Madera madness

This weekend had its ups.. and downs...it started off my co-pilot for the weekend Tim G (Biscuit) calling in sick due to some bug type thing that kept him on the DNS list for Madera. The Ben Hur TT on the road bike for me was a lack luster ride, others picked TT's and thats what I'll do in the future. I could see that the bets were stacking up on Hernando's blog for the following TT with me VS BPG's JA. It kept me motivated, but I always feel better the second day and I rolled pretty good ride. Thats the thing, I'd be lying if I said I didn't like winning, but with a TT' I just want to ride to the best of my ability.

I do have Marco Hellman (AMD) and Dario www.wholeathlete.com to thank for getting me closer to my best on the TT bike this year!

The real madness started with Tracey and Julie (the other biscuit). At the crit they had a combined 4 flats before the thing even started. There were a couple of guys around to help the maidens in distress- Hernando was there to lend a hand too. (Thanks)
Then I met them back at the Madera Inn for a TT set up. I got Tracey set with my DISC and funny helmet for her TT, we put the bikes on JG's car rack...(back mount) which I thought would be fine.....WRONG!!!!! About 10 minutes later I get a call...the bike went flying off the car on 99 at mucho MPH...uggghhh. Just before they realized it flew off...JG says"Tracey where is your bike?" its sliding across 99 HWY. Good thing another racer was following and didn't run it over! Tracey put it back in the car and I asked her if it was OK???she said that she would take a look when they got to the TT..Heart rate must have been max-ed at this point...
They gals get to the TT...Tracey says"Julie, where are your pedals?" Julie says..."^%U%^RTGV@%! They're on my other bike back at the hotel!"

then she says..."thats it I'm going home"...Tracey says "go find some pedals" another knight comes over to help and gives J a set of pedals for the TT.
TT starts...I told them not to miss any turns-it happens every year...no problemo they say, well 5 minutes into the TT Tracey's left bar goes straight down and she has to balance it for the entire ride so that it wouldn't go into the front wheel...then when she missed the last turn and goes over the train tracks she had to circle back and finish...for almost a top 10! Madness!!!!

Ok onto the RR, for us long and pretty tactical. Spine, BPG, Strawberry's, & AV were all being pretty agressive. AV got stuck chasing most of the day when we had Spines up the road. Then Kyle (Spine) and Miller (Strawberry jam) went on the long ball busting break, Kyle won with Miller coming in pretty close behind. We won the Pro 12 RR, TT & GC- I dropped down to third just by a few seconds, Buckley (6th GC) was on the BPG like glue in the next group and that stuck too. BPG's JA was giving it a soild try for the first few laps,he took a few shots at me in the final K. good fun and kept me on my toes.
It was good to see Briggs n Straton back out there getting some race miles in on the healed up femur. I never really warmed up to him until recently, but since we have broken legs in common things are much more social and I'm looking forward to seeing him light it up very very soon.



The real madness was in the feed zone. There was exciting stuff..."feeder down" flopping into the pro 12 women. Never seen that one before, then the Velo Promo tent almost flew into the woman one lap later. The poor Velo Promo guy took a shot in the head. Not to much damage, but sure made for some madness.

I also have had a question burning in my head for the last few weeks...how many miles does Sputnik have on ther OD????

Here it is under the dust.



Thanks Velo Promo for getting me to Madera for all the Madness!