Final 2006 Indoor Challenge News
WOW!   What a season!   This was the most exciting season of the indoor challenge yet.   There was serious competition from the beginning of the challenge all the way until the very end.  

Early on Ingraham took the lead.   We all expected that he would take off and win unchallenged again this year.   After all, last year's record was quite impressive.   Then comes Dick Rupp, training for the Sebring 24 hour in February, he was putting in major time on the bike.   14 hour rides followed by 16 and 18 hours.   Now Bill had some competition!   The Grim Reaper was putting in mega hours between barefoot marathons and was sitting high up in the rankings.   Next comes Martin Dressman, at first his approach was slow and steady, not too many really long sessions, just enough to keep up.

It was fun to watch the emails come in with comments about how the top riders would get worried that they could not find enough time to put in the hours to keep the points up.   The real competition was on!   Or so we thought!   All the while a rider named Caneman sits way down in the rankings with a few 5 hour rides, just waiting to make his move.   In January, Caneman began his ascent.   His goal was to keep under the radar for as long as he could.   Staying under the radar did not last long.   The competition was already hot and everybody was watching everybody!   Everybody saw him coming and really began to worry because he was ascending quickly.   First he passed his hero and inspiration, Bill Ingraham. By that time Rupp and Dressman had broken 1000 points, a new record!   A couple of weeks later Canman passed up Dressman in the standings, then later Rupp.   Martin Dressman realized that slow and steady at this point would not win the race.   It was now March and Rupp was enjoying riding outdoors putting in very few indoor hours.   For the remainder of March we saw Dressman and Caneman battle it out with each other.   They both wanted the win and wanted it bad.   Just look at the hours of their sessions!   They battled it out very close up until until the last couple of days.   In the end Caneman broke 2000 points, a new record!   If you look at total hours, Martin Dressman put in 106 hours more than Caneman, but hours per session are what give you points.

How did Caneman do it?   Well let's look at some of his sessions.   One 24 hour session, one 22 hour session, three 20 hour sessions, three 16 hour sessions, six 13 hour sessions, and thirty-eight 8 hour sessions, yes that's 38 - 8 hour sessions! A total of 52 sessions longer than 8 hours!   Canemans total number of sessions was 71.

Now let's look at Martin Dressman's sessions.   One 24 hour, one 16 hour, one 14 hour, two 12 hour, two 11 hour, and four 10 hour sessions.   Impressive, and when you look at his total number of sessions - 127!   He also had the most total hours at 719!   That's an average of 34 hours per week throughout the challenge!

Congratulations to Caneman 2006 Indoor Challenge winner!   He also set a new record in the challenge, first to break 2000 points!

Congratulations to Martin Dressman, Bill Ingraham, and Dick Rupp, taking 2nd, 3rd and 4th places in the challenge.   The three of them also beat out the winning point total for last year of 803 points.

Two years ago, 300 points would win the challenge.   This year eight riders pass the three hundred point mark!

Congratulations to Paul Zbiek, he won the drawing for the VeloLogger™ Software.   VeloLogger is a personal cycling journal and maintenance software program. Check out www.watware.com for more information on VeloLogger Version 3.01 and download a free demo version.

Twenty-seven riders qualified for the drawing by completing at least 40 hours during the challenge.   More riders qualified for the drawing this year than participated in the challenge last year!

This year we had 50 participants turning in sessions.   That is more than double the number of participants from last year!

Thank you to all the riders for participating in the challenge and making this a fun and competative season!   Also thanks to Karen Martin for recruiting riders to the challenge!   We will do it all again on November 1, 2006.   Have a safe riding season!

- Dave Watkins -

Here are photos and bio's of the winners...

Final Indoor Challenge Standings
The final standings of the 2006 Indoor Challenge are listed below.

Pos.	Name	Sessions	Hours	Points	Session Detail
1	Cane, man	71	613	2113	38-8h 6-13h 3-16h 3-20h 1-22h 1-24h
2	Dressman, Martin	127	719	1929	4-10h 2-11h 2-12h 1-14h 1-16h 1-24h
3	ingraham, bill	69	380	1130	3-10h 1-11h 2-12h 2-13h 2-14h 2-17h
4	Rupp, Dick	46	329	1072	8-9h 1-10h 1-12h 3-14h 1-16h 4-18h
5	barnes, steven	57	221	465	4-6h 1-7h 4-8h 2-9h
6	Baloh, Marko	85	249	386	2-6h 1-8h 1-11h
7	Zbiek, Paul	23	130	376	1-6h 7-11h
8	St. John, Steve	57	204	371	2-6h 2-8h 1-10h
9	Matchett, Alan	60	180	282	2-6h 1-8h
10	Rieper, Grim	33	133	277	1-8h 1-9h 1-11h
11	Caton, John	47	157	271	2-6h 1-7h 1-9h
12	Foote, John	58	166	229	1-6h
13	Leiss, Peter	37	102	148	1-6h
14	ansell, robert	42	102	137	1-8h
15	Jurczynski, John	39	101	136	1-6h
16	Lesack, Mitchell	32	90	130	1-6h
17	Martin, Karen	38	93	114
18	Rozelle, Paul	16	53	110	1-7h 2-8h
19	Kunz, Daryl	35	84	102
20	Thomson, Terry	12	43	96	1-7h 2-8h
21	Beebe, Joyce	42	88	92
22	Johnson, Bill	40	83	86
23	Simkins, Curt	22	58	79	1-6h
24	Newsome, Mark	22	57	77	1-6h
25	Fanning, Tom	31	63	64
26	Rossman, Mitchell	12	40	63	1-6h
27	Corbett, Jonathan	19	46	61	1-6h
28	patterson, doug	14	34	40
29	Wilson, Jeff	15	35	40
30	Barber, Craig	13	32	39
31	Johnson, Eric	14	33	39
32	White, Louis Gerard	16	33	34
33	Ide, Larry	15	31	32
34	Glazar, Andy	11	24	26
35	Watkins, Dave	11	23	24
36	Pralinsky, Mary	8	19	22
37	Davis, Scott	7	17	21
38	Jones, Mark	10	20	20
39	Kulwicki, Steve	8	17	18
40	Joe, Jamison	8	17	18
41	Robertshaw, Tom	8	16	16
42	Holzworth, Ray	1	6	16	1-6h
43	Bryant, Elton	7	14	14
44	Meinig, Bob	4	8	8
45	Karhioo, Emilea	3	6	6
46	Pritchard, Marc	2	4	4
47	Lucas, Rob	1	3	4
48	john, sarich	1	2	2
49	Fallon, Dan	1	2	2
50	king, stew	1	2	2
	Totals	1351	4982	10843