1-2-1 and first Triathlon Win!

Friday: After a couple of days off the bike I jumped on my FUJI Friday night at the Superdrome to go out and "play" a bit. I screwed it up in the Scratch with a 5th place but was able to pull off the "V" in the Miss'N Out, the Points Race and the Omnium. Unfortunately, the last race saw a nasty crash with a couple of guys going down and Daniel Walker getting the worst. But he's hopefully back on the bike quick.

Saturday: After a very short night we drove out to Aubrey to do the monthly Horse Country Time Trial organized by Kevin Hill aka DallasBikr. The 20K TT with some serious rolling hills was a good test for next week's state TT for many participants including me. I just rode right at my threshold the entire time and fell short 15 seconds to Comp. Depot's "young gun" Shane D. I definitively could feel the legs from Thursday's training where I rode a 40K at threshold pace.


Sunday: I skipped the "Festival of Speed" at the Superdrome (too many sprinters and crashes...) the night before and tried my hand on something else: a triathlon. They had a Sprint Tri in Flower Mound and with a 350m swim, 16mile bike, and a 5K run I was aiming to get Top 3. It worked out even better as I jumped in my Speedos at 6am (yes, I was the only one in those...), swam a 6:15, spent too much time in transition, past many people on the bike and suffered through the run: I won!

One thing I learned from the whole triathlon experience this morning: We all can be very lucky and thankful to promoters about the payouts amateur cycling has to offer. Because in a Triathlon, unless you are a pro, you gotta pay $80 entry fee and get a medal for your win. And yeah, it's an even more expensive sport, too. To give you an idea what a average triathlete spends on her/his "hobby" vs. me, the new guy on the block, I came up with that list:

• Swim (Tri-guy): Goggles ($25), Swim Latex Cap ($5), Swim/Run/Bike Suit ($120), Timex watch ($60)


• Swim (me): Speedos ($15, couple of years ago)


• Bike (tri-guy): Scott Plasmas, Orbea Ordus, Trek TTXs, etc., ect. ($6K), saddle bottle-cages w/ extra CO2's ($30)


• Bike (me): '05 Specialized S-Works Road Frame, Ultegra group, Made in China Front wheel, very used clincher disc, self-made aerobars (maybe $1500 if I sell it on eBay...)


• Run (Tri-guy): Race Belt ($20), IronMan Hat ($20, unless you actually went to Hawaii), newest pair of Oakley's ($120), shiny NEW shoes ($100), same Swim/Run/Bike Suit like mentioned earlier


• Run (me): Mercy Cycling Shorts + Socks ($20, since their '06 model and worn), 4-year old Nike's ($10), T-Shirt (free)

Tour de Who ?

Wow, what a crazy Tour. Just days after "Vino" got kicked out, the next bomb hit the cycling world when Rabobank pulled out Rasmussen from what was once the biggest, most exciting bike race in the world.

So who's gonna win the Tour now? Any bids? Leave a comment of your Final Top Three Podium. But be aware, some guys might be involuntarily pulled from "Le Tour" before Sunday's showdown on the Champs d'Elysee in Paris.

Got a chain?

After making THE break of the day (with 1 Jittery Joes, 1 Health-Net, 1 Symmetrics) and being 2min up the road my chain decided to break in half :-( Bad Luck, I guess.

Out,
Stefan

more...

Thurday, Giro di Burnaby: nice, sweet fast course with wide & open turns, and - most importantly - no rain! Thought I take it easy the first 10minutes and right from the gun a break of 11 riders rides away. So the race was decided & we tried to go for some primes. Finished something like 40ish place. Avg. speed: 45.5kph.

Friday, Tour de Delta Hill Climb: Another day of racing in the rain. This time only 700 meters uphill. Got the pleasure to race vs. local semi-retired Gord Fraser up the steep road. Like others, we spun our wheels because of the slippery road but I managed to get 12th; 8 seconds down on race winner Zach Bell (Team Symmetrics, of course).

Side note: At 3 of the past 6 races I recall the smell of freshly smoked "pot". It's very legal here in Vancouver...

Gastown - yes, it hurt

pouring rain, cobbles, crashing, 18°C just isn't my type of thing...

Beach in Canada?

Did the crit Sat. night and finished in the pack. Legs were good for getting into some moves but missed the 8-man break which made it to the line 20sec. before the field. 60 laps = 60times going downhill and 60 times going up a 400m ascent...it was HARD. Yesterday's road race didn't go so well for me as it was an Miss'n Out race with a total of 8000 ft. climbing...But I was in good company as 65 other guys didn't see the finish line incl. all but one Navigators guy.
Later the day I got to see more of Vancouver, this time the "Folk Fest", basically a party/EXPO with and for a bunch of "alternative" people from Vanc. We also walked on the beach and got some really good greek food. Okay, gotta go and spin out the legs for Wednesday's Tour de Gastown, the 2nd race in BC Superweek.

Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan at Le Tour

I bet Vino didn't think it was funny...

Superweek - Canadian Style

I'm up here in Vancouver visting my friends Bjoern and Stephanie and doing the canadian version of Superweek, the British Columbia Superweek. It consists of a total of 8 days of racing and last night was the first one; a 700m hill climb which didn't start 'til at 8pm. For you Texans, something like King of Jester in Austin. At first, I found myself in last (!) place as the officials screwed up and gave me 2:52min instead of 1:52. After some talking with them they rewrote all the the results and so I got 14th instead of 64th ;-). I can be happy with that after getting up the same day at 4:30am, flew DFW - Denver - Vancouver and got to the house at 4pm. That was a loooong day. But luckily, they have things like double espresso up here, too ;-)

A few pictures from a ride we did earlier today to spin out the legs before tonight's crit in White Rock.

Le Grand Depart

My cousin is currently in London for an internship and went to see the TdF prologue. Check out some of his pics here.
You can watch the Tour here on my blog every morning. Just tune in between 7:30 and 10:30am (CT) and check out the left side bar. By right-clicking on the stream you can chose "Zoom" and "Full Screen" for the full Tour de France experience ;-)

Nice!

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2007/tour07/tech/?id=/tech/2007/features/tour_boonen_transition07

Water, water, and more water...

This last week has been really busy in terms of rain here in North Texas. Today I went on a recovery ride on my cruiser and participated in the "Flood Tourism". I was not the only one taking pictures out there today but here you go: