TOC

The Amgen Tour of California is one of the biggest damage races in the US. With bigger races comes bigger vehicles, in this case mainly an enormous RV.

Our compound before the day before the start in Sacramento.

Our neighbors were friendly enough.

But we were ready if things went bad.

Stage one started/finished around the Califormia capital. Here we took full advantage of the bike lane.

Once the riders had left for the start this guy took full advantage of these bike parking stands.

It was sunny and a bit windy in Sacramento.

People were out en masse to watch the start as well as the women's criterium to follow.

Some better prepared than others. (Can you count the flasks?)

But since I didn't have to ride in the car, I watched the race on TV.

A couple days later in Monteray soon to be extra famous cycling star Eloy Teruel signed a giant poster for a fan.

The Monteray to Cambria stage was fantastic. We spent most of the day cruising the PCH looking at the ocean.

Over a few bridges and up some hills.

And past the worlds luckiest cows.

Guy with very strong neck.

View from the back: one of the OPQS riders back for bottles from the car.

Possibly for this guy (2014 Roubaix winner)

In the caravan the front of the race seems a very long way away. Thankfully we can also watch the live stream.

After only a week of driving, washing, and tuning it was over. I guess time flys when you're having fun.

One Tour of California down. Hopefully more to come.

 

 

The post that was going to be titled Arkansas.

So I went to Arkansas for a bike race. Then tornados threatened the drive and I ended up being in Arkansas for about 8 hours. But these things happen. If you're curious about the highlights:

Ian Crane won the damn thing and JJ won the green jersey.

While that was happening I was somewhere in Oklahoma.

In Texas there was free steak.

In Albuquerque I found some riders. Fortunatley Eloy was not bothered by riding in a car with all available space filled.

Our hotel in silver city was delightful. There was even a pancake machine (not pictured).

So we set up the compound as usual.

 

I made the Silver City Sun Times.

And were joined by SRAM NRS (Neutral Race Support).

Hugo getting numbers on the bikes.

The smile may have been caused by our K3 number holders.

And as the sun sets work is all but done.

All of that work was made very sweet the next day. If you're wondering: yes they all talked the night before about what to wear and decided it would be best if they all were on the podium with the coordinated outfits.

Which did not keep anyone from being ready for the next day.

Often the amount of things we carry seems crazy. Why would you need so many stands? Staff ? Etc?

The answer is only that this is the before picture.

The after photo, I think, brings some perspective.

But the road is not all work. Sometimes we have a nice hotel cooked meal.

Sometimes we cross multi tools with old friends.

Sometimes we relax in the feed zone.

And sometimes you get to win. In this case the sprinters jersey courtesy of Luis Amaran.

Climbers jersey courtesy of Daniel Jaramillo.

Best young rider jersey courtesy of Daniel Jaramillo.

And the team GC courtesy of (L to R) Felix Fariña, Luis Amaran, Eloy Teruel, Daniel Jaramillo, Gregory Brenes, Rob Squire, Carson Miller, Tyler Wren, Matt Cooke, and Sebastian Alexandre.

And as you can imagine this left us with a few new clothes for our wardrobe.

Hopefully they can keep us warm at the Tour of Califormia.

 

Redlands Part 2: part 2

Now that Redlands has been over for several weeks lets try the second part of this post.

I am a big fan of the saying "work smarter, not harder"

Which I think means I need to get a chair for the pits. Make no mistake, this is hard work.

Our pre crit compound. Palm trees in the background and right on the course. Location, location, location.

And what day would be complete without evening out your tan. Hugo's lack of tan lines is very impressive to me, especially now that my farmers tan has been reinforced by two summers in a row.

Monday and Tuesday after Redlands a few of us hung around LA for a bit of bio mechanical testing. I opted to just watch.

The gym we were at Monday apparently is patronized in part by really large humans.

So we brought some really skinny, really fit guys.

To see how their fitness was going. (Spoiler alert: well)

But if things went south I had my escape pod located.

Tuesday was a little more bike specific with some aero testing at the LA velodrome.

Which is really really cool.

And rather steep.

.

But we learned some things.

And saw a guy doing a parody of an internet meme.

 

What more can you ask for?

Arkansas?

Ok.