Photos from the Race I Won

Here are the promised photos from the Albany Criterium, which were taken by Tim whose website is www.servicecourseimages.com.

But before I launch into photos, I should tell what happened... Taitt and I rode over to Albany which is near Berkeley on Sunday for the annual Albany Criterium, which is on a 1k course around a nice park in Albany. We actually rode over separately, which is why Taitt got lost. On the start line she was explaining to me why it was Dan's fault, not hers - sounded legit to me.

Anyway, the race started, and we both decided early on to stay up front, thereby avoiding trouble and hopefully getting into a breakaway. Soon I was off the front with 3 others (including Jenny Eyerman from Morgan Stanley and the previous day's winner of the Watsonville Criterium, Jenny Tafoya), then we were joined by 2 more (including last year's winner Mary Elizabeth Maroon), and 2 more again (including Taitt). The 8 of us never saw the field again. We went around and around, there were some primes, early on one girl didn't understand that it's poor form to sprint a small, newly-established breakaway for an umbrella prime, which was kinda funny. With 3 to go Taitt and I were stuck together like glue, covering Mary's efforts to get away solo, then on the last lap, Taitt ramped up the pace to lead me out, I yelled "go Taitt go!", she went super fast, I bumped Mary away from my wheel, didn't let Jenny pass me on the right, and then sprinted for the win. It was very exciting. Taitt delivered a perfect leadout.

Anyway on to the photos. Me making a face:

Me with Jenny Eyerman behind me, we are both making faces:

Here is a good picture of Taitt: actually blogger REFUSES to upload this picture for some reason. Maybe it doesn't want to detract from the Courtenay Show I have here presently... I will post this photo in a separate blog.

Two laps to go. We are not looking especially cute here but still, look at the good teamwork!

The sprint (series of photos). I am in front! See the Metromint racer (blue and white polka dots, 3rd from the right) her path through this sprint is interesting:

I won (in case you forgot)!

I won a Race!

And was so shocked that I didn't even think to stick both hands in the air... Anyway the race was fun, thank you to Taitt for the good teamwork, thank you to Diane, Andrea, and various others for cheering, and I will post pictures later!

Separated at Birth?

Penny Avril and Michael Rasmussen...

Superweek was...

The Superweek women's series ended yesterday and I just got home to a nice 80 degree evening here in Oakland. I feel like I need a sweatshirt and wool socks after many consecutive 100-ish degree days in the midwest.

I took some photos but not enough. We (Devon and I and our friend Colin who was Devon's teammate last year) stayed with the LaBudde's, who cook really well and give good driving directions and have a nice house near The Lake, which I think is Lake Michigan? Isn't that what's next to Milwaukee? Mike and Fran LaBudde, who I forgot to take a picture of, have a 10 year old daughter Katherine who I forgot to take a picture of, and a beagle named Sparky who I forgot to take a picture of even though he was very photogenically still and un-moving in the heat, and also two cool cats Tipper and Tiger who I took about 36 pictures of.

Here is Tipper who I tried unsucessfully to sneak into my carry-on this morning:

Here is Tiger who is a Maine Coon cat. I want one:

Interestingly, here is the world's best dog Mikey in the same pose, also on a kitchen rug:

And here I am with the neighborhood pig, Rudy, on laundry day (hence the non-team outfit):

Anyway, on to the racing. The women's series had 7 races, 4 of which were NRC races. We had 5 riders, but not all of us did all of the races. Rather than go into all the gory details (which will be kinda repetitive - "it was hot", "we raced in Illinois and it was hot", "the race was 60K and it was hot") here are some highlights:

-results-wise, we got 3rd and 10th in the overall standings (Taitt and me), 4th in the sprint point standings (me), 9 top-ten finishes (some of which were mine)

-my number was 13, and I was 13th in the race on July 13th... weird.

-Kelly Benjamin from Cheerwine won the overall. She is Fast. She is also Nice, which is nice.

-after nasty hotspots on the soles of my feet for Saturday's race in Waukesha, I gave my shoes to Tiger so he could add some ventilation:

-after this procedure I didn't even feel the need to ride in the shade at Sunday's race in Bensenville:

What would you do for $20?

Cut JD's hair for him?

Reveal that you are indeed a monkey?

Sport ass-white hairy legs at an NRC Pro-1-2 race? (hint this is the Beardsley twin who is not embarassed to be racing master's):

Or eat a whole corn cob?

Sean-of-the-Corn Pt. 2:Finally done:

Anyway the other day JD paid Sean $20 to eat his entire corn cob, which Sean did in order to afford to buy frozen custard later. I did my best to chronicle the shenanigans.

