September brought perfect weather for the 7th installment of the 2011 Gainesville TT Challenge Series.  We saw several new faces, as well as several faces we hadn't seen in awhile, as the 32 challengers took to the roads in an effort to throw down against the clock (and of course their friends).

But before I get to the account of the event, there is an announcement I need to make:

Someone threw an empty Espresso GU Wrapper by the mailbox under the tree.  This wrapper was clearly labeled "Not for Resale," so it was likely from someone with a Gu sponsorship.  People please, when land owners see a bunch of cyclists on their street, and then find empty gel wrappers in their front yard, they can quickly figure out where it came from.  Additionally, the volunteers are not your mothers, if you pack it in, you sure can be able to pack it out, we should not have to clean up your trash.  Seriously, don't be selfish and ruin it for everyone else -- if the landowners get upset and stop letting us start/finish the TT at our current location, you will have just ruined a good thing.

Back to the results!

We had thirteen new people take on the challenge today.  This puts us at over 100 challengers in the history of the event.  And a couple of them threw down incredibly fast times, and one of them even ran away with the course record for ANY category.  Additionally, several people set their own personal best records today -- special congratulations go out to Jo Weaver, Jack Kohn, Tony Ross, Kris Smith, Kevin Grogan, Ed Dunne, Jayson O'Mahoney, Tom Cox, Chris McGrath and Ryan Saylor for bettering your previous best time!

We asked a few of the competitors how it felt to set a PR, and this is a brief summary of the responses:

Jo Weaver -- "I think I'm starting to enjoy this.  The next one will be during the MS-150."

Ryan Saylor -- "I beat Ken and Andrea's best time.  Yessssssss."

Kevin Grogan -- "All of the training I've been doing on the Tuesday night ride is starting to pay off!"

In the Merckx category, we had ten new challengers.  Diamond Dave Gibson came out and once again expressed his dominance over the field.  Jackie Crowell, back in Gainesville to finish her engineering degree, came in a close second (she's as smart as she is fast), and was the third person in course history to go under 22 minutes in the Merckx category.  Tal Mincey rounded out the podium with a very solid performance of his own.

In the Aero class, Shawn Gravois, fresh from his 15 mile solo win to victory in a P/1/2 road race last weekend stole the show by setting a new course record in any category.  His time of 19:33 gave him an average pace of close to 28.6mph (yes, you read that correctly). Derek Schanze valiantly tried to defend his title, and came in a close second.  Ryan Saylor rounded out the podium and set a PR in the process.

Here are the complete results:

Merckx
David Gibson     21:56
Jackie Crowell   21:59
Talmadge Mincey  22:43
Jonathan Ciacco  23:09
Lambert Vaes     23:23
Kevin Grogan     23:45
Shane Powers     25:36
Mike Beckham     25:55
Kris Smith       26:02
Kevin Folta      26:22
Jack Kohn        26:33
Tony Ross        27:04
Kristen Bowe     27:39
Jo Weaver        28:00
Alex Gallagher   28:30
Aaron Baker      28:42
Cilia Zayas      29:55


Aero Competitor
Shawn Gravois    19:33
Derek Schanze    19:59
Ryan Saylor      20:17
Jayson O'Mahoney 21:18
Kyle McElhaney   21:23
Tom Cox          21:24
Chris McGrath    21:35
David Monismith  21:56
Ed Dunne         22:15
Daryl Tompkins   22:40
Cindy Tompkins   22:51
Christian Soto   22:53
Kerry Duggan     23:00
Andy Fasig       23:10
Ben Moore        23:31


And we had no takers in the Anything Goes category.

Series Leaders:

Merckx -- David Gibson, 21:27 (Course Record for this category!)
Aero -- Shawn Gravois, 19:33 (Course Record for ALL categories!)
Anything Goes -- Jim Wright & Ty Mader, 19:37 (Course Record for this
category!)

The TT Challenge Spreadsheet has also been updated, you can find the entire results for the series online at:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ak9czg_qSsetdGNSWkt2SF8wY1R3MzFnUTZFSm1iN0E