Strong showing of MOB at Tour De Kale

Mock Orange Bikes had great repersentation for the 10th annual Tour De Kale. This event has grown over the past 10years to the best organized ride / race in the south east. This due to the efforts of Chris Skeen and the entire Denton Community. There is no better support from parking to reg. to traffic control and food afterwards.
We had over 15 riders this year to include Daryl Rains, Kelly Holems, Rich Melencio, Rick Lee, Steven Brumbley, Ken Gulledge, Paul and Julie Paisant, Teresa Dawson, Frank Mullins, Jerry Rebo, the return of Matt Mason, my wife Nancy and myself took on the hottest day of the year with close to 400 other riders.
At the start I looked around to see who is here challenging for the Summitt prize money and it is the whos who of cycling. Scotty Weiss came all the way from Minn. just for this event as well as Mark Heckman, National Crit champion, Chris Harkey and company as well Ryan Jenkins, John Patterson, Charlie Brown and a host of the Carolina Masters team. There were aslo about a dozen rider from the under 23 junior national team that had just gotten back from racing over in Belgium. To say the least it would be a fast day and inturn a hard, hot day on the bike.
With the added KOM $50.00 cash prize 13miles in we were assured that things were going to very interesting very quickly. Once out of the Farm Park a small break that contained John Patterson, Scotty Weiss, Mark Heckman and three others were up the road. Mark Heckman won the KOM and would go on to win the Summit Challenge as well. As the rest of the field is approaching the KOM I see Daryl moving up on the Left with Sara Tussy in tow. Sara followed Heckman's lead and did the double as well, taking the KOM and the Summitt Challenge prize.
With a break of 8-10 up the road there were several attempts to bring them back with a fine effort of Steven Brumbley and Rich Melencio. The break was with in15sec but with Teams represented in the break controling the situation it was not to be.
Coming into Denton Chris Harkey put in a real hard effort with his Teammate Darren Fuller following whose wheel I was able to latch onto. Harkey then put in a strong pull to seperate us from the remaining field as well as did almost all the work to the gate at the neighborhood. That was enough of a gap to keep the three of us away to the Summitt. This would be as Harkey called the "Old man train" as Chris would get 1st in the 40-49 age group, I finished 2nd and Darren Fuller finished 3rd. In the way of awards Teresa Dawson was 3rd while Julie Paisant was 1st in their respective age groups. All in all a very hot day but a very good day for MOB. Looking forward to a report of the State Games and to next weekend as we host the Tanglewood trianing ride from the Shop. Should be fun. Rodney

MOB WOMEN PUT THE PRESSURE ON in Salisbury

The M.O.B. Women were on fire this weekend in Salisbury. Rip took on the 30+ Women's race with no teammates on Saturday. She won the race in the sprint finish. Way to go Rip! That is not the end of it. On Sunday we had Rip, Sirena, Julie, Theresa and Angela in the Cat 4 race. We had the numbers but not much experience working as a team. With the help of Rodney, we planned a strategy for the race. Rip was going to attack early on in the first lap to see who would bite. Repeated attacks by MOB and counter attacks ensued. The pace rarely let up. We never let anyone get comfortable. The pack splintered down to the last 14 women that barreled towards the final sprint. Once again Rip won in the sprint with Sirena in 3rd. Honestly, that was the most fun I have had racing this year....well, except for ALL of Cyclocross! I thought we worked really well as a team. Congratulations Rip! Our new NC State Road Race Champ (x2).

NC RR / 50+ Old Men

Well, it was nice to be out racing again after 3 weeks off the bike due to crashing out in Fayetteville NC in the NC Crits. Definately hot at 1pm but a beautiful day. The 50+ team of Doc,Chip,Ralph and I(multiple personalities) settled in the back and conversed with Randy and Kerry Sheilds. An early solo break went off for a full lap and was up 55seconds. 6-7 of us worked to bring it back successfully. At the start of the final lap, there was an aggressive pass to nowhere on the left side of the bridge/85overpass that resulted in a fullspeed run into the median and resulting bodies everywhere.......I was inches from quitting racing on the road forever. Cleaned out my bibs and moved on though. Settled in and felt generally good. Positioned myself exactly where I wanted on the line about 3 back making the left turn to the finish and waited for the road to open at 200 meters as per pre-race instructions. One problem.........the field opened at 600 meters and the lemings were passing by before I decided to jump out and follow. No panic, sat in on a few wheels and sprinted at planned point to pass 7-8 people and finished 5th. Given lack of riding, I was very pleased and especially the way the field opened pre-maturely. Finally learning some and using knowledge. Those that won......never worked and broke early......still on the learning curve.
Got back and saw Rip win the womens race....... a great day of riding.

