Robert Winder

Head over to La Fuga - the latest in fine cycling in the heart of Italy.

Some great friends and pure English inginuity have launched an epic cycling holiday company - La Fuga.  The focus is to enjoy, train and then participate in the Italys finest Gran Fondo events.

See if this doesn’t whet your appetite for a fine riding experience.

Congratulations to all involved with the Contra Costa Composite HS Mtb Team.  The team confirmed their 3rd place overall with some great individual performances at Boggs Camp this weekend.

Ben, up and coming strongman of the East Bay, took another win and the series overall in the JV Boys.  Fantastic performance riding strongly off the front.

Ruth took a creditable 3rd on the day and 5th overall in the Freshman/Sophmore Girls.

Lots of epic tales from all on the team.

A great heaping of thanks to Lesley and Craig for all their guidance and coaching this season.  Thank you!

(Lots of great pics to be posted from Flickr as soon as Ruth and Anna upload them)

Both M123 & P12 at EBC Crit were won by CalGiantBerry.

M123 had a good break of 4 including CalGiant, Joel, Rich Juarez and Chris Carscadden from Adobe/HDR pb Lombardi Sports(!).  I got there 20 minutes after the start and the break looked strong, so it proved with all 4 riders working well and getting a 35second gap at the most.  The bunch was disorganised and MS had the numbers but not the horses to get the gap back.  Little moves kept going off the front, but never enough to make a dent on the high-powered break.

The 4-up sprint was easily taken by ? from CalGiant with Joel, Rich and Chris following in that order.  Nice way to get the team BAT points up, Chris - great ride.

Then it was off to Bestbuy for a new camera, just back in time to get photo’s of the proseys race.

The beauty of the camera is it lets me take 250 photos in focus - but then most have the composition of a 3 year old with a Polaroid.  Sorry for you Flickr friends - you have to see more than your fair share of air and focus on the grass shots.

Back to the prosey race, we had Darin Devine, Paul Sumner, Shaun Harless and Chris willing to work it out.  Paul got in the early move for V for Viktor, and all was well until a prime unleashed some Belarus sprinting prowess and the break disintegrated.  Joel and Viktor rode together for a few laps before succumbing.   Darin and Shaun went on the move, but the rest of the race was made up of BPG launching attack after attack, well it was more like Viktor after Viktor…

With 3 to go Viktor disappeared up the road and it looked all over, until CalBerry setup the chase.

With one to go my new camera caught Vik and ? from CalBerry in chase and field a way back.  By the finish, ? was replaced by Briggs and Viktor was gone.  It looked like Briggs from Bosch and in the closing field I think that Paul Sumner took somewhere 5-8th - results TBD.

As we left the parking lot the BPG team looked in deep thought and discussion, they dominated the race, but ended with only 3rd and CalBerry with their small team punished the tiring Viktor.

Nice riding by all today… although a special mention for Alice Pierce from Metromint who came down in the W3/4 race and broke her elbow.  A nasty injury that Mex had a couple of years ago and will need some time to heal.  Get well soon Alice.

Thanks Hernando for the “Ruth props“.  She’s so excited by the sport that I can’t believe it.

Ruth has been out representing whilst Mex and me are playing Dr’s and cripples and for a 14 year old kid she shows more maturity than many.  Don’t cross her though, she’s not afraid to tell you what she thinks.

She’s on the prowl in two series - NorCal HS MTB and the NCNCA Junior Points - and has been out representing by herself in the womens 4’s races.  She’s doing ok in MTB - not really our scene - but for a first year and on a borrowed 15 year old bike and Mex’s tight fitting shoes,  she’s really excelling.  There are some in the series that are truly gifted, and then there are others that are pushed by parents to excel.  We subscribe to the “if you want to do it…” kind of racing, and Ruth is really enjoying it all.

Her schedule is crazy busy:

• April 13th - Fort Ord - MTB - 6th
• April 26th - Wente RR - won her age group
• April 27th - Wente Crit women 4’s - won a prime (by a country mile)
• May 3rd - Cats Hill - won her age group
• May 4th - Toro Park - MTB - 7th

There is no stopping her.  She’s raced more times than me in 2008 so far.
The dilemma is that the final MTB race of the series clashes with the U-16 NCNCA District RR championships - go figure.  Ruth’s response “will I be racing against 2 others in the RR?  Because, winning a jersey like that isn’t important to me.” - I wish I had her maturity.  Astounding.

Apart from a handful of races at the back-end of 2007 this is her first season.  Not only that, but she’s hardly out training because she doesn’t want to ride by herself.  Having said that, I did get a text from her last week that said “I’m going on the trainer”.  Oh.

She’s getting a ton of support from too many to name, it all helps, thank you!

If this is living vicariously then BRING IT ON!

Two weeks Mex was training in Danville and in the rush to continue her motherly duties she took a corner too quickly, and in the wet, she came down.

She saw the Dr last week and has a suspect broken “Hook of the Hamate” - a golfers injury that requires surgery to fix.

Damn… damn… damn…

She’s a worse patient than me, very frustrated and upset that a silly accident causes so much pain that she can’t ride on the road or race - she feels that her season is passing her by.

Down… down… down…

Its been a while since any meaningful content - some might say there’s never meaningful content.

Anyway, I just saw the specialist - Dr Jensen in Orinda if you ever need a shoulder guy - its been 2 weeks since he operated on me, putting in a 4inch rod into the clavicle.  I’ve to go back in 3 weeks with x-rays and all being well I’ll be able to get back on the road after that.  Fingers crossed some more.

I’m back on the trainer since Thursday and have started ramping up the sessions to include a few intervals - no matter how boring they are.  Not sure if you can really replace the road sessions with the trainer since I’ve been lucky enough to never have needed to in the past.