In 2001 while riding in my first year as a pro with Mercury-Viatel I spent part of the summer in St.Jeannet France with Floyd and Will Frischkorn. In the middle of the summer things started to go sour with Viatel and the team began to disband. Our DS, John Wordin, sent out an email to the team instructing those of us in France not to speak with the french press. Floyd and I decided to send out an email to the team of him speaking with “the french press”. Sent out this pic to the team with a note saying that Floyd went against team orders and spoke with the press and has now been suspended from the team.

Mt. Evans two days ago, got beat up by the old guy crew. Scott Moninger 1st-age 39. Ned Overend 2nd-age 51. Mike Carter 3rd-age 43. 4th for me-age 27. Moninger and Ned went away about 1/2 way through and I couldn’t accelerate. Felt better towards the top and gunned it a little just past Summit Lake. Found a nice rhythm and separated myself from the chase group of 5 riders. Mike Carter came across to me 2 miles from the top and the two of us rode together thru the switchback to the finish. In the last switchback Carter made a small acceleration and I had no answer, just made my way across the line for fourth place. Pretty happy to be able to pull out a decent ride though after being so sick the previous few weeks. Hopefully I can put in two solid weeks here and get ready for Utah.

I’m thinking of heading to Russia this fall to train with my new teammates Valeriy and Sergey. Their crosstraining is a bit unorthodox but it seems to work for them. Here is a video they shot of a typical workout.

After a rough few weeks I’m finally feeling as if I’m returning to normalcy. Getting back into big days spent up in the mountains above Boulder. Able to find some respite from the heat up at higher altitudes. Been hitting over 100 consistently, far above average. Things should cool off for the weekend, just in time for Mt. Evans. I’m hoping to feel decent enough to help out my teammate Cesar Grajales in the two hr hillclimb. Highest paved road in America. Cesar should be pretty good, 130 lbs of Columbian climbing power.
My pick for the Tour overall? I’m going to give it to Floyd. Crazier things have happened.

Until today I always thought that us bike racers had some pretty mad skills. Flying down mountains at 50mph with no guard rails, rubbing elbows at 40mph in all out sprints, night time criteriums in the dark. Turns out that the bike messengers really do have us beat. Video below from a messenger competition in NYC. The amazing thing is that the video was shot by a guy following with a helmet cam. Impressive. Note that there are a few guys in there on fixed gear bikes. No brakes.