Good thing I got the hot tub running this week.....

cause after Hanford I definitely needed to mellow out in some bubbles under the stars.

No real race report, I raced over my head and harder than my legs would allow, but had a good time and in a small progression of strength from a couple of weeks ago, got to the final sprint in good position. Unfortunately, everyone else had so much better legs and I went backwards in the last 175, but I was still happy and had the nice track hack all evening to prove it :-)

Good times and I'm always happy to go to Hanford, especially with buddies like these :-)

Anytime middle aged dads can escape for a overnight and ride around in the Central Valley with three matching bikes with stickers and stuff like we're cool racers is a lucky day.

See the mouse

A well- deserved short vacation down south- too much eatin' and not enough ridin', but it's all good.

The biggest A & F store I have ever seen. Welcome to the Grove center in West LA.

More beautiful people in one place on a Tuesday afternoon than is humanly possible.

No one eats anything round these parts.

Quite a contrast from Disneyland, where a true cross section of America was on display.

Any drug maker with a diabetes drug in the pipeline is going to make a mint in ten more years.

I eat too many cookies and tri tip to take HTFU very seriously, the whole thing is getting kind of Die Trying if you ask me.

But I think I can go for some of this WTFU!

It's not Cole, but it'll do.

An entire store of sauces, and a entire wall of hot sauces.

Many of them with completely unprintable labels.

I ignored the No Photo signs until I was done taking pictures.

But I did buy a few things.

Afternoon luncheon at American Girl Los Angeles, mmmm, Dad likes those cookies!

Being West LA, I had a salad.

Your doll gets lunch too, in her own seat.

This was a loaner doll, Little C's doll was getting her hair done and a skin cleanser downstairs at the doll spa.
Yes you read that correctly.

Disneyland California Adventure- the cousins having fun.

The whole family rode this bad boy- even bought the ridiculous picture afterwards.

Do not eat cotton candy before riding this, you drop roughly 5 stories several times.

Not enough time sitting by the pool, but still it was just what the doctor ordered.

Some serious Easter egg making went down at Aunties' house.

Bike racing commentary coming back soon.

"Touch The Deck"

... and other innuendos for crashing,

just another mechanism of denial we use to keep ourselves pedaling forward when the hill gets steep/ the turn gets tight/ the pack gets squirrelly.

You have to ignore it at the present, channel it beforehand, and laugh about it after.

OR it will own your ass.

I'm not hatin' about it, I'm as hooked as the next guy.

Something I was thinking about all week before I heard about the Vickerator repaving the roads outside of Chico today....

Heal up soon,
brutha!

Suavecito

Sprint number 9- time to go home. Really, number 8 not looking too good either. I'd really like to pop off twelve of these with no drop off in power before the season ends in April .


Good times in the headwind with a buddy that needed to just ride fast and let a few things go....

400 meters can be a long long ways sometimes.

Grullense- a style of cooking

Kind of funny when even the latinos I know don't know what that word means, and the internet is no help at all... but somebody asked someone who asked someone and that's the answer.

What style that is I have no idea- but jerk chicken breasts and jasmine rice tucked into fresh tortillas cooked on our little gas BBQ on our work truck- now that hit the spot last night!

Well that was fun...... Exeter and Visalia

Nice weekend down south ,

We showed up a little late for the TT and I got in about a 20 minute warmup, not the best for the violent effort to come, but whatever.

I love the Snowflake, my old tri-TT, whatever bike- probably the only 650c bike still running around, I did the touch up paint with white nail polish, running some old Zipp 400's with a straight block of gears and a 56 big cookie, but she's my baby and my first real bike someone actually gave me her since they felt sorry for me doing triathlons on a Bianchi Squadra with downtube shifters, she fits like a dream, though.

They made the hills taller since we came down and checked things out last month, or so it seemed.

Good ride for me despite technical difficulties- pedals, chains, shifting, a ongoing theme of my weekend on both bikes.

Hard hard hard on the hills and moving along on the flats, a little bit of hail, but I ignored it inside my comfy TT helmet anyway. Sold out on the final climb and the ride into town hurt deeply, and what was up with the 20 mph headwind all of a sudden?

We came home with 4th, 6th, and 8th(me) in the cat 3's so good stuff.

Excellent meal and crashed early, only to toss and turn most of the night, some snoozing would have been good, as we got up at oh-dark-thirty to make the first race at 9:10.

Cruising along roughly 5 minutes in, good course for us, and I drop my chain off the bike. In hindsight, I know the rule about basically only crashes and flats get a free lap, I should have grabbed it while rolling and stuck it on, but I was in front of the pit, so I stop to see my favorite mechanic, the Shimano neutral support. We stick it back on, and then the blue shirt get's involved;

him- no free lap for you!

me- yeah, I know, I just drove for three hours and we're 5 minutes in, but I get it.

him- well, get back in!

Me- I'll wait for my teamies on the next lap, please. I already TTed for a hour yesterday.

Him, turning to referee, wanting to DQ me- can we pull him?

