Over on NorCal Cycling News, MH has made a very generous offer of his time to collect items from teams that may want to contribute to Christopher Knapp this weekend whilst he’s in the central valley.

I’ll do the same for the Land Park/Zamora folks.  If you’ve got a donation to make, leave a comment to let me know and I’ll make sure it gets the right place.  I’ll be doing M35+ 123s both days, so look out for me.  I will also be at Zamora ALL day Sunday as Mex is racing late.

Christopher Knapp

As a lot of you will know, Christopher is the surviving rider from Sunday’s tragedies. Christopher’s parents are flying from Germany to be with him as he recovers, but in the meantime ~ one of our own could use some love from the community.

Christopher is an intern at BMW San Francisco. A fellow cyclist and a manager at BMW, Regan Clark, will be able to collect any tokens of support we all might want to send Christopher’s way in this time of need.

Are you with me, folks?

Regan will be able to collect gifts or tokens until this Friday at the BMW San Francisco location (1675 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA 94103). A few team signed jerseys just might be what the doctor ordered. Or maybe a handwritten note? Or how about a picture of you and your team, signed in support?

Please don’t mail anything to BMW at this time as they receive hundreds of parts daily through the mail. Instead, please try and coordinate to deliver the items to the BMW shop, care of Regan Clark, if you can.

Again - if you want to donate anything to Christopher then feel free to pass it on to me this weekend and I’ll get it to the right people.

We’re struggling with the news of Kristy Gough and Matt Peterson, their sad and untimely death is a reminder to us all of the struggles we face in our chosen sport.  It’s hard to get to sleep thinking of the traumatic events on Sunday on Stevens Creek Rd, and as the descriptions of what occurred have filtered through we’re all challenged to ride our bikes again.  But we must.

There are tough sports, we know that cycling is one of them.  The efforts involved in getting fit are huge, not just to reach the ultimate goal of being a pro, but to be competitive in a Cat 4 race like Merco Crit.  The hours of riding, early mornings, late evenings, rain, wind and sunshine all impact our required training.  Cycling takes dedication.  Racing at any level in Nor Cal requires a commitment beyond many other sports at an amateur level.

Passion is the biggest demand on us.  Passion is like a demanding playmate, it consumes our whole being, a time-filler with no equals.  Passion is the driving force to get you out of bed at 5am for that pre-work training ride.  Passion is the factor that will bring you to the next level of intensity when you need it the most.  Passion… without it, we’d be playing golf.

Kristy and Matt displayed their passion for our sport, the joy of winning, the result of sacrificing so much is etched into their faces in the photos that have outlasted them.

Why do it?  Because we must.  For now as an homage to their passion, but in time, because our own demanding passion will force us to.

See you on the road.

Both Kristy & Matt were killed today on a training ride as a police car crossed double-yellow lines and crashed into them.

At the front of the W3/4 field at Foothills RR last weekend, Kristy was wearing the winners jersey from the crit the previous day (right side of the photo).  She won the road race too.

I know that she made a huge impact on the womens racing scene already this season.

I don’t know anything about Matt, sorry.

Rest in peace Kristy.

Rest in peace Matt.

Please spare a thought for both their families at this time.

I’m glad I waited a day for the perspective to come to me.  If I’d written this post last night it’d be full of self-pity and the guy that reads this blog (I call him Tom, because he’s in Belgium) would be turned off from ever reading again!  This was the stuff of dreams, sad as it sounds, but I’ve wanted this kind of day for a long time.

24 hours on, and I can see yesterdays Menlo Park GP M35+ 123 race in a whole new light.  For the first time this season we had a good team showing, Dave  “don’t call me English” Nelson, Chris “the engine” Carscadden, Steve “Quick Pop” Pelaez and me.  Dave had wanted to show himself strong and laid it all out in the break that stuck, until early season form got in his way.  With Briggs, Robertson, et al going strong it looked like game over.

Until Chris came by and hammered so many laps that my fingers  were going numb from being in the drops for so long, surely he deserved the Most Aggressive Rider award for his long solo pulls to bring the break back to under 15 seconds.  Almost as soon as he swung off he was back on the front drilling again trying to pull back the break.  Without his heroics the next chapter would’ve been even more bleak.

With 3 to go Steve called me up to follow his wheel, “I’m going nuclear if this break doesn’t come back with 2 to go”.  OK.  Steve and I haven’t ridden together yet, but I found out what its like to be on the wheel of a guy competing in the World Cup Track races - one word - “ouch”.  The nuclear war started into turn 3 and the fall out finally came after turn 2, a lap later, when I just couldn’t get on the wheel of the break, 3 bike lengths might as well have been 3 miles.  For one lap I tried to get on terms with Steve and connect to the break, but couldn’t, “Quick Pop” is more than a tag line - he was truly amazing to close that gap so quickly.

Now comes the self-pity: Guilt, thats all, I hang my head in shame at the efforts of the team.  Thanks boys for a lot of fun yesterday.  I can’t wait to repay it.

