland have been forsaken by someone for a long time.
Each Spin-sponsored team was to field one pair of riders to defend the glory and honor of their team. Spin/RR Donnelley chose Thom Dominic and Justin Piccorelli, and SSSMST chose Jim Lamastra and Andy Cornwell. The remaining riders were paired randomly, with one team of three to round out the bunch.
Jim and Andy– and let’s be honest about who did the work in this pair– caught Thom and Justin at the first of four turnarounds, leaving the mantle of Spin/RRD responsibility squarely on the shoulders of one of the other pairs.
Ray and Mitch
Special guest Ray Huang and Mitch Gabel stepped up, and ripped off an average speed of 25.3mph to take the overall honors. Jim Swim and Andy were 10 seconds back, averaging 25.1mph. Coming in 51 seconds behind them to take third was the pair of Outback Rob and Paul “The Great” Lentini. Now, technically, since Ray isn’t actually on the Spin/RRD team, I think it’s open to debate as to whether this race goes to SSSMST or Spin. But, since everyone had a great time and no one mopped the jumbled pavement of the Marginal with his cycling shorts, we won’t worry too much about it.
As always, this event ran smoothly because of two awesome people who gave up an evening so we could all have fun: Tammy Lentini and Mary Davis. Thanks, ladies.
UPDATE: Pictures now up on our flickr site!
UPDATE 2: You guys remember Russ– Aaron’s friend who came out for the 2nd race and had a great time. We awarded him a sweet little pump for his efforts– and he had to use it on the way home! FYI, he said it worked great.
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Spin Cup Race 3: The Two-Headed Beast Results (Rescored)
| Place | Name | Team | Average Speed | Time | Spin Cup Points |
| 1 | Ray H/Mitch | 9 | 25.3 | 24:57:00 | 20 |
| 2 | Swim Jim/Andy | SSMST A | 25.1 | 25:06:00 | 19 |
| 3 | Lentini/Rob | 7 | 24.3 | 25:58:00 | 18 |
| 4 | Justin/Thom | Spin A | 24.1 | 26:08:00 | 17 |
| 5 | Brad/Tom | 8 | 23.7 | 26:33:00 | 16 |
| 6 | Dave/Brett | 5 | 23.6 | 26:39:00 | 15 |
| 7 | Plank/Schaefer | 3 | 23.4 | 26:56:00 | 14 |
| 8 | Nacho/J. Halloran | 6 | 23.0 | 27:21:00 | 13 |
| 9 | Leah/Davis/Smiley | 4 | 22.3 | 28:16:00 | 12 |
| 10 | Zak/Dan | 10 | 21.6 | 29:12:00 | 11 |
| 11 | Little Ray/Chip | 2 | 20.8 | 30:14:00 | 10 |
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Spin Cup Overall Standings (Now using the new “20 point” scoring)
(Race 1: The Beast of Bedford
Race 2: The Beast of Marginal
Race 3: The Two-Headed Beast)
| Name | Race 1 | R1, KOM | Race 2 | Race 3 | Total | ||||||||
| Tom H. | 17 | 17 | 16 | 50 | |||||||||
| Brad | 16 | 1 | 16 | 16 | 49 | ||||||||
| Zak | 18 | 19 | 11 | 48 | |||||||||
| Ray Huang | 20 | 2 | 20 | 42 | |||||||||
| Thom Dom | 19 | 3 | 17 | 39 | |||||||||
| Andy | 18 | 19 | 37 | ||||||||||
| Plank | 20 | 11 | 31 | ||||||||||
| Paul Lentini |
10 | 18 | 28 | ||||||||||
| Joe Bush | 15 | 12 | 27 | ||||||||||
| Jason Halloran |
13 | 13 | 26 | ||||||||||
| Davis | 11 | 12 | 23 | ||||||||||
| Mitch | 20 | 20 | |||||||||||
| Timmy Smiles |
8 | 12 | 20 | ||||||||||
| Swim Jim | 19 | 19 | |||||||||||
| Chip Meek | 9 | 10 | 19 | ||||||||||
| Outback Rob |
18 | 18 | |||||||||||
| Justin | 17 | 17 | |||||||||||
| Bruce | 15 | 15 | |||||||||||
| Dave Stiener |
15 | 15 | |||||||||||
| Brett from BVS |
15 | 15 | |||||||||||
| Leah Halloran |
3 | 12 | 15 | ||||||||||
| Rood | 14 | 14 | |||||||||||
| Mike Schaefer |
14 | 14 | |||||||||||
| Ray | 4 | 10 | 14 | ||||||||||
| Nacho | 13 | 13 | |||||||||||
| Dan | 11 | 11 | |||||||||||
| Ryan | 7 | 7 | |||||||||||
| Eldridge | 6 | 6 | |||||||||||
| Matt | 5 | 5 | |||||||||||
| Sean | 2 | 2 | |||||||||||
| Russ | 1 | 1 |
Filed under: 2008 |
That was cool. Thanks for letting me join in on your fun.
Mitch, you’re an animal mate.
Thanks for putting on the race and thanks to Mitch for the extraordinary engine that night.
Jim and Andy —- Nice pain ride
Jim think about the Sept 14th Half at Mt Sterling……Toyota Challenge