In other news, I finally broke out the instruction manual to my camera the other day, and miraculously have been coming up with some decent action shots, in which one can read the sponsor logos on the 30-mile-an-hour butts going by! However I still need to work on my timing - getting a lot of butts instead of faces. But the progress is encouraging. Funny what I can accomplish when I take the time to read directions.

In additional further news, the Superweek women's series started yesterday. It's been pretty cool so far. I have finished two road races in a row, which, considering that I hate road races for a lot of good reasons, was a big accomplishment. In the money both days, too. Tomorrow I will take the day off so I can watch a matinee of "Pirates of the Caribbean" with Devon. Speaking of whom here is a photo of is knee, which hit the pavement after some dude in front of him crashed.

Good News and Bad Pictures from Superweek

The men's series of Superweek started last night with the Beverly Hills Cycling Championship - in Chicago, not L.A. Anyway Devon's team, Team Monex, rode a great race. Three guys broke away and lapped the field, one of them was Devon's teammate Christian, then four guys broke away and got a 1 minute lead on the field, one of these four was Devon's teammate Hayden. Then Devon and Glenn led out Christian for the win, and Devon's leadout was so fast that no one from the field passed him and he took the field sprint for 8th!
My photography skills need some work. But here's what I got...

Nice pink shorts at the start line:

Devon (on the right) going up the hill:

The Finish (somehow I must have turned off the flash??):

Good thing Cyclingnews was there! Here you can see that Christian won, followed closely by his breakaway companion Jacob Nielson who was therefore second in the race, then Devon who took the field sprint:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos.php?id=/photos/2006/jul06/superweek06/superweek061/sw06-BH_20

Police Standoff at My House

On Wednesday morning right outside our apartment there were suddenly a bunch of cops and one was yelling at, gun in hand, at some dude driving an overstuffed pickup truck: "get out of the car! put your hands in the air! now!" By the time Devon found the camera the gun was holstered and the dude was handcuffed but still, here is a picture anyway. I love Oakland, there is never a dull moment...

4th of July Podium!

The city of Davis, CA hosts a really cool criterium every year on the 4th of July. Last year it was painfully hot, but this year it was a very mild 88 degrees outside. Devon raced well to finish second and here is a podium shot on the patio of a restaurant with big weird light-deflecting umbrellas.

District Crit Champion!!!!

Devon is the new NCNCA Men's District Criterium Champion!! He won the title at the Vacaville Grand Prix today!


Here is the only picture I actually got of the race. This is early on - this break morphed slightly to exclude the Lombardi's dude and to include Jamiel Danesh from RH Villa. Jamiel actually crashed himself out with 4 to go which was a total bummer, especially after a trip to Kaiser for stitches (apparently they skipped over his other wounds since it was the end of a Sunday evening shift and the ER folks wanted out of there...), Dave McCook unfortunately had a bad day, Devon let Roman take off on his own since Health Net boys are DII and thus not eligible for the championship, and he took second in the race over James Mattis from Cal Giant. OK that's the story, here's the picture:


The women's race was not quite as exciting for me. Taitt and I had a good race but with two to go, she advised that we pick our favourite wheel. We wound up with 3rd and 8th. I think we would have had a better shot at winning if we had worked together, but maybe next year...

Party at JD's house

JD had an awesome barbecue yesterday. The funny part was that the party started at 1 pm... we didn't get back from our ride until 1 pm, then [ahem] someone decided that they had to do laundry and shave and cut their hair so I decided to make use of the time and go to Safeway along with the rest of Oakland apparently because there were no shopping carts to be found so I carried everything and dropped things several times, anyway we weren't ready to leave until 3:30. So I called JD to see if they were all still hanging out. He was like "yeah I am still hanging out by mySElf... apparently everyone else is running late too." Oops. Sorry JD! But actually it was a sick party.

Here are Roman and Martina on the swingset. Roman is lecturing us about something important:


Here is this super cool wooden game that JD got from his grandma, it's called Skittles. I want it:


JD demonstrating the skill, precision, brute strength, and mullet necessary to succeed at Skittles:


As usual I got my camera out late in the game and missed out on the ping-pong action as well as the grilling stuff, actually JD is a pretty good cook.

Riding at Home Again

I was on the road for almost a month. Then I come home and suddenly the grass has gone from green to brown! But other than that the rides are still great and it's good to be home.

Here is Jen who is awfully smiley for having just conquered the final steep block of Butters...


Here is a reallyreally cute little doggie at Cole Coffee on Saturday. I want one:


Here is an area that is not worse off due to the summer weather. It's Hillegass St. I love this street, this block of this street actually because the trees are so great, but so far there are no "For Sale" signs in front of the houses but actually it's just as well because we can't afford a Berkeley house anyway!