Weekend Wrap-Up 7/14

What a weekend I tell you-

Hard.
Painful.
Outrageously fun.

I’m a lucky guy. I really am. It was a great weekend of racing- in its own absurd way- for me at least- it culminated in this-

(Dave Brannen rules!!! Thanks for the photo!!!!)
(Yeah, yeah, head up)

Like I posted earlier- if your legs feel like garbage, don’t go out with a whimper. After this explosion… I stopped by Don and told him I was done. Dejectedly, I rolled by the host house, changed and came back up to the starting area.

Hauling Heidi around is great- she has a kickass camera (and is an awesome gal to boot)- which comes in handy when you come across Levi and Chris. She took some awesome photos. I took one of her and the guys and unfortunately, Horner’s eyes were half closed. Payback for chopping Levi in half earlier. (Although I still feed bad.)

We got the pics but time was running out till the start and we were hunting for spots in the caravan. It was hot wandering around the parking lot but we got lucky- ran into Brad Ross, Evan Schmitt and Chuck Kenlan who helped get us taken care of. Heiderrific got to ride in the sweet Mustang media car while K-Man got to hang in Com 2.

Watching the race was exciting- I actually took a little bit of video with my crappy little camera. (I’ll post it later. Here’s a little factoid- the men’s pro races were MUCH faster than in previous years. In fact, the men were so fast they were within 3 minutes of catching the women on the circuit race.) Well, once that was done- dinner and off to the Bend Division of the Cross Crusade. Needless to say, I didn’t get to bed until 4 AM. I woke up 4 hours later for the drive back to Salem (for most of which H was asleep and fortunately not snoring).

I am tired and grumpy. But I am happy to be home with T-Girl. I missed her.

Thank you to Amy and Henry Abel for letting us crash at their place. None of our time at Cascade would have been possible without their generosity in opening their home to us.

Big hug and congratulations go to Heidi for hitting it out of the park with the now famous picture of Chris Horner that appeared on the front page of Velonews (getting billing over the Tour de France). If you didn’t know- her photos also made it onto Astana’s website. Keep an eye out for her.

Steve Yenne’s little gal also got billing on Astana’s website. (follow link above)

Good luck to Jacob Rathe who left for Worlds!!!!! We’re all rooting for you!

Blogs- Cascade Related

Heidi also made a couple posts about Dominique Rollin, Toyota United and about a certain Brad Ross party. (She forgot to mention her ordeal of her contact flying out of her eye during a ride on Thursday. Trying to deal with that was interesting.)

Sam Johnson has been busy blogging- first with a great picture from the crit, the top 5’s (coolest and painful) of Cascade and about getting walloped at the TT.

Ivar has been posting about Cascade too. Day 0, 1, 2, 3. His reports include some nifty power profiles.

Jessi Brunson has a little post about Cascade.

Blogs

Martha Walsh has an update on what she’s been doing (which included telling me that I was going the wrong way on the circuit race yesterday. )

Adnan recently posted his report on day 7 of the TransAlp. Here’s day 6.

Galen attempted to ride McKenzie Pass.

Derwyn posts about the last Tabor and Monday PIR.

Jason Sager has been out riding around Mt. Hood.

Kennett chilled out taking photos of the last Tabor- and has now taken off for Belgium.

Molly has a quick update of goings on.

Heather V. is getting back into racing fitness!

Steven B. posts some track racing videos.

OK. I’m tired now. Time to go to bed.