Le Tour ouch!!!!!

Ohhhh man, the guy from Gerolstiner nailing the traffic sign yesterday doing a flip and landing on his back made me not wanna race 40 mph around traffic islands.

The bike broke in two pieces..

Bon Voyage Barlo (go up climbs) world. Un frickin believable that riders are still doing drugs this season.

Windy city to PDX

So a quick trip to Chicago for some tastings. 300 bottles of vino on the wall, lips were blue, teeth purple and brain was empty after our annual distributor tasting.

Then here in PDX with some first class accommodations with friends, great food, wireless, TDF on TiVo. Life is good. Just wish Tracey could make the trip. She is home suffering with the back and the little girl has been doing some serious kicking. I think that's pretty cool. 

If anyone could drop her off a veggie pizza that would be cool. Call me and I'll give you the details...thx

A friend of mine just had a baby boy this week, the little guy got his nob trimmed today. Glad we don't have to worry about that with our girl.

I got a couple of  hrs of sleep on the plane yesterday, drooling on people I don't know is always kind of weird, but what ya going to do??? I was happy to get some needed rest.

Thanks to Kelly B for bringing my bike and gear here, Hooptie and Shelly are doing 90 in my rig and it should be here tonight. Its a really cool track scene and being from out of town we all kind of gel and bond a bit.

I made it to the track for a warm-up ride, got a little scared with the steepness...hoping I didn't make a fool out of myself and slide down the wall. I jumped into the Thursday night elite race. It was a good leg opener and had a chance to blow off some carbon and vino. Ended up being a little out gunned and out numbered. First looser in the points race, but it was good practice for the weekend.

Today I did the 3k 40+ race. Me and Tom Fahey were neck and neck. I just squeaked by in the last lap by a nose. He is really going to keep me on my game for nationals. Mark was giving me lots of inspiration and time splits. It totally made a difference.

The 4k was pretty OK. I did a 5:17 for 5th, I was hoping for a low 5:00, but oh well.

Then a quick few sales of vino and back to the track for some points stuff.

The NorCal squad is looking tough...Mark Alt, CC, Peterson, Gio, Hooptie, Kelly B, Shelly, Jon Simmons, and of course Pete Bohl and a bunch of others..

Snowballs chance & Coyote creek

Home late Thursday night, early to rise..not ride:( on Friday

So after a full day in the office which means driving back and forth to Napa, violating the recent hands free laws (due to not being able to find my blue tooth), making promises I hope I can keep etc. I finally made it to the track for some racing.

The Velobella party was first class. Don't know why anyone wouldn't come to the track for these races, cool people, killer beer, and well lets say some of the best damn  cured meats and sausages and I'm an authority here. Thanks to Mary for cooking up a ton grub for the racers after we were finished.

The races were fun. I did the snowball first time. Gio was leading out Hooptie for a sprint and I got a free ride. When I was of the front for the last few laps..I kept thinking..snowball..

snowballs chance in Hellyer!

Anyway after seeing some friends get injured (our best wishes for a speedy recovery) , I kind of started thinking...which means sprints back and forth to the keg sounded better then racing the last couple of races.

Then the Coyote creek local race was fun sat afternoon, slept in and drove to the race. Coats and a few others went up the road early, good thing. My legs and lungs were not working at full capacity. Maybe its just I'm getting older and wiser..? The air really did suck today, lungs still ache.

Then Tracey and I went to a little bit of Vietnam here in San Jose. We found a really cool Vietnamese restaurant off Tully road called Anhhong

 Check it out !

This week a bit of wine will be tasted in the windy city, then off to the races. Looking forward to some good racing at Alpenrose for the weekend.

Hellyer

So I did a little wine delivery to Testarossa yesterday for Rob(I love it when winemakers ask me for vino). He has a really cool new label comin out soon and his office is full of car racing, bike racing and an occasional bottle of wine on the floor.

He started showing me pictures of Hellyer, it was way cool and thought about what it was like some 20 years ago racing at Hellyer.

Happy 4th of July!