What with State Reports, 3rd trimester report cards, CUM folders, and what not I haven't had much of a chance to be creative.
But, to catch you up...
Napa was hot enough to start fires... EL Gigante and Staz raced the threes but succumbed to tunnel vision and head spins. AWfoSho went through three bottles in the hour long p/1/2 crit and was still thirsty. Tapinator busted a shifter cable, but still finished with the group. BTW the parcourse in downtown Napa was way cool... got to see all of the action while sitting under a shady tree on well-manicured lawn.
Diablo was, well, as expected. Andreas won the 15/16's easily. AWfoSho finished third in the 17/18's. Torey found out he can climb... with a solid 5th. And Taps put the hurt on El Gigante and Staz. When the dust settled, AWfoSho and Alex F sealed the deal on second place in their respective categories of the Junior Point Series...
Fires in the Valley are wreaking havoc on the best laid plans... VeloBob had to cancel the Gold Nugget Junior Stage Race. (make lemonade out of those lemons, Andreas.) and AWfoSho and I don't get to crew for Caren at Western States because the trail between Squaw Valley and Auburn is burning... but that means that I will get to see El Gigante and Staz race at Burlingame on Sunday morning. And, I won't have to dog sit on the weekends anymore for that silly little purse pup...
PaulMach.com finished 8th overall at the Tour de Nez which means I get to start sending out letters and emails to domestic pro teams on his behalf...
We're still waiting to hear whether or not TK gets to race his bike in South Africa at Worlds in July. Keep your fingers crossed...
There was a crash on Tuesday's RR. Sending good thoughts to FWS as he recovers from his attempts to mimic AWfoSho's shoulder injuries...
Two more blogologists throw ink into the world's biggest vanity press... El Gigante here and Staz here... Pretty soon I won't have to scribble anymore to let the world know what the kidlets are doing...
Former NorCal junior DHolla won stage 1b at the Tour of Pennsylvania. This kidlet will be getting paid next year... Other former NorCal juniors at the ToP include Tieni Duro's Julian Martinez, Max Jenkins, and Shawn Rosenthal. Good kidlets all...
Speaking of Tieni Duro... Good on Peter Taylor for getting to ride in Europe with USAC. And he doesn't even know anybody in Colorado. Good to see that results still count for something sometimes...
I'm sure there is more, but just can't squeeze it out of recall right now... besides, I'm on vacation for the next 6 weeks.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Pics, Pics, Pics...
The pics from this weekend are slowly starting to trickle into my inbox... here are a couple of my favs...
Who says cats and dogs don't mix... although in this case I think Pico may be the cat and AWfoSho the dawg. In any case, AWfoSho was out like a light less than an hour before his start thanks to the effects of a grad night lock-in.
And who is this Nevada City Kitty? Staz forgot his kit at home... thankfully Hernandez was in a sharing mood. Thus Staz got to race the 3's as a cross dressing kitty. Imagine if he would have won the field sprint in baggies and a t-shirt. Thanks Mike!
A few more pics of the shindig at Livermore can be found here. And Nevada City pics are here. And pics from Andreas' Saturday sufferfest at Pescadero can be found here. Still nothing from Kentucky yet.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Race Recaps
The kidlets were all over the place this weekend... TK in Kentucky; AWfoSho, El Gigante, Mechanical, Tapinator, Staz, Alex Freund, and AJ in Livermore; Staz in Nevada City.
TK was looking to seal up a spot on the World's team with a good ride at the Tour of the Red River Gorge. He came up just short of locking up a spot with a 2nd in Saturday's TT. He beat Bax and Brown, but Liebowitz handed it to the field. Phinney, Brown, and now Liebowitz have three of the four spots, so Sunday's RR was a battle between TK and Bax for what is most likely the final spot... Hot Tubes marked TK like a sharpie, but he still managed to beat Bax to the line... problem is that Jacob Rathe won, throwing his hat into the mix. Three guys, one spot. Let's hope that politics don't leave TK on the sideline. The kidlet has earned a trip. One possible savior may be Jerika Hutchinson... she may have done well enough that USAC will only take one girl, opening up a fifth spot for the boys... We'll see...
The rest of the kidlets were vying for a district crit championship in Livermore.
Alex F easily bested the rest of the 13/14 field to earn his third title this year... good on him. With a win at the Diablo Hill Climb he can also lock up the junior point series title.
