May
23
It’s been about five years since I raced my last race. The arrival of two great kids, a cross-country move, taking on a mortgage, long work hours all conspired and I’ve been taking an extended break. I never would have though I’d be away for so long since racing was such a big part of my life back then. Heck, my wife Julie and I met through racing and even honeymooned at the 2000 Tour de France with our bikes (which greatly confused our non-cycling friends and family - “why would you want to ride your bikes on your honeymoon?!”).
Well, I got the bug to race again, recently, and went to the USA Cycling website and entered my info. To my shock, they still had all my info in there. Even had the last four [pitiful - all double digit placings, while Julie was busy winning points for her upgrade to cat 2] results from my earlier career. I updated my info and signed up for email race alerts. You can even print out a temporary license on the spot and race the next day. You gotta love the web. I remember frequently paying for rush shipping to get my new license back in time to race the first Spring races.
A recent USAC (I still want to call it USCF, don’t you?) email of upcoming races in my area listed a race in Dana Point about a ten-minute ride from our office. I checked out the website for the Dana Point Grand Prix for info and saw an interesting tid-bit buried near the bottom of the race flyer. Sort of like the stealth Landis appearance at the National Bike Summit a few months back. Check out the flyer that I highlighted here. Will he still show given the twists and turns of his hearing over the last week-and-a-half?
Am I racing? I don’t know yet. I just got back from driving the course during lunch and there’s a scary narrow alley (”Dead-Man’s Alley” according to the flyer) with a mean-looking wheel-eating grate half way through it. The rest of the course is through a beautiful overlooking the Pacific in some spots since it’s up on a cliff on the coast. That alley could cause some serious stringing out of the field as people brake hard to enter the narrow space and accelerate out the other end. Could be ugly for someone with marginal to low race fitness coming back after being off for a while. I did register my daughter for the Shimano Youth Series Race.Could this be the first of many for her?
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3 Responses to “Floyd Landis Plans Post-Hearing?”
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I think you might have changed your mind about what to post between the post and the title. Maybe.
Oh, never mind. I see what you’re talking about now.
[...] The town of Dana Point (California) put on the race and they did a great job, too. Despite my critical last post about the course, it ended up being a very clean and smooth figure-8 loop. Since I had already psyched myself out of my return to racing after driving the course, I didn’t bring my bike to race. I was there just as support for Sarah. [...]