Super Duper

• Like all cliques, the Chicagoland bicycle racing scene is pretty fickle and hierarchical. For the past couple of years, Team TATI has for the most part flown under the radar, which had been my wont. Folks that I've met a dozen times will come up and ask me where the team is based. Officials still think we're a team of juniors, even though we've never had any juniors. Competitors will tease my riders about their wool jerseys or knickers or striped socks or lack of sponsor logos -- sometimes good heartedly, and sometimes not. Remaining a small fish in a small pond is fine by me, even if that means we'll never be a dynasty.

  The team is still pretty small, and skews towards the inexperienced for sure, but we now span categories 2 through 5 and have folks in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s masters categories. But now that the team is making a little noise in the higher categories, the sideline interactions have changed. This is understandable, I guess. But it's also kind of silly. In any case, I'm thankful for the team's success this year, and all of a sudden feel a little bit of that DS pressure: what on earth are we going to do with a couple of 2s and only one 3? Should we be recruiting or matriculating from within? I so want to develop and foster the tight-knit team racing philosophy that I was raised with as a young cyclist, but it's tough to do with such a small number of riders over a wide spectrum of abilities and ages.

  Maybe it's true, what someone mentioned to me at the Geneva race: nobody will pay any attention to your team until you've beaten Mark Swartzendruber, even if it is in a sprint.

  In any case, Superweek has begun -- and we've posted some pretty good results.

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  Geneva Crit

  * Masters 35+ 123s: 5th, 8th | pics

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  Homewood Crit | pics

  * 3s: 1st, pack

  * 4/5: Pack, pack, OTB, OTB

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  I guess we do need to work on those OTBs.

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