Click on a blue link to go to that section of La Voix

2019 Annual Banquet

October 50 for 50 Ride

Board Election Results

2019 Hill Climb World Championships

Race Report

New Members

2019 Annual Club Banquet and RAAM Raffle

The annual club picnic will be held at noon on Sunday, November 10th at noon at:

HOTEL MdR ~ A DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel
13480 Maxella Avenue
Marina del Rey, CA 90292

Please click here to learn more about the banquet, the raffle, and registration. Remember, you must login to register.

Renée and David's October 50 for 50 Anniversary Ride

Renée and David's ride was an adventure in the Hollywood Hills. A group of La Grange ladies led out the ride at 8 am from SVO to where the ride separated into two routes: the Mt Olympus Route, and the Nichols Canyon Route. The routes came back together on Nichols Cyn Rd and then it was onto Griffith Park, to the helipad, and then back through the city to Santa Monica Brew Works. Many thanks to Gina and David for the SAG support.

2020 Board of Directors Election Results

The following four members were re-elected to the Board of Directors for a 2-year team.

• Jaycee Cary

• Jan Datomi

• Robert Efthimos

• Rich Hirschinger

2019 Hill Climb World Championships

Race Report - CycloCross Style

October 26th 2019: Lake Casitas - Spooky Cross!
Mens 35+ B’s / Mens B’s

It was already starting to get hot when I did my course preview lap, so I knew I’d want to do something to mitigate the heat, but the course itself was looking good. Last year this course had lots of loose sharp turns that could be taken quickly but you risk getting passed at each one. The course this year had one corner like that but not 5 - there were plenty of straights where I was hoping my flat our power could make up for my mediocre CX skills. I had a teammate in this race, Warren Sutton who had just done his first CX race last weekend, winning the C’s (Cat 5) and getting 2nd in the B’s (Cat 4) race so I was hoping we’d both be able to do well. We lined up and my win at the Simi Cross was enough to get me 5th callup. Cross racing is very much about getting placement early and then defending it, so if I could get the holeshot it’d make the rest of the race much easier. At the whistle, I fumbled my clip in and a couple other got in front of me, but luckily I was able to put in a hard dig and make it to the corner first and hold it until the stairs. I knew that would be a heavy traffic pile-up area on the 1st lap so being able to ride it at my speed was key. 2 laps in I had a solid lead, and I could see Warren sitting in 4th behind a guy in a Tuxedo speedsuit and an echelon rider. With 4 togo I wanted to see if we could get Warren on to 2nd spot, so I slowed my efforts with the goal being to slow down Tux enough that Warren could catch us and then we could work together to get 1st and 2nd. But after letting Tux catch me and trying to ride slow and block in the corners Warren was nowhere to be seen then I see the echelon rider on the side of the road having crashed out. I kept blocking Tux for another lap but had no idea where Warren had gone, and at this point, I kept expecting to see him at the LG Tent but I wasn’t sure. With 1 lap to go I knew he wasn’t going to catch us so I put in some hard efforts on the straights and put a good buffer between me and Tux. Turns out Warren had crashed but not enough to pull him out of the race, but it put enough of a gap between us that he wasn’t going to catch the leaders. But he held his spot and managed to get 3rd.

The next race was the open B’s which is always a harder race than the masters races because you’re racing kids with rubber bones. I had a similar strategy for this race, I managed to get in front and was leading halfway through when I heard someone shout “Let's go Max” to the kid on the MTB behind me. I recognized the name as the current ‘fastest lap’ holder and knew I wasn’t going to be able to out power him and since he was on an MTB he could corner faster so my only chance was to play defense and keep him from passing me. During the second lap I boxed him out on a corner, hoping that he’d be intimidated, but he was having none of it. He put me into the tape in the middle of the 2nd lap and then took off and that was that. I caught back to him for a bit but that extra effort took everything I had and I couldn’t maintain the needed pace. Warren was also in this race, but got a bad start and was feeling the effects of the 2nd race of the day and was stuck in ~7th. Now my goal was just to hold on to 2nd. I had about the same gap between 3rd that Max had on me for most of the race, but on the last lap I looked back with 100 meters togo and 3rd place was coming up hot. I was able to hold him off, but if I hadn’t check i could have lost 2nd.

Special shoutout to Guy Dutton and Nigel Stewart - They went up Friday night and setup Ft LG with the best view and right by the barriers for peak heckling real estate.

If you want to see this whole cross thing in person, the next targeted LG race is in Sylmar Nov 16th. That’s only a 35 min drive from Santa Monica! Hope to see you there!

New Members

Welcome to the following new members who joined in September and October

J. Marvin Campbell, Tommy Thornton, Warren Sutton, Sean Nass, Sheru Pastiya, Craig Eggers, Oliver Lorenz, Jason Siegle, Marc Lewis, Alex Kim, Mina Napoleon, Alissa Mills, Keene Kopper, Tyler Bojarsky, Etesh Mangray, Pablo Gil, Paul Kobielus, Andro Torres, and Fandra Chang