Thoughts from the Road

If you descend the north side of the Grapevine after dark you get to see miles and miles of headlights and tail lights streaming away up the central valley. It is pretty amazing to see the line of cars on 99 heading up the east side of the valley and an identical line on 5 heading up the west side... kinda cool, but all I could think was, "Man, that is a long ways to drive..."

between trying to figure out what songs were playing on the kidlets i-pods, I had lotsa time to think...

First thought: that bike change during the crit was pretty slick. TK was the unfortunate beneficiary of somebody's front wheel making contact with his derailler. stayed upright and all, but his chain tied up in a knot better than any kid tying his shoe could do. What I heard over the race radio was the simple mantra, "Steveo, I'm f&%$ed, I'm f%$#ed!" repeated several times as he envisioned his GC placing slipping away. After getting him calmed down, I looked up to see Steel Joe pushing TK around the final corner. Joe pushed him to the pit and took off after the pack. Upon inspecting TK's bike, it became pretty clear that a bike change was needed if he was gonna save his GC spot. A quick shout into the radio brought Steel Joe back to the pit to give TK his bike, but Jan saved the day by charging through the crowd with the Staz's bike... same Dura-Ace pedals, same junior gearing... and TK was off when the pack came back around with Steel Joe baby sitting him, making sure he maintained his composure... how pro was that? Thanks Joe..

Second thought: TK is the real deal... the kid has more untapped talent. It'll be fun to see how far he takes this thing...

Third thought: El Gigante and Staz both raced well, but you could sense a little bit of AWfoSho in their heads during the crit. They've both seen the carnage a pile-up can cause and don't want any part of it. Gotta get out of your head if your gonna race your bike.

Fourth thought: thank God... AWfoSho's been feeling pretty low what with his mates down in AZ racing their bikes and all. Gotta simple text message from him on Friday, "this sucks, I want to quit." I went into damage control mode trying to get his head out of the gutter, but nothing I could do could match what Davitamon did for him on Sunday... Davitamon took him down to the ToC Prologue.

When the call came through that afternoon, AWfoSho sounded like a fifth-grade girl... "Dad, guess what! Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God. Guess what! Guess what!"

I thought I had a pretty good guess... "You saw Tom Boonen?" If there is anybody AWfoSho idolizes it is Tornado Tom...

"No, I shook his hand, and he signed my sling!"

Guess who was on the trainer for two hours today? Thank you Davitamon. Thank you Tornado Tom.

Oh, BTW, the VOS GC can be found here. TK-- 3rd out of 100 in the two's. El Gigante-- 39th out of 100 in the three's. Staz-- 43rd out of 100 in the three's.