The best race of the day in Livermore had to be the 15/16 affair. Specialized brought out all of their guns and fired shot after shot. AJ, Mechanical, Tapinator, and El Gigante were on the defensive all day chasing move after move... interesting race strategy by the S boys, refusing to work in any move that El Gigante or Peter Taylor were in, driving it if they missed the selection. Taps gets credit for the ride of the weekend with his dogged efforts to nullify three or four or five moves that the kidlets missed. Seriously, best ride the kid has ever laid down! AJ and Mechanical both gave everything to the cause as well. I'm proud of all of them. In the finale El Gigante bridged up to Specialized's Laberge who had attacked solo. Laberge sat on him for the entire last lap leaving El Gigante between a rock and a hard place... sit up and go back to the field or drag the kidlet to the line. Knowing that he wasn't the fastest finisher in the field, El Gigante chose to go to the line where Laberge out kicked him to take the jersey. It's hard to race against five or six hand picked kids.
The 17/18 race was less tactical, still we came up with the same result. Staz snuck away from the field early with Lombardi's Huffman, but not before dealing out a little pay back to the S boyz... Huffman was up the road solo and Specialized's Levaton was trying to go across to him. Staz rode Levaton halfway then attacked him. Staz made the juncture, Levaton didn't. With Staz up the road, AWfoSho repeatedly frustrated the field's attempts to chase, shutting down everything that tried to go across. Staz and Huffman doggedly clung to a slim lead until the last lap when Huffman escaped Staz's clutches and soloed to victory. Staz crossed second and AWfoSho EASILY mopped up the field sprint for third...
Staz is an enigma. The boy cleans up the 3's, but can't crack the nut that is junior racing. Rumor has it that he finished 2nd at Nevada City in the 3's earlier today... taking the field sprint but with a solo artist up the road. However, in all of his attempts at junior racing he has won but once... a tiny little affair at Berkeley Hills with a field of four a few years back. Staz knows that we really don't count that one... but danged the boy can ride a 3's race. El Gigante better hurry up with those last few points or Staz is gonna get a mandatory and move on without him.
TK was looking to seal up a spot on the World's team with a good ride at the Tour of the Red River Gorge. He came up just short of locking up a spot with a 2nd in Saturday's TT. He beat Bax and Brown, but Liebowitz handed it to the field. Phinney, Brown, and now Liebowitz have three of the four spots, so Sunday's RR was a battle between TK and Bax for what is most likely the final spot... Hot Tubes marked TK like a sharpie, but he still managed to beat Bax to the line... problem is that Jacob Rathe won, throwing his hat into the mix. Three guys, one spot. Let's hope that politics don't leave TK on the sideline. The kidlet has earned a trip. One possible savior may be Jerika Hutchinson... she may have done well enough that USAC will only take one girl, opening up a fifth spot for the boys... We'll see...
The rest of the kidlets were vying for a district crit championship in Livermore.
Alex F easily bested the rest of the 13/14 field to earn his third title this year... good on him. With a win at the Diablo Hill Climb he can also lock up the junior point series title.
The best race of the day in Livermore had to be the 15/16 affair. Specialized brought out all of their guns and fired shot after shot. AJ, Mechanical, Tapinator, and El Gigante were on the defensive all day chasing move after move... interesting race strategy by the S boys, refusing to work in any move that El Gigante or Peter Taylor were in, driving it if they missed the selection. Taps gets credit for the ride of the weekend with his dogged efforts to nullify three or four or five moves that the kidlets missed. Seriously, best ride the kid has ever laid down! AJ and Mechanical both gave everything to the cause as well. I'm proud of all of them. In the finale El Gigante bridged up to Specialized's Laberge who had attacked solo. Laberge sat on him for the entire last lap leaving El Gigante between a rock and a hard place... sit up and go back to the field or drag the kidlet to the line. Knowing that he wasn't the fastest finisher in the field, El Gigante chose to go to the line where Laberge out kicked him to take the jersey. It's hard to race against five or six hand picked kids.
The 17/18 race was less tactical, still we came up with the same result. Staz snuck away from the field early with Lombardi's Huffman, but not before dealing out a little pay back to the S boyz... Huffman was up the road solo and Specialized's Levaton was trying to go across to him. Staz rode Levaton halfway then attacked him. Staz made the juncture, Levaton didn't. With Staz up the road, AWfoSho repeatedly frustrated the field's attempts to chase, shutting down everything that tried to go across. Staz and Huffman doggedly clung to a slim lead until the last lap when Huffman escaped Staz's clutches and soloed to victory. Staz crossed second and AWfoSho EASILY mopped up the field sprint for third...
