Welcome to the 2009 MM Racing Team newsletter.

As summer comes to an end and the fall weather moves in, we are gearing up for another busy and exciting cyclocross season.

We are happy to welcome new sponsors for 2009: Ibex, Bob’s Red Mill, and TRP brakes.

We would also like to thank our returning sponsors for their continued support and encouragement: Seven Cycles, Wheelworks, SRAM, Mavic, Champion Systems, Franson Family Chiropractic, Fizik, Alpha Q, Cyclocrossworld, Pedros, Thule, Michelin, Mad Alchemy and Atomic Café

We spent the summer racing locally in New England. Mo raced her new Seven Sola mountain bike at the Root 66 Race Series and select Kenda US Cup races. Matt continued endurance road riding, riding to several of Mo’s race venues including, Mt Snow, VT and Windham Mountain, NY (200 miles!) We ended the summer with a camping trip to Vermont, which included rope swings, riding lots of dirt roads and over the Green Mountains. Now the preparations for cyclocross begin.

On Thursday October 1st from 7-10pm, MM Racing is hosting the 2nd annual Cyclocross Season Kickoff Party at Belmont Wheelworks. Please join us in celebrating the kickoff of the new season with beer, food, friends and a huge raffle with items from our sponsors. Proceeds from the raffle will help MM Racing offset the expenses of racing and travel to the National Championships in Bend, OR.

This year we have a very busy calendar with two races every weekend starting September 19th and ending with the National Championships in Bend, OR on December 13th. Last weekend Mo started the season off with a win at the Quad Cross local event in Bedford, MA. It was a great way to shake out the bugs and get ready for our first big trip.

This past weekend we traveled to Breinigsville, PA and Baltimore, MD for the first UCI races of the season. Thanks to Jen and Josh and Kris for generous host housing!

Saturday’s race course was set up on the grounds of the famous Valley Preferred Cycling Center track. It was a hot sunny day and the course was flat and fast with a few technical corners and a motivated field of riders. Off the start line I moved into second place around the first few turns and quickly found myself on the front pushing the pace in an effort to pull the field apart a bit. My legs were feeling fresh and I was able to keep the pace high. There were 2 other riders sitting on my wheel and with a few more accelerations, it was just one other rider by the 3rd lap. Unfortunately, she is a great sprinter and I knew that if I didn’t keep pushing the pace, her teammate in 3rd place could join us again and make it a two against one race that I didn’t want. Coming into the final lap I held the lead until the very end when I was outsprinted at the line to get 2nd for the day, pretty happy with how I felt overall. We then hopped in the car for a 2.5 hour drive to Baltimore for the next day’s race.

Sunday’s race was at Druid Hill Lake Park in Baltimore. It was a huge park with multiple recreation areas and a very spectator friendly layout to the race course. The course itself was rolling terrain with a set of stairs, a natural barrier, standard race barriers and a small sand pit. I was pretty excited for the challenging course. The start was fast and flat and 6 riders were able to break off the front with four of us taking turns pushing the pace at the front. Although there were no real attacks to break away from one another, I continued to move to the front and push the pace at the dismounts in hopes to get a gap on the group. I was definitely feeling the effects of being on the front the day before and was not feeling as snappy as I would have liked. On the lap last it was most important to be in the front over the last barriers to keep ahead on the final uphill sprint. I was with two other riders and pushed into 2nd place into the final corners and just didn’t time things well enough to take the lead position when I needed to, finishing the day in 2nd.

Next up, we head to the Catamount Outdoor Family Center in Williston, Vermont for the first races of the Verge New England Series. See the calendar below or at MMRacing.org for our full schedule. Don’t forget the MM Racing Cyclocross Season Kickoff Party on October 1st at Belmont Wheelworks! Invite your friends. If you can’t make the party but would like to contribute to MM Racing, we’ve got a PayPal account for donations: mo@mmracing.org. We’d be grateful for any contributions! We’d be grateful for any contributions! You can also by raffle tickets online (we'll mail you your prizes!) at BikeReg. Also, please take a moment to check out our new sponsors. They are an integral part of the MM Racing Team.

Thanks again for your support,
The team at MM Racing

MM Racing 2009 Calendar of Events:

9/13 Quad Cross Bedford, MA
9/19 Nittany Lion Cross Breinigsville, PA
9/10 Charm City Cross Baltimore, MD
9/26 + 9/27 Green Mountain Cyclocross Williston, VT

10/1 MM Racing Cyclocross Season Kickoff Party@ Belmont Wheelworks

10/3 + 10/4 NACT Great Brewers GP Gloucester, MA
10/10 + 10/11 Providence Cyclocross Festival Providence, RI
10/17 Granogue Cross, DE
10/18 Wissahickon Cross Ludwig’s Corner, PA
10/24 + 10/25 Downeast Cyclocross New Gloucester, ME
10/31 Beacon Cross Bridgeton, NJ
11/1 HPCX Highland Park, NJ
11/7+11/8 CycleSmart Cyclocross Northampton, MA
11/13+11/14 USGP Mercer Cup Mercer, NJ
11/21+11/22 NACT Whitmore’s Super Cup Southampton, NY
11/28+11/29 Baystate Cyclocross Sterling, MA
12/5+12/6 USGP Stanley Cup Portland, OR
12/12+12/13 USA National Championships Bend, OR

Photo by Matt Roy