Referee- it's a small field, let him back in down a lap.

that solved, I jump back in and notify Nome and the Vick I won't be of any use to them come the sprint, but will do whatever I can for the remainder to help them escape the clutches, but no soup for us...

M123 right after, we do the superman in the phone booth trick with the jerseys pre-pinned, then head back out.

Shimano looks at my bike beforehand and we seem to get the shifting solved, I did just build it up this week, so more than a few glitches..

Bigger field with 45 plus in there too and some quality guys, MS, SP, VOS, ya'll know the deal.- we just covered moves and hoped to be in the right place at the right time.
I felt pretty good and was finding a second wind, starting to recognize the players a bit as the season goes along.
I chased a sweet move that double clutched in the corner, I tried to keep the power down to reach em and skipped my pedal hard, hopping over about a foot, landing upright but tearing the tire off, then riding a degrading rim down from 28 or so, big fun.
Back to my buddy in the pit, I was just about his only customer, but still kept him busy.

Shimano 10 fits Campy 10 no problem, BTW.

No static from the blue shirt this time and I'm off, albeit a little nervous about skipping a pedal again, but it was race on there again for a while, till I sucked and gave in to all the excitement.
pulled the ripcord with one to go and got out of their way, tough race, with no one really going away, but with hard endless attacks, it never really lulled up to recover.

I took the bike off the truck tonight and the crankarm swung down like a power cranks commercial- I can't find any damage and took it apart, my guess is just not tight enough and when I hit the ground with it I loosened it, not too sure, but that's why bikes and cars get raced, to find out what works and survives, seems a-ok now though.

Having to file the rim a tiny bit where I skidded, some pockmarks, and the pedal has a little more clearance now :-)

Il Grullense- a nice chain, I never have gone wrong with stopping at a Grullense, even though I can't figure out what a grullense is, perhaps a mariachi style?


Edit- I just heard about the womens' pro crash, ouch!

Hope everyones' ok- those ladies don't exactly back down when it gets going- pure aggression.

Thin Mints Es Aqui! ---- and CVC images

Kids' got a eye with the camera

The owls are watching the racing intently.

Criterium Cheering Section- feel the joy.

We are Sierra Pac, and we have complete control.....

Escape is futile.....

Well,
I wanted to post about chile verde, 20 dollar primes, a new camera, and general bike racing blather, then I heard about Kristy while driving back home.
news link here



Just so sad when people in the prime of their lives are suddenly gone.

Kristy was a old friend and someone who let old out of shape guys grovel while hanging onto her wheel.

When said guys would begin blabbing about staying in their prescribed HR zones as the reason they couldn't pull around, a small chuckle would emanate and the speed would slowly ramp up until it was time to let go of the wheel and go for cookies at Sweet Affair in Alamo while Kristy continued her training ride.

Always kind to me and my family, she will be missed.

I've been hoping to catch this place open for a couple years now since I read about it while hiding in a motel room during the monsoon/hail/tornado that was the 2005 CVC.

We will see.....

CVC crit- just about one of my favorite races- kind of like a cross race with all those turns and a great crowd, eat some lunch and watch some great pro racing afterwards.

Mystifies me why more people don't make the trek from the Bay Area/ Sac- too bad, the TT in the orange groves went away this year,my guess due to low numbers, and the race through the park for 90 miles of flats in 2005 was IMHO a very interesting race, especially in driving hail, although most of the time the weather this time of year is spectacular in the valley.

Hopefully I found a quiet hotel this year, Fresburg seems to have a hex on me with 2 am phone calls, Mcdonalds' drive thrus next to my room, full-on Gulag architecture that feels like I'm walking the green mile when I go for some broken ice.....

I've been pumped up since Tuesday when I saw the POO ride rolling through Broadway, all those healthy little spandexed creatures flitting down the mean streets of the Big O like sardines with headlights, and me wrestling a fire hose away from a drunken denizen of Third St before he blasted em..... they had no idea how close they came.......

Not a Bike Racing Dumb Comment

From Little C's perspective.......

The Garden of Beauty

There is a garden of beauty

So light, but dark

Safire Sunflowers crowd on the hill

Emerald leaves stand still

Topaz tulips glimmer in the light

Ruby roses shine so bright

These treasures all shine,In this beautiful garden of mine!

I think I have Trac Sac.

Took a few newbies to the track today, what a ball.

Big crowd and a mix of abilities, as usual.

Lots of pursuit and team sprint stuff today, with a couple of small scratch races thrown in, I think the pursuits are a bit safer with lots of people.

My favorite moment, seeing one of our new juniors completely grasp it and take second in the last Aussie pursuit that lasted a solid 10 laps.
Just sweet.

Apres-ride-
TJ's vegan trail mix cookies, a cup of black coffee, and Het Volk Omloop on the internet,
life is good,
Slipstream in the moves early, the boys are here to play and are rolling with some heavy hitters.

Gilbert showing some big stones and staying away for like 49k, the traffic furniture monsters that live in every town in europe got a few bites of spandex and collarbones down the gullet today, makes Merced look like cake, frankly.

Merco stories, please.