Great way to spend a Weekend

Fast re-cap from this week... Wente Road Race 45+... 3 laps... 4 times up the "Climb" Kinda funny that everyone calls it the "CLIMB"... By most standards it's not really a big climb. There are certainly climbs that are way harder! I guess what makes it so brutal is simply the speed that you have to go up it to stay with the lead riders. As I attempted to stay in contact with the main group, the only thing I could hope is that the front guys were hurting as much as those of us that were at the back! First time up came at 16/17 mph... The next two times up the pace had slowed some, but not by much. Third time up I finally could not stay in touch with the lead group and slowly fell off the back. I have always said there has to be some benefits to being off the back in that you now go into chase mode. Some guys would sit up and call it quits! Not me... Chase to the very end... It's just the way I roll! 81 guys... Finished 39th... I'm kinda Ok with that... Better next year.
Sunday brought a recovery ride with Alan and Jan. We met in Winters for a slow easy spin around Cantelow. When we got back to Winters it was just too nice of a day to call it quits. So
I decided to do another lap. Top of Cantelow I ran into Dan P. and John. We rode back to Winters, and they to Davis. I stopped at Wheelworks on the way home, and as I came out of the store I saw Dan and John having a nice cold recovery drink at the 33rd St Bistro.
They had the Collegiate Races going on so we decided that sitting on the balcony with a couple of cold ones, and watching some great Bike Racing would be a great way to spend the afternoon. What we got was an awesome display of Aggie power. With wins coming both from the women's A's and the men's A's racing Teams.

Ciao and Out...

The Day of the HardMen... Not!

Well this weekend didn't go quite as planned... Finally a Saturday/Sunday without a Race on the schedule. Saturdays Race Ride I could ride hard and not worry about the next day. There had been smack talk flying around about how the Race Ride has gotten soft.... SOFT? Talk about the "Good Old Days"... Why is it always about the good old days? Talk about how Steve Larsen use to make the Race Ride Hard... Well Duh! Steve, would go to the front and not back down. Wasn't to concerned about someone coming around him and taking a pull. It just became your job to hang on if you could. Yeah! The Good Old Days... Anyway back to my bad day... We were on the rollers on English Colony, and I thought it would be a good time to go. Well as I powered up the first roller I heard a loud pop! Didn't at the time think much of it so I charged on. As we neared Cantelow we had a small gap on the chasing group. That's when I looked down and saw I had broken a front spoke! Crap! Day over... Done. So I pulled up and stopped. The wheel had a good wobble to it, but not enough to stop me from getting home. So I just turned around, and rode back to Davis. Earlier you had heard me mention about the complaint that the ride had gotten SOFT! Well we had decided to add the last sprint of the Tues/Thurs night ride to the end of the Saturday ride. So thinking this would be cool to see the finish of this new addition. I rode over to the end of Old Davis road to watch the HardMen come in. Well as they came into sight, and to my surprise the Hardmen consisted of Rich and Liz... Chris B... and David H. ???? I guess we'll need to work on Harding up the rest of the group!

Ciao and Out...

Fast Up-Date

Whew!.... What can I say... Seems to go that way. I need to post to the blog, but hey... Later.

The last time I smacked the keys was just after Land Park and Zamora. Since then I've added Warnerville (Call it Windyville!), and Copperopolis. Wanerville was an new to the calender this
year. I had decided to give it a shot. In print it sounded good... Relatively flat, and a one plus mile of gravel... Hmmm I said... That could be different! Well just to keep this story short, I think this is one that is going to get more popular as time goes on. Copper... What can you say about Copper! I've written a few RaceReports over the years about this one. Not much changes... I still suck! It is just a little too steep for me to hang with the climbers. This year the road seems to have gotten a little worse. Good things about this year... I finished again, my Teammate finished 2nd, and Levi was DQ'd... Can't get much better than that. Copper is just one of those Races that you have do do at least once. After your first you might say never again, but for some strange reason you seem to keep coming back!

Ciao and Out!...