Author Archives: Steve Tilford

Auburn Road Race

This entry was posted in Race stories, Racing on by .

A couple days ago, Sunday, there was a local race less than an hours ride from my house. I wasn’t planning on riding it, but Jack Mason, the promoter came over and made a personal plea for me to attend. I can’t t really turn Jack down, can I? And I’m very glad he did. It was a very nice race and super fun.

The course was Southwest of Topeka in a town called Auburn. Small farm town. The race course start and finished in Auburn riding west into the Flinthills. Two hilly loops. Beautiful terrain. It was maybe the best course I’ve ridden this year. I rode out to the race with Bill, Nick and Catherine Walberg. I was pleasantly surprised to see how many riders showed up. It was pretty cool have so many guys from Oklahoma, Arkansas, ect. come and ride a race where I ride every week.

We had around 40 guys in our field. I was worried it was going to be less than 15. Anyway, I started hard and tried to keep the group rolling pretty fast. Bill got away early in the first lap with Peter Erdos from OKC. Jeremy Pych eventually bridged up to them. I think I might of let them get too far ahead. By the time I decided to make my way up to them, they were nearly out of sight. It took me a a couple other guys a good part of 45 minutes to eventually claw our way back to the front. I hate chasing when I have a team mate up in the group ahead pulling. Bill said he was looking back, but could never see us. When we finally got within 30 seconds or so, Bill looked back around a corner and we were on pretty instantly.

There was one good climb on the course. We’d already done it once on the first lap. I wasn’t nearly as good the 2nd time up. There were 6 of us left when we started the climb. I attacked half way up. Felt pretty okay for a minute or so and then bogged down some. Okay, maybe alot. Alex Battles-Wood, a junior from Tulsa was riding pretty good. He had chased Bill and company for about the same amount of time I had chased. Anyway, he was the only one to respond, with Bill sitting on. I eased up to let them catch and when they did, Bill attacked immediately. Alex realized he was in trouble and decided 3rd place was a good result. Which it was. We rode the last 6 miles together back to Auburn with Bill winning and me 2nd.

So, I have to thank Jack Mason again for talking me into racing. I don’t know what I was thinking before. It was really fun. It was a super hard workout. I had over a 100 miles by the time I got back to my house. Kind of like racing in Belgium. Ride to any one of 5 races, race and ride home. Wouldn’t that be great if that were the case here every weekend?

Start of climb.

Start of climb.

Bill, Jack, and me.

Bill, Jack, and me.

Steve Larsen

This entry was posted in Racing on by .

sl
One of the last times I raced MTB’s with Steve was at the Sea Otter before he “became” a triathlete. I had the pleasure of riding the whole Sea Otter cross country with him. I was doing the Iron Otter. It involved racing the road stage race simultaneously with the MTB stage race and then adding the combined times together. Danny Pate and Cadel Evans were my main competition. Anyway, the final race was the cross country. I was having a pretty good day and ended up in a small group of guys with Steve. Eventually it got down to just the two of us. He knew about all the racing I’d done the past three days and nursed me along the last hour to a top ten finish. Very nice of him.

I first met Steve when he was a junior. It was in Nevada City. He was pretty unbelievable then. I followed him as he matured. He just got better and better.. He eventually raced on Motorola on the road. Then switched to MTB. He nearly always rode a good tactical race. He had a epic duel with Lance Armstrong at Mt. Snow. I think he let his emotions get the better that day and Travis Brown ended up winning the Norba National because of it. But, Steve made Lance ride way beyond what he had anticipated. The quote in the paper the next morning from Lance was “That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done!” That was after he had already won a Tour de France.

We always got along pretty well. Probably because we shared a lot of the same passions and a lot of the same experiences. He came to the Olympic Road Trials in 2004 to support Chris Horner. That was after he hadn’t raced for a while. Horner should of won that race, except for the facts that he was on antibiotics and everyone in the race ganged up against him. Steve was a very good team mate. He was a very good cyclist. That is a fact. I hadn’t seen Steve in a while. But, he was a friend and will be missed.

Steve congratulating me after helping me for nearly an entire Sea Otter Cross Country.

Steve congratulating me after helping me for nearly an entire Sea Otter Cross Country.