Thanks to Lori and the Velo Girls team for putting on another splendid day of racing.  The circuit is short, 4 corners and sadly today saw more than its fair share of major spills.

The paramedics were called out for W4, Master 3/4, Master 45+ fields and there may’ve been another one too…  Thats sad.  One bright note was the Cat 5 race was uneventful, although I did see a guy crash after the race - about 40 yards up from the finish line, but not sure how that happened.  They all looked bad, but Lori’s team knows how to handle the stress/pressure of the situation and the races were restarted soon enough.  I hope all impacted are well and will heal quickly.

Back to the action, Hernando was there giving a show for all, crowd, riders and officials alike.  Great job, Mike - but I’m upset you didn’t race the M35+ 123’s race.  Sometimes the speakers were too loud for the crowd across the street - but maybe thats because I’m getting old.

Again, nice races put on by Lori and team.  This is quickly turning into an early season classic after the long drives to Snelling and Merced.

See you next year?

Mex and Ruth turned up the heat in the Menlo Park GP - W4 field today.  Mex had teammate Linsey to work for and Ruth was on her own.

I’d talked with Ruth and Mex during the week about the long sprint from turn 4 and about race tactics for their race.  My feeling is that juniors racing is about learning, discovering and challenging your own ideas; so I’d told Ruth to try something, a prime, a break or just wait for the long sprint.  But most of all I just wanted her to have some fun and put her nose into the wind.  She didn’t let us down!

The W4 field was one of many that had to have the paramedics called out for.  A gal from Velogirls (I think) crashed hard and was taken off to hospital.  Apparently there was a lot of blood.  We hope she’s ok and makes a good recovery and is out racing again soon.  (Let me know).  The race was stopped and, just like in Nascar, the teams go to work fueling up and discussing tactics again.  The accident had caused a major split and many riders were shelled from the main field.  When the restart happened some of the shelled riders re-joined the main group, but no real harm was done.

Mex decided to make the race as safe as possible and hit the front hard for the first lap.  A smart move and one that paid off for all.

 Ruth had gone for a 2-up prime earlier in the race, getting beaten into 3rd place.  That was a big sprint for her and she sat in the field after that for a while.  This time though there was no stopping her.  She span the junior gears round and dominated a 4-up sprint to win a substantial prime - 2 tyres - excellent!  If you were there and were wondering why someone was so excited about a prime then let me explain to you: Ruth won a prime, and I was over the moon.  She’d called it out to herself.  She made a smart calculation that she might not get a good place in the finish, but she’d be kicking herself if she didn’t go for the prime.

Fantastic.

Meanwhile, Mex wound up the field for the last couple of laps and swung off, leaving them to chance fate and go for the big wins.

Great racing today by the two of the ladies in my life, thank you.

Thanks to Lori and team for putting on tomorrows fun in Menlo Park.

It has to be one of the least interesting crits you’ll ever do.  BUT, at least its only 45 minutes from home!  Actually, the grid on the inside of turn 2 makes it more interesting, as do the ruts that run parallel to the road between 2 & 3.

I’m happy to be there and support the local race this weekend.  See you there.

Ruth was turned down by Metromint - she’ll be riding unattached for now.

Last week I spotted that race promoters charge more for unattached riders.

I don’t understand why.

I’ve been out of the UK since 1999, good for them, bad for me.  Before I left we would ride an annual event of over 120miles with lots of climbing and some remote countryside.  It was part of a series held under the rules of Audax, one of the rules was that this was non-competitive.

Since I’ve been gone cyclosportives have become incredibly popular in the UK and also across Europe.  Cyclosportives are semi-competitive in the same way that a marathon is.  One thing that struck me is that we’ve got a dearth of popular century rides (Wine Country is one I did a few years ago), we’ve got some challenging rides like the Death Ride, but we don’t have any cyclosportives.

Judging by the popularity of these events in UK and other places, and the popularity of cycling in our region I’m thinking there could be an untapped demand for such an event in California… There could be a good section of the public that might be looking for a cross-over event, and I don’t mean seeing MH in his white skinsuit.

How about a cyclosportive in CA next time the ToC comes through - maybe we could organise the Sausilito to Santa Rosa stage route as a course, any thoughts or takers?

What a great place to race, the first downtown crit for me this season and it was such a change from the usual industrial park.  I loved the circuit, fast, technical sections, long straights - a finish that was too far up the road - it has everything.

Entered in the geezers race, me and Chris turned up determined to show ourselves - we’ve got to get our name on the podium.  So did all the other usual teams though and with the first three laps of big money primes, $100, $50, $50 to really string it out.  It was fast and furious.  We watched and followed all the big wheels early on, Chris bridged up to the stars’n’stripes of Hutchinson and 4 others only to be caught by the bunch.  2 laps later it was all over.

2 groups hammered off the front, we blinked and missed it.  Poulsen attacked hard a couple of times and Hernando countered.  With 10 up the road and the teams on the front we weren’t going anywhere.  Most of the rest of the race was safe, some diving on the inside of the chicane giving some mild heart attