Tag: MM Racing Matt & Mo

As a proud sponsor of MM Racing, we were excited to see that while Mo Bruno Roy was cleaning up and making the podium at this past weekend’s Jingle Cross in Iowa, the other half of MM Racing, endurance racer and chief of the MM racing pit crew Matt Roy, got some accolades and attention from Podium Insight. Along with his duties as a part of MM Racing, Matt is a PhD candidate at Harvard Medical School, he also wrenches for the Cannondale p/b Cyclocrossworld.com team, working for Stu Thorne.

Lyne Lamoureux of Podium Insight asked Matt some important questions, about racing in the US versus racing in Europe, what it’s like to be in the pits at various races around the country, and from the pit crew’s perspective, what are the key elements to having a successful race. Typical of Matt, his responses were both enlightening and funny!

Lyne asked Matt for some tales from the pit:

“This isn’t super funny but I see Marianne Vos’ dad in the pit a lot. He speaks Flemish and essential no English but he’s just the friendliest guy, we always smile and say hello. Marianne flatted and he didn’t have enough air in one of her tires, I offered him my air pump but it was in PSI and he uses BAR, and I didn’t have a smartphone at the time, and I couldn’t do the conversion for him for whatever 1.8 bar was. So the two of us were using pantomime to try to figure out what psi and trying to estimate what bar… it was just a funny little bit of lost in translation. He ended just getting a hand pump from somebody.”

Matt also provided some insight into his learning curve as to essentials needed in the pit:

“I don’t bring everything. If you saw what I brought to the pit in the first National Championships compared to what I bring now, I have pared down dramatically. I always bring a pair of shoes for Mo, that’s a worst case scenario if she loses a shoe in the mud, I can give her a new shoe. That’s one totally excessive thing that I still stick with. We have two bikes, and sometimes we have three. You shouldn’t have to do major repairs, and those major repairs only in case of crashes because you have faith in your equipment going in, you know you shouldn’t have to worry about something coming loose. It’s typically mud or crashes. So for me, I always bring my airgun and I also bring lube and a towel because you don’t want to grab a bike with wet handlebars.”

Click here for more of this interesting and informative interview with Matt Roy, and good luck to MM Racing this weekend at NBX Gran Prix of Cross 2011 in Warwick, Rhode Island!

World Cup Race Report: Czech Republic

For the past 2 weeks, Seven-sponsored cross champion Mo Bruno Roy was at the World Cup races in the Czech Republic, and she came home with some stories to tell and some excellent race results.

Mo raced on Saturday 16 October in Plsen, and came in a respectable 18th in a field crowded with many multi-time champs. Mo had this to say about her race:

“With every passing lap, I was riding stronger and stronger. I was able to pass enough riders to get myself into 20th position by the finish. I was hoping for a top 15 and knew that I’d have to improve my start next week to get into the mix.”

After some well-deserved rest and some sightseeing in and around Prague, MM Racing headed to Tabor for the next Worlds race on 23 October. It was a chilly, dry day, which made for a fast course. Mo was missing her mud, but her performance didn’t show it: she took 18th in yet another field crowded with pros from around the world. This was Mo’s best performance in a World Cup race.

“With two laps to go I was leading a large group of about six riders. Everyone was pushing the pace and trying to create some time gaps. Each time one rider made an error, another one of us would take the advantage until the last lap when the pace began to pull the group apart.

“I finished 18th for the day a bit disappointed to not have been able to secure a top 15 spot but pleased with my best World Cup finish to date.”

Spotlight on Seven

Mo and MM Racing paid tribute to Seven in their latest newsletter. All we can say is, “back at you MM Racing!” We love being your sponsor: it’s been a fruitful and fun relationship, one we hope to continue for a long time.

Where to even begin with these guys. I mean, come on, between Bob’s Red Mill and Seven Cycles, could we possibly have better sponsors! Everyone at Seven is amazing. Hands down.

This year marks our fourth season with Seven Cycles, and to mark the occasion, Rob Vandermark, Matt O’Keefe and the crew at Seven put their heads together to create a new ‘cross machine for me, effectionately dubbed the “Mo-honey.” It’s a work of art… a work of art that I get to race!

I asked Rob to put his thoughts about the Prototype into words for me. Have a look at the evolution of the “Mo-honey.”

This cross project came together out of three distinct and disparate projects. Initially the venture started surreptitiously two years ago in part as a product of the Seven Cycles Collaborative. The design also evolved from specific aspects of our Elium SLX line, and the project even includes some of the best elements of the A6 carbon frame platform. We chose to create this bike because of our track record with the carbon tube design and ride performance on the Elium SLX, knowing we’d be able to make our lightest bike yet, while maintaining the durability for which Seven carbon frames are known.

As with the Elium line, the titanium lugs enable us to easily accommodate any frame geometry, tube size, ride characteristics, and frame options. Mo’s cross frame is a testament to this – her bike includes many of the custom aspects and features available on any other Seven model.

Recently, this bike was accused of being our “most artistic frame†yet. We definitely agree. This new model is the lightest, most technically sophisticated, and visually stimulating frame we have in our line.

We’ll have the Prototype in Northampton at the next stop of the New England Pro Cyclocross Series. Please come by to check it out. It’s amazing.
Thanks, Seven. We love you guys!”

Sign up here to receive your very own copy of MM Racing’s newsletter.