La Voix

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2019 Annual Banquet and Awards

Meals on Wheels Donations

November 50 for 50 Ride

December Happy Hour at Bodega Wine Bar

2020 Club Kit Design

Race Report

New Members

2019 Annual Club Banquet, RAAM Raffle, and Awards

The annual club banquet was held on Sunday, November 10th at noon at the Hotel MdR. The following members won various awards, and Nigel Stewart won a 2020 Cannondale EVO Super Six, which was donated by RAAM.

Stu Press Most Improved Racer: Danie Monahan
All Around Award: Nigel Stewart
Above and Beyond Award: Marco Fabrizio
Rocky Award: Thomas Larson
Dynamic Duo: David Newcombe & Renée Fox
Least Thirsty Rider: James Cowan
Chef Rudy Award: Dan Chapman
Raymond Fouquet Trophy: Sam Selfridge
La Granger of the Year: Zach LaBry

Marco’s ever growing collection of Velo Club La Grange jerseys.

Marco Fabrizio accepting the Above and Beyond Award.

Thomas Larson accepting the Rocky Award. Get to see you back on the bike!

Renée Fox and David Newcombe accepting the Dynamic Duo Award.

James Cowan about to accept the Least Thirsty Award.

Dan Chapman accepting the Chef Rudy Award.

Sam Selfridge with the Raymond Fouquet Award presented by Robert Efthimos.

Zach LaBry accepting the La Granger of the Year Award. Zach did an amazing job coordinating the 2019 La Grange Grand Prix.

Nigel Steward hugging Joe Duerr, whose RAAM Corporation donated the 2020 Cannondale Supersix Evo Hi-MOD Disc Dura Ace Di2 bike that Nigel won in the club raffle.

Cannondale rep Kristina Driscoll, Joe Duerr, and Nigel Stewart with the 2020 Cannondale Supersix Evo Hi-MOD Disc Dura Ace Di2 bike Nigel won. The bike is being held by a custom bike stand created by club member David Newcombe.

Meals on Wheels Needs Your Support

Our 19th Annual Thanksgiving Day Ride in support of Meals on Wheels was canceled due to rain. However, Meal on Wheels still needs your support. We are asking those fortunate enough to make a donation to the charity. Any amount is welcome and appreciated. Online donations can be made through PayPal at https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/send-money-online. Enter the club’s email address to send money to Meals on Wheels at paypal@lagrange.org. Please enter “Meals-on-Wheels” in the note section so we know what the money is for. All donations are tax-deductible.

November 50 for 50 Anniversary Ride

Marc Lewinstein created and led the route for the November 50 for 50 ride. The route ventured on PCH to Malibu Canyon, east on Mulholland, north on Cornell and south on Kanan Road. A quick left on Troutdale led the group back to the little town of Cornell, where SAG was provided. After munching on various goodies, the group rode east on Mulholland to 7 minute hill to Old Topanga, to Topanga, to PCH with a finish at Santa Monica Brew Works. It was a cold but refreshing day to ride.

Ride leader Marc Lewinstein announcing the ride. Photo credit: Caleb Yang

Marc’s wife, Felicia, helping breakdown the SAG table at the beginning of the ride. #makeadifference

Caleb, Marc, and Jan leading the ride north on PCH. Photo credit: Dan Mitnick

Marc, and Eli leading the ride up Mulholland east of Malibu Canyon. Photo credit: Dan Mitnick

Photo credit: Dan Mitnick

Photo credit: Dan Mitnick

The debut of the custom painted LG50 bike by Robert Efthimos. Photo credit: Dan Mitnick

La Grange Happy Hour

It's Holiday Happy Hour time! Join your La Grange friends at the well known and loved Bodega Wine Bar for our last happy hour of the year on Tuesday, December 10, 2019 from 6 PM – 8 PM. First bit of the tab on La Grange, so come early! Bodega is located at 814 Broadway, Santa Monica, California 90401.

https://bodegawinebar.com/santa-monica/

2020 Club Kit Design

The 2020 club kit design, which was created by club members Jaycee Cary and Marco Fabrizio, is shown below. We will be taking orders in the next few days!

Race Report - CycloCross Style

Fun day in Costa Mesa for SocalCX #8

Dan Funk on the podium.

New Members

Welcome to the following 23 new members who joined in November 2019.

Alan Kwok, Alec Cabral, Allan Schuler, Ayush Patel, Ben Clark, Brice King, Bryan Kevan, Chris Underhill, Claire Sterling, Ethan Tucker, Henry Mendoza, Hongtao Yao, Kiran Chakravarty, Lars Rikse, Nallely Almaguer, Paul Talma, Rachel Swan, Richard Beale, Samuel Li, Tammy Wallace, Vinh Tran, Yan Lhert, and Yui Sasajima

Velo Club La Grange 2020 Kit Design

After many hours, many samples and more iterations than anyone cares to know about, Cary Breezy presents the LG 2020 kit. In the design of this kit we tried to keep all of our members in mind…the ladies, the men, the racers, the gravelers, and everyone in between. We tried to highlight 2020, the year of the future, by choosing a bright jersey contrasted by our classic navy blue bibs. There is no doubt in our mind that this kit will stand out in any peloton you’re riding in, as well as give drivers fair warning that you’re sharing the road with them.

Please be aware of the device you’re viewing this on. Colors always appear differently when they’re backlit by a screen and also will look different depending on the brightness of your screen and the mode your device might be on.

We will be opening the Castelli order store soon, and will let you know when the fit kits are available to try on at Helen’s in Santa Monica. In the meantime, feast your eyes on the 2020 kit and we hope you all have a great Thanksgiving feast, too.

Presenting the Velo Club La Grange 2020 Kit

La Voix

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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

Top row, Jaycee and Jan. Bottom row, Robert and Rich

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!

Men's B 35+ Podium Sam Selfridge in 1st and Warren Sutton in 3rd.

Cross Panda (Nigel) and Guy in full Spooky Cross mode at Ft LG.

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