"Real World", here I come...

Since a couple of weeks I'm now officially working in the coaching biz and joined the team of Source Endurance based in Austin, TX. There are a lot of new and exciting things happening here in the future and I'm hoping to become a real "Austinite" by December. For any cycling/coaching-related questions or if you simply wanna go for a ride feel free to shoot me an email to srothe@source-e.net

Jimmy!

After more than 4 years of ownership, my favorite "Jimmy" is gone for good, sold! I hope the kid who plans to take him to Wyoming for college and 4-wheeling won't beat him up too much. He lasted already 18 years and 192K miles...Any bids how long he'll make it???

Mercy Celebrity Classic - last race of the year?

Okay, one week after the Mercy Classic I found finally some time to give a little re-recap about the last "real" race of the year. The weeks/days leading up to it haven't been perfect in terms of being recovered since all the traveling (Germany, Vegas etc.). But, after some good night's sleep Sheri and me drove up Saturday morning to the 3pm start and went pretty well. I think the 75minute Parking Lot Criterium World Champs two nights before added to that...There was a group of 7 up the road and after covering some moves from the field, Carlos, myself and 2 others bridged up to the front. With 6 laps to go, I tried my luck with a bold move and 1 1/2 lap later Vargas and Jensen were with me. Well, I didn't see any chances in the sprint against Vargas so I tried again but that was my last piece of energy I had that day and I had to settle for third place. We had 4 guys in the Top 10 that day so overall it was a good day. Vargas is riding really well right now.
Thanks to Hector, the Mercy Club Team and some generous sponsors from the Ft. Smith area we all got to enjoy a nice Cookout at the Pepper Source Lake House with some good food and also "liquid nutrition".
Sunday's race was almost a copy of the day before except that this time Jensen showed everyone why he already won 20+ races this year and soloed to the win. I was "on duty" in the field, while 4 of my teammates were in a break of 10 riders. After the field got smaller and smaller I went with a group including Jewell, Vargas, Tilford and some others. The race was decided by then but it gave us all a little extra "workout" before calling it a season. I ended up leaving them and finished 11th. That was average, but I can't be every day in the break and my teammates did a good job up there and we put again 5 guys in the Top11 which gave all of us a nice extra "end-of-season budget"...

You can find pictures here: http://www.photoshelter.com/usr-show/U0000IP8REaQyQPM

And, check out this cool video being filmed at Day 1 of the "Classic".