NC Road Race / Cat 4

MOB had good representation for the Cat 4 NC Road Race in Salisbury. Our race was three laps of the expanded RR loop, for a total of 50 miles. Lining up at the start we had Ken Craven, Jerry Rebo, Rick Lee, Michael Tennyson, Matt Chambers and myself. The whole team rode strong and was a constant presence at the front end of the big field. Even though we eventually lost Jerry and Matt to mechanicals, there was no shortage of MOB jerseys near the front.

We found ourselves caught out in a confusing neutralized section with only 5 or 6 miles to go and missed out on a key move when a group of 3 got away. Knowing one of the guys in the break, I knew it could stick and I hoped we wouldn't end up racing for 4th place. Some hard chasing followed. We succeeded in bringing the break back, but not until there was less than a mile to go, which didn't leave any time to recover before the sprint got cranked up.

Nevertheless we had solid team results. I haven't see official results, but I'm pretty sure I got 5th with Rick a couple spots behind in the top 10, with Ken and Michael in the top 20.

It was a great day on the bike and a solid team showing to boot. Everyone rode strong.

And congrats to Rip on her amazing weekend!

S. Brumley

State Crit

Here are some photos from the state Crit on 5/25. MOB had a good day with the top result being Daryl Rains in the 45+ race in 2nd. And Chip Duckett beat the shit out of that tree he got into it with.

Dragon Challenge TT

Dragon Challenge TT
Good day for MOB at the Dragon Challenge TT. Traditionally this event has been an ominum with a road race, TT and then hosting the NC State Crit Championship on Memorial Monday. This year there was no road race but the promoters did an excellently job at putting the best 2 out of three with the TT being today Sunday in Wade and the NC Crit Championships tomorrow in Fayettville.
Today we had Pete Cannell in the Cat 1, 2 field, Daryl Rains in the Cat. 3 field Rick Lee in the Cat. 4 field and myself in the 35+ 1,2,3 field.
Pete set the bench mark for the day posting a time of 43:54 for the 22 mile course with Ryan Jenkins in second with a time 0f 44:54 for 1st and 2nd in the Cat 1,2 field.
Daryl came in from a weekend at the beach to take first place in the Cat. 3 field posting an impressive time of 48:44. While new dad Rick Lee finished 6th in the Cat. 4 field of 54:01 while setting a PR for himself in the first 10miles. I on the other hand ran into some difficulty locating the course by taking a wrong turn at a detour for raod constrution. I arrived at 10:53 am for a scheduled 11:02am start time. I can still hear the announcer calling my name to the line while frantically trying to get my wheels on. So with zero warm up I was able to post a time of 49:00 for 3rd in the 35+ 1,2,3 behind 1st place Ryan Jenkins , who did two laps and on the second was with a flat front tire, and big Kurt Massey was second. A really strong performace by Team MOB toady and look forward to some solid result from the team tomorrow.

MOB at Tour De Lions

The rain held off for the most part of the Tour De Lions ride down in Gray's Chaple. This was the 10th year that Fred Lineberry has hosted this event that is so well supported by the community. There were over 380 riders that took part in the various distances from 10mile to 75miles. This year we started at the new Providence High School which served to be a better venue than in previous years at the church. The one thing that did not change was the great support by the whole community, good traffic control and then the best brownies any where.
MOB was well represented with more than I can call out but we had Paul and Julie Paisant, Rich Melenico, Steve Brumbley, Ken Gulledge, Frank Mullins and others.
All of us took on the challenging 75 mile loop. Once we were established out on Hwy 22 we were rolling. Frank really put in two solid efforts of about 15mins each which keep the pace up but also the ride safe. For the first 2 hrs we had an avg. of 25mph which in turn whittled our group down to 6 which included Steven, Rich, Monty Stout of Velo Project two others and my self. 10 miles from the finish we turned onto Providence Church Rd which has a series of these rolling hills that are great to put in a hard effort. After taking a pull I rotated to the back, recovered a bit and gave it a go. I wanted to see if Monty would go with me but I was solo. Now the group is 5 with two team mates. So it is simple just put the head down, try to stay out of sight and not go so hard as to lock up. With the help of Steven and Rich I was able to stay away for a soild effort.
Shortly after Steven, Rich and I finished Paul was in with a solid ride as well as Julie on her new Look 595. Ken was in with a good avg. as well. All in all alot of fun, good food and a wonderful day on the bike. Rodney