Temporary outage

Going to be out of blogging for a while.

Busy thinking, riding and traveling.

Salud.

Bird watching.

So it was an interesting day.

I had a chance to ride for a couple of hrs from SJ to PA to meet Roger and clear the head and legs.

Tracey and I met three years ago at an early bird, she came to be my own personal cheerleader today even though her back is basically fkd right now and is in pain every minute. Tracey and I met thru a mutual friend Laurel Green. Happy Birthday Laurel! And thanks for hooking Tracey and I up. Its been a great 3 years!

Last year Briggs busted his leg, he won today! Good for him, kind of got that monkey off of his back.

We were playing around and it ended up being a AARP race. Kids these days!

The break of 10 or so...

unofficial results---

1st Briggs (pushing 40)
2nd Nolan (pushing 45+)
3rd Bennet (40+)
others
Michael Ma (35+)
Joel Peterson (40+)
Me (42)

There was one kid (National jersey today-BPG yesterday, I dunno his name-sorry) he's the real deal and was nailing it on the track all day yesterday, and today never skipped a pull in our break, then attacks the group and gives it a really solid effort on the last lap. Classy! I kind of wish he stuck it, its coming soon for sure!

Love to see these kids coming up, good kids, racing their bikes hard.

Much more interesting then Ball supporting Hamilton, Sevilla, & Botero ... used up, unwanted in europe, ex-dopers, that have broken codes, laws, taken gold medals, dreams, and $$$ from others. Why encourage this crap in the US racing. Happy to see HED pull out. I want one of Hooptie's anti drug jerseys for the TOC>

I hope they drug test every frickin day at TOC! Tracey had a great idea, Amgen (lead sponsor and maker of EPO...wtf? ) Its like Jack Daniels sponsoring a AA meeting (stole that)--- should do drug tests every day on every rider. Now that would shake things up and give the clean and talented a chance to shine.

Oh yhea, one last rant!

Dear Mr Stanford with the BJM calfs,
Wearing an ipod in any race isn't so smart or cool, when I call you on it for my safety and the safety of others you should just agree, not say" OK old man" not classy.

Take the ipod out of your ears and go win some bike races.

Proman track day was a blast!! Great job Hoop & Nic:)

Great turnout, it was fun to do a bit of racing and even though I didn't have a clue of what I was doing I gave it a college try. It reminded me of a story my parents told me of how I would run head first into the kitchen cabinets, then get up only to do it all over again. My parents stopped me from running into the cabinets, gave me a bike, and yesterday I think the cabinets would have felt better.

BJM, Roman, and Pelaez were ripping me a new one. I tried to slip away for a few points, only then I'd see Hernando (Capt flower power) coming around me with 100 meters to go at warp speed. This will be some good training this year! I hope to get it figured out soon.

At about lap 90 of the Hellyer 100, I started to get a little parched and the thought of cool water and cured meats were sounding pretty good, I had visions the BBQ dancing thru my head after seeing Nic & Kristina chomping away earlier.

Hernando and I arrived, they were gone. Bummer, oh well, next time I'll put an order in earlier!

Then off to a wine tasting for like 20 at Lothar's fancy crib. Feels like the racing season has started!

Hip hip horray!

Double sessions!

Looks like the weather is going to be to good to pass up on riding this weekend. I wish I had a double of me, one to climb all day in the Santa Cruz mtns and one for the track. Going to do a bit of each.
Ran into boy wonder(Holla) today on the very Specialized hour of drooling, he should be ready to rumble tomorrow.

I'm going to do the usual 8:30 am Cafe Sienna, coffee, ride (2-3 hrs) easy breezy like, then get a piece of the old cattle prod at Hell yer in the A's race.

This is going to be quite the week, track, early bird, ride down to solvang to meet the new gang for a team camp.

Then off to Madrid.

Um and um sunset

Stump jumped two fences and froze my ars off on the way home, it was worth it! 3500 ft of climbing in two hrs, that was the fun part.

Stay inside please!

OK, not to be grim, but we did have a memorial ride for my friend Dan Plummer this weekend who was killed when struck by a falling eucaliptis tree two years ago. He was a friend, teamate, and great man. He was riding with another teamate/friend that narrowly escaped the same tree when they were descending on 1/1/06 in Los Altos.
I remember the day pretty well, Tracey and I were riding in the storm, I just had my rod removed from my tibia a few weeks earlier and we were climbing by fallen trees, downed powerlines, road closures, etc. We were careless and we used poor judgement that day.

WE were OK, Dan is dead. It was tragic!

Please stay off your stoopid bike until this storm passes. Ride the trainer, go to the gym, light a fire, make love, eat dinner, watch a movie, take a nap, clean your garage, wash your bicycle, do your laundry, make pancakes, read another blog, most importanly be safe.

Thanks Dave Mr Piano man Stahl

Thanks Dave for the Wed ride!!!!! For over 16 years Dave has been sending out routes and showing up every Wed in Los Altos. This is my favorite ride, and the core group this season is the best so far! Dave, Bruce, Katherine the great, Yuki, Wolberg, Roger, and Erin a few others. Every week I can make it I see lots of dedicated riders, some new faces, some of the same, some I've known for years. Some just in for a week or two looking for some winter fitness from somewhere up north where the mercury stays in the single digits.
Yesterday some young couple showed up from Bend, really nice guy that rides for McDonalds and his cheery Cheerwine girlfriend with pigtails. He went up Kings pretty quick and from the sounds of his cracked BB and the steam coming out of his pussotron he should have a great year in Europe racing. Then we got to chattin and I had a chuckle when he said "some mid-aged pros"..to me that's like 35-40 right, nope, I was off by 10-15 years. Oh well, I'll keep on living the dream. Talk about marketing...at 10am I started thinking of giving old Ronald a call and asking him for a delivery of a hot Big Mac to the top of HWY 84.
Then I ran into another old face that I haven't seen in like 5 years..."your not still racing are you?", uhhh yhea, kind of, just a little here and there I said.
This ride has had lots of stars and bars past present and future. Its an all day affair with a very classy group, everyone helps each other along, stops when there is a flat, waits on the top of the climbs.. I'm already looking forward to next week!

Dave good luck with getting the house, welcome to the hood!

2007 bye bye!

Ok for us it was a tough one too. The year of the house we'll call it. Trying to be a full-time wine guy, full time master racer doing a few Pro 12 stage races, and doing a full re-model to the house makes for a busy year. One trip to Austria, Mexico, Spain, Boston, Somerset, Rhode Island, not to mention the 12 other trips to LA, WA, CO, AZ etc. Phew.

Favorite race was a pretty local crit in RI when I ran into some college cycling friends and my niece Vanessa was going balistic on the sidelines cheering. Then we went to the merry go round and celebrated with some ice cream.

The building right behind my head is owned by a guy named Jim McNamara and used to win running races all over the East back in his day. He was very generous - back when I didn't have enough money to make it home from a race and had to count on winning a prime or something to put gas in the car, he helped me get to the Olympic trials. Thats something I never forgot. Every summer when I go home, my second stop is to go see Jim in his estate jewlery shop in Watch Hill, RI. Its a cute little town thats been the same for as long as I can remember. This year he told me to go win the Nationals, I sure was happy my mom was able to give him the good news.

I did learn how to play Dave Towle bingo, what else is there to do for 7 days in Somerset???

2008 is going to be more about family, having them out here, Tracey and I are already talking about a week back east for a New England tour. I'm really looking forward to racing with my team here in the good old NCNCA, and since they haven't really figured out the details for the Road Nationals, my eyes are focused on doing more track racin.

Best of luck in 2008.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Love Michael