Staz is an enigma. The boy cleans up the 3's, but can't crack the nut that is junior racing. Rumor has it that he finished 2nd at Nevada City in the 3's earlier today... taking the field sprint but with a solo artist up the road. However, in all of his attempts at junior racing he has won but once... a tiny little affair at Berkeley Hills with a field of four a few years back. Staz knows that we really don't count that one... but danged the boy can ride a 3's race. El Gigante better hurry up with those last few points or Staz is gonna get a mandatory and move on without him.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Desparately Seeking Shoes
El Gigante's shoes were a little on the tired side... the heel cups were pretty much shot, the funky little lace thing had busted and was tied in a knot, and to top it off, I stripped out one of the bolt holes when I was replacing a cleat for him early last week.
Cycling shoes, being pretty personal and all... we thought we had replacements located late last week. Even brought 'em home. A snappy looking pair, all plastic and carbon and pleather.
Since G'ma and G'pa will be arriving soon for AWfoSho's graduation I figured I'd do a little cleaning. Tossed El Gigante's old shoes out with the trash to make room for the new ones... plus, those things stunk!
Problem is, El Gigante was wearing rather thick socks when he tried the new shoes on. Once he put cycling socks on, his feet were swimming in said shoes. Feet swimming in shoes is okay if you are a ten-year-old kidlet with growing feet. It's not okay if you are planning on riding ten to fifteen thousand miles in them, especially if you fashion yourself somewhat of a field sprinter. And more importantly it's not okay when I drop a few c-notes on the darn things. Back to the Wheelworks with the shoes...
Got the new pair on order, but they won't arrive until later this week. Andrew Wike graciously loaned his shoes to El Gigante to race in this weekend... as he handed them to the kidlet I think I heard him mumble something about winning in them. Not sure if he wanted El Gigante to win so he could claim part of the victory, or if he wanted him to win because he felt bad for his shoes because they had never actually been on a podium... ( jk enter Andrew. Thanks for saving the day!) Anyways, El Gigante couldn't scrape together a "W", but he did manage to finish 5th in the 3's and 3rd in the juniors. Me thinks he should donate his winnings to Andrew...
BTW, DBCJRT had a field day in the junior race today... AJ, PtotheArker, El Gigante, and AWfoSho combined to take all of the primes and the overall win.
AND... Tapinator has an extra pair of shoes for El Gigante to train in until his new ones arrive.
Cycling shoes, being pretty personal and all... we thought we had replacements located late last week. Even brought 'em home. A snappy looking pair, all plastic and carbon and pleather.
Since G'ma and G'pa will be arriving soon for AWfoSho's graduation I figured I'd do a little cleaning. Tossed El Gigante's old shoes out with the trash to make room for the new ones... plus, those things stunk!
Problem is, El Gigante was wearing rather thick socks when he tried the new shoes on. Once he put cycling socks on, his feet were swimming in said shoes. Feet swimming in shoes is okay if you are a ten-year-old kidlet with growing feet. It's not okay if you are planning on riding ten to fifteen thousand miles in them, especially if you fashion yourself somewhat of a field sprinter. And more importantly it's not okay when I drop a few c-notes on the darn things. Back to the Wheelworks with the shoes...
Got the new pair on order, but they won't arrive until later this week. Andrew Wike graciously loaned his shoes to El Gigante to race in this weekend... as he handed them to the kidlet I think I heard him mumble something about winning in them. Not sure if he wanted El Gigante to win so he could claim part of the victory, or if he wanted him to win because he felt bad for his shoes because they had never actually been on a podium... ( jk enter Andrew. Thanks for saving the day!) Anyways, El Gigante couldn't scrape together a "W", but he did manage to finish 5th in the 3's and 3rd in the juniors. Me thinks he should donate his winnings to Andrew...
BTW, DBCJRT had a field day in the junior race today... AJ, PtotheArker, El Gigante, and AWfoSho combined to take all of the primes and the overall win.
AND... Tapinator has an extra pair of shoes for El Gigante to train in until his new ones arrive.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
It's unscientific and all, but it's still fun...
