Trade Zone Training Series... So Hot Right Now

by Robb Hampton, Features Editor

With several feet of snow on the ground and metropolitan residents still resorting to lawn furniture to hold parking spots, it is hard to imagine that the racing season is just around the corner.

Yet the annual kickoff to the ‘real’ racing season starts this Sunday with Trade Zone #2. Bayside Velo/Bike Doctor Racing hosts the weekly training race at the Collington Center Industrial Park in Upper Marlboro, Maryland every Sunday until March 21st.  Tradezone #1 was delayed as a result of Snowpocalypse. 
 
The annual training series has been going on for as long as many bike racers in the area can remember. It is the same course that Bobby “The Baltimore Bullet” Phillips uses for his annual Turkey Day Circuit Race to culminate the racing season in September where prizes often include frozen turkeys.

MABRA vets are familiar with the 1.3 mile course that includes the famous downhill sprint, crosswinds, and fast speeds. Beginners will appreciate the wide roads and relative safety of the course and ability to simply sit in and experience pack riding in a race setting. However, there are always some wheel eating divots left over from winter so editor suggestion is to leave your carbon fiber hoops at home. It is a training race after all. Promoters are doing their best at the moment to fill in any cracks.

We all know that the Trade Zone Training Series is the pinnacle of many racers’ season that is why this year the top 3 places of each race will be featured on GamJams the Monday after each race. The Trade Zone series will continue each Sunday, weather permitting, through March 21, the week before Jefferson Cup.

Registration is open and there will be registration at the event as well.

Bike Doctor, RoadID and Honda of Annapolis are sponsoring the training series. 

5 out 5 hot chilies - one for each TZ still on the schedule.

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Besides being the judge of hotness for GamJams, Robb Hampton is a husband, father, avid cyclist with a certifiably average VO2Max. Robb races for the Cat 3 Bike Doctor Racing Team. 

Comments

[Pete "The Master of Disaster" Custer]

You should probably post at least 5 deep so that there is more incentive for back-of-the-pack sprinters to fall upon one another.

[jared]

I'm definitely taking Custer down in Tradezone on Sunday.

[robb]

I'll be doing the A race as an embedded reporter so I'll be asking everybody questions after the break gets established and we are bored. Come find me and give me something interesting to write about.

[Lance Lacy]

No problem Robb,I got some views on taffy and their flavors I'd like to discuss

[Pete]

Jared. I am like two of you. At least. Besides, we all know you are contractually disallowed to do non-Continental races :)

[Pete]

Also, I am too poor to race, so I won't see you there

[jared]

The UCI and I both think you should just poach the race, Pete. And stop hacking French doping computers.

[Pete "The Master of Disaster" Custer]

Oh, look at that, it is canceled! hax!