Tour de Colorado

Phew, back at home after a week in Colorado. Here's a recap.

Steamboat- less than 24 hours there, good food and a bike ride with Han. Also got to meet her new puppy Humphrey.

Sales Meeting- ahhh sales meeting. 11 hours of straight meetings on Monday, in to awards night at a Mexican place with free (and much needed) Margaritas.

Tuesday our evening BBQ got canceled due to rain so they rented out the Velodrome for us. It is the steepest track in the country and one of the shortest. We had rental track bikes and a little instruction. At first it looked too steep and I didn't want to do it but it actually wasn't bad and ended up being a blast. I rode a little with a group and then thought that was it so I had dinner- a brat with mustard and onions, some ribs, potato salad and a brown ale. Right upon finishing they announced we were going to have pursuit races... (burp... whaaa?) I held my own and kept the food down (barely) to take the $20 dollar preem. Nothing like sprinting after a nice heavy meal.

-The meeting got out Wed. afternoon and I stayed with Alders and Katie (thanks guys) in Boulder for a couple nights- I have never spent much time there but its really nice. Really bike friendly- you can ride all over town on bike path or in bike lanes. If it just had a little better access to mtb trails and snow sports it would be ideal. We hit the weekly drunken cruiser ride (500 people strong) and a local hippie brew pub.

- We raced the Sand Creek National in Co. Springs. The short track went OK- I moved up the whole time and ended up 14th. Alders crushed for 9th. It didn't hurt as much as usual which was surprising since I have been preparing more for the longer stuff and haven't done one in a year. It was a good opener and cleaned out some of the lingering chest cold that I have had since the Mohican.

XC: Hmmm, well that was a pretty frustrating race. I didn't have huge expectations coming out of a sales meeting and having a cold the week before. Sleep was lacking at the meeting but I felt pretty good in the short track so I thought I might be able to ride well in the XC. I got a decent 3rd row call up and things were looking up.

Then we did the strangest start procedure I have ever seen- "nuetral" roll out, 100 guys through a gate that was too narrow and blocked things up (already lost my spot) then down a road a ways in to a 180 degree turn to start going the opposite was up the road- with no divider or anything! Guys at the middle got screwed, some at the back scored good spots and when they stopped us (huh?) my 3rd row spot had gone to 6th row facing sideways in a sea of overlapped wheels. Then they gave us the "official" start. Bizzaro as my dad would say.

I was climbing well on the first lap and sprinted around people every chance I got. The dh allowed for about zero passing and we got blocked up in a huge train and lost a lot of time. I drilled it up the climb on the 2nd lap and made it in to 19th but paid for the effort later on and slipped back to 22. In retrospect I just didn't drink enough- every spot that allowed for drinking was also a passing zone...

All in all it was pretty frustrating but 10 mins off the win isn't bad, especially when you lose at least two minutes on the 1st lap in traffic...

Wow, long post with no pics and now I am out of time! Weeeeeeak, sorry.