Touchstone Climbing: Men's Master Cycling Team

Touchstone Climbing is proud to present its 2006 Men's Masters Category 4/5 Team, an enthusiastic group of rapidly aging boys interested in personal excellence, friendship, competition and blending life (work, kids, wine, etc.) and sport as a means of celebrating and sustaining both. Our purpose is to assist and challenge each other to ride our bikes as fast as we can for as long as we can. But despite what our wives and girlfriends might say, that's not all we do. Recovery is equally important. FYI. Cleaning gutters is not recovery.

This page is intended to provide an overview of the men's team, its members and the 2006 race season. Here you will find bios, images, race reports and a race calendar as they become available.

Touchstone's involvement in cycling began last year with the sponsorship of a women's elite team. The Touchstone's Women's Elite Team posted excellent results and continues to excel this year. This is Touchstone's first year sponsoring a men's Masters team.

Thanks for taking a look. See you at the races.

2006 Master Team Bios

Markham Connolly (Team Manager)
Connolly, 40, literally came in from the cold to become a bike racer. As a longtime resident of Telluride, Colorado, rock and snow were two of Connollys closest neighbors', so going out to play usually meant climbing or skiing. But after moving to the Bay Area in 1999, Connolly dabbled in individual competitions for the first time in his life; off-road endurance events like trail marathons. Then he went to the bike shop. Connolly thought he was there to buy new mountain bikes for himself and his wife Joelle, but she asked, 'Why would we get those?' and pointed him in the direction of the skinny-tire steeds. Joelle, Joelle, Joelle. You've created a quad-burning monster. After his first ride on one of those bikes Connolly, who is director of operations for Touchstone Climbing Inc., started the Touchstone Climbing Bike Club and is now entering his second season of racing.

Scott Herring
Suffice it to say that Herring doesn't like the clock. The San Franciscan (by way of Chicago) is officially 39 plus 1 (he hates to say forty) and was bored by his last sport: triathlon, which is essentially a race against time. In this, his rookie year as a bike racer, Herring is looking forward to riding as a team, dressing as a team, and strategizing as a team (of course his riding mates wouldn't mind if he would regularly break the wind, that is, sacrifice himself for the team). It's Touchstone's dumb luck, predictably, that such a selfless guy also happens to have a high-powered, travel-the-world advertising-executive job. But Herring will ride the local roads and races as often as possible.

John "Poop" Ormsby
Ormsby is a 40-year-old Cat. 4 rider starting his second year of racing. Some close to Ormsby whisper that he's suffering from a mid-life crisis, but they're wrong. Given the number of times he crashed and competed in 05, Ormsby is probably well past his mid-point. This is probably a last gasp. Dig this: Poop entered a foolhardy 25 races--mostly under the Touchstone banner--last year, including road races, criteriums, and time-trials. The good news is that he finished all but three, and even did well in a couple. The even better news is that he plans to do it all over again. He also qualified to race the beginner's races Wednesday nights at the South Bays Hellyer Velodrome, but owing to a lack of a track bike was unable to try his luck in sanctioned fixed-gear mayhem. Could this be his breakoutnot burnout--year? Ormsby is married to Lissa. They live in Berkeley with their cat Minou, who advises Ormsby on carbo-loading and recovery. He works in San Francisco, and during the spring and summer months can routinely be seen after work screwing up his training in the Presidio and Marin. His major goals for 2006 include avoiding carnage and winning one or two events for the Touchstone Climbing Team.

David Chen
Chen is walking, spinning proof that bike racing is a lifelong disease. The 41-year-old has been away from cyclingand dedicated to climbingfor the last 15 years. But the siren song of a clean and lubed chain running over the gears has lured him back, and the Touchstone Climbing Team is better for it. Chen brings six years worth of racing experience to the squad and can even tell a few tales of battling Cat. 3 competition. The team will look to Chen for his knowledge of race tactics and trust that hell provide a healthy dose of in-the-peloton calm. Chen will also remind everyone that life isn't all about the bike, although his teammates hope to quickly cure him of such aberrant thinking. Chen's wife Ileana is also a cycling and climbing enthusiast, as well as a ride leader for the Touchstone Bike Club.

Mark Nielsen
Last year Nielsen, 36, competed in triathlons of every stripe--Olympic, half-Ironman, and even Ironman (of which he did three, count 'em three). He also entered centuries and double-centuries. But now Nielsen wants to be a man. Yes, road-racing. Nielsen is excited to get into the masters category and prove himself among seasoned veterans. He's especially looking forward to the time trialswhere all that tri-work may come in very handy. And let's not overlook why we're most thrilled to have Nielsen: Hes the Touchstone teams resident massage therapist, at least when he's not instructing spinning classes at Berkeley Ironworks.

Andrew Tilin
Tilin, 40, won the 1987 Giro d'Italia but was later disqualified for cheating (nothing in the rule book about putting Bolognese sauce in the others' tubes). Labeled "the peloton's Rosie Ruiz," Tilin transitioned to mountain bike racing in the mid-1990s after relocating to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was a middle-of-the-packer, which he partially blames on the mustache-and-glasses disguise that compromised his oxygen intake. Years later--last year, that is--he resurfaced as a Nor Cal roadie. He competed a handful of times, finished a couple of races, and was tempted to resuscitate the spaghetti sauce gag. Sadly, earlier this year Peloton Rosie again felt the need to mask his suspect ability, fracturing his collarbone and scapula while crashing mid-turn in the Oakland hills. But Tilin is determined to never look back (he cant look back, at least over his right shoulder). Tilin aims to regain his old Giro form (or at least become a Cat 4) while keeping his job as a writer and remaining in close contact with wife Madeleine and two young children, Isaac and Leila. He's excited to fly the Touchstone Climbing Team's colors.