So 6 of us traveled up to the Mt Hood Cycling Classic for a week of hard “racing”. It is really more of a training week for us because we just came up here on our own. No truck. No staff. Just us and our own cars working on our own bikes and such. It is a real throw back to the amateur days and a really good thing for a pro to do once in a while to help him remember what most guys go through every week. Our group is split in two; some getting ready for Philly week and some for Tour of Suisse. The racing up here is perfect; really hilly, real hard with beautiful scenery, and Hood River is a great town.

We are split between two really nice host houses and so far the racing has gone well. We have 3 guys in the top 10 of GC so we are gong to just keep on keeping on. The weather man says we have some real heat headed our way which is also great for fine tuning the form.

I got to meet Neil Shirley’s beautiful little 6 month old daughter today. Neil rides for Jittery’s. He is a great guy a great rider and his daughter is very cute with big blue eyes and a super personalty for only being 6 months old. I am sure she will be a man killer some day. Anyway, it was great to meet her and Neil looks the proud papa.

The first big road stage is tomorrow so I am sure there might be a bit of a shake up on GC. Today’s crit was the farthest thing from a crit. More a mini Nevada City and it was tough. Bissell did a damn good job controlling so hats off to those boys. I am sure it was a great race to watch because the line out was at least a kilometer long. Toyota took that one so hats off the the men in red, white and blue. The did a tremendous leadout that was splitting the filed into bits on the last lap. Of course we had our share of trouble makers, 164 in yellow on the Orbea, who forgot or were to screwed to realize that there are 150 other guys in the race and you can’t just turn left or right in the middle of the field and almost crash like 5 times. WAKE THE F’ING UP and GET OUT OF MY WAY and STOP ALMOST CRASHING ME! I have a wife and she gets pissed if I come home covered in road rash and I won’t let her come 3 feet from me. I am happy to hand out here number and she will “explain” things to you, big

So that is it.

Havoc