Catching up

I don't think this photo needs a caption....I only wish I'd gotten the photo of Betsy leaping in through the car window when Evan (Cannondale) and Dave Vance (mechanic) pulled up in St. Paul. Priceless!

I'm finally back to blogging. Hallelujahpraisedelawd! Kate had to get me logged in to blogger seeing as when I changed the password I didn't write it down. I'm so clever sometimes I kill myself.

So congrats to Betsy G for her ride at Masters Nats; while she didn't rewew her title (I'm thinking she had a flat ?) she rode strong to finish 4th..news to come soon. Dr. J rode well and grabbed a silver medal.

The rest of us did the State Crit yesterday and we rode for Kate and she did well. We let a break form early on and while the break wasn't working well together at all, it managed to stick thanks to Eikes and I blocking our silly arses off. We got some help from the Atkins rider who also had a rider in the break. At times the break was dangerously close to being caught, thanks to the numberous attacks in the field by the teammates of a rider in the break (!) but we persisted under the mantra "never chase a teammate." It was the strangest race I've ever been in hands down but overall, it was a safe race and Kate got 5th after riding in her first break. I cautioned her that usually breaks work mighty hard, but in this case, me and Eikes and Atkins worked hard to make sure the break stayed away. Superweek is coming soon and there will be less cat-mouse stuff going on but it's good to have the experience none-the-less.

Kate also got her first experience (sort of) in a stage race. I made a tactical error in listening to the officials who knew the first course was a tough in that the course was short and the field was large. The cut off was 30 minutes to proceed to the next day. A course like that strings out as there isn't room for 125 riders to be "at the front" so the officials indicated they'd heard the concerns expressed by the managers and would be generous with the timecut. Not.

The race started and we had decent position in the jostling to the line. After 20 minutes into the race Bety was solidly in the top 10, and Eikes and Kate were in a second group of about 15 riders 10 seconds behind the first. I told them over the radio to sit tight and that they had 10 minutes to go. Silly me...about 1 lap later I didn't see them and got worried; I'd heard there were some crashes on the backside and got more worried. Then a minute later the two of them rolled up and explained they'd been whistled out. I stayed calm, but I was not a happy camper they'd been pulled because they were not in danger of being lapped and I would not call that "generous" with the timecut. I'd call that brutal. Anyway, if I had it to do over again my instructions on the radio would have been "attack that group and get the hell up to the front group NOW."

Well, it taught me a lesson in rider management so while it was a long trip for a very short race, Betsy went on to finish up in good form. She rode a very strong TT adn finished high in GC. Good job Boom boom!

Here's a few photos and short stories from other happenings:

We did a cool race in Grafton and we welcomed a new rider to the boys teams: John Eggebrecht. Here he is, on Gabby duty with Kate and Anna pinning down the trainers. He is getting back into riding and he did well and looked awesome in the kit.




We stayed with Host Dad Neil for the third year. He restores cars and we had to get some photos of us in the convertible. Here's Kate in the antique jaguar. Btw, that's an old Hudson pick up in the background. Neil uses it and it's his next project. It's mighty cool!!






And here's Besty in the convertible. Does she look California or what?