The boyz over at NCNCA got the BAR/BAT thing updated through Modesto... DBC currently sits second with 746 points. Coolio... but what is really cool is that the DBCJRT portion of DBC accounts for about 430 of those points. okay, so I just did a quick count... nothing scientific, but still. And that doesn't count all of TK's points that we didn't get credit for because USACycling lists him as USA National Team in their database. Fun stuff when you don't have anything else to do on a Tuesday evening...
Monday, June 2, 2008
Catching up... again
A few randoms in no particular order...
TK should be home from his European escapade by now. On Saturday the kidlet did well... finishing second on the stage. On Sunday the kidlet touched pavement. Rumor has it that he was one of two boyz from the good old U.S. of A. left in the lead group. Second hand reports put him on the very front with three or four K's to go. Somehow he wrecked... stitches on the lower leg, concussion on the noggin. TK doesn't remember anything immediately preceding the wreck or for an hour afterwards. Taylor Phinney, who was with him in the group, didn't see what happened. Just saw him on the ground. Jimbo called to give me the knews and scared me to death. Concussions are nothing to play around with, but I thought he was gonna tell me that TK had busted something up that would keep him out of Worlds... aaack
While TK was spending Sunday in hospital the rest of the DBCJRT kidlets grabbed a handful of silver medals at Dunlap... Rookie in the 13/14 women, Andreas in the 15/16 boys, AWfoSho in the 17/18 boys. Alex F one-upped his teammates with his second championship this year by winning the 13/14 boys race quite handily... Mark's pics can be found here
Staz and El Gigante raced with the proseys at ICCC's Dash for Cash... 135 riders that kept it strung out for 75 minutes. El Gigante got caught behind a crash with 4 to go ending his ride, but Staz came out of the final turn eighth wheel... problem was that he was already spun out in his 14. lost quite a few spots in the drag race. Time for more of Jesse's 140 rpm drills...
Speaking of Jesse... coach gets to ride with a composite team at Nature Valley in a few weeks. Good on him for earning the spot with his finish at Wente last month.
And while we are on the subject of fast guys... Rookie and PtotheArker joined me for the junior ride this eve. We then joined that local pro Switters kid, TDibble, and their better third, Amy Encalada for a quick twenty mile jaunt. When I first met Rookie she was wearing a Rock Racing hoodie looking more like one of the Rock podium girls than the athlete she is... anyways, it was fun to see her get just a little bit excited about riding with a guy from her favorite team.
Then there is my favorite team... Mechanical's dad sent me a few shots of the kidlets at Dunlap. I'll post 'em as time allows.
TK should be home from his European escapade by now. On Saturday the kidlet did well... finishing second on the stage. On Sunday the kidlet touched pavement. Rumor has it that he was one of two boyz from the good old U.S. of A. left in the lead group. Second hand reports put him on the very front with three or four K's to go. Somehow he wrecked... stitches on the lower leg, concussion on the noggin. TK doesn't remember anything immediately preceding the wreck or for an hour afterwards. Taylor Phinney, who was with him in the group, didn't see what happened. Just saw him on the ground. Jimbo called to give me the knews and scared me to death. Concussions are nothing to play around with, but I thought he was gonna tell me that TK had busted something up that would keep him out of Worlds... aaack
While TK was spending Sunday in hospital the rest of the DBCJRT kidlets grabbed a handful of silver medals at Dunlap... Rookie in the 13/14 women, Andreas in the 15/16 boys, AWfoSho in the 17/18 boys. Alex F one-upped his teammates with his second championship this year by winning the 13/14 boys race quite handily... Mark's pics can be found here
Staz and El Gigante raced with the proseys at ICCC's Dash for Cash... 135 riders that kept it strung out for 75 minutes. El Gigante got caught behind a crash with 4 to go ending his ride, but Staz came out of the final turn eighth wheel... problem was that he was already spun out in his 14. lost quite a few spots in the drag race. Time for more of Jesse's 140 rpm drills...
Speaking of Jesse... coach gets to ride with a composite team at Nature Valley in a few weeks. Good on him for earning the spot with his finish at Wente last month.
And while we are on the subject of fast guys... Rookie and PtotheArker joined me for the junior ride this eve. We then joined that local pro Switters kid, TDibble, and their better third, Amy Encalada for a quick twenty mile jaunt. When I first met Rookie she was wearing a Rock Racing hoodie looking more like one of the Rock podium girls than the athlete she is... anyways, it was fun to see her get just a little bit excited about riding with a guy from her favorite team.
Then there is my favorite team... Mechanical's dad sent me a few shots of the kidlets at Dunlap. I'll post 'em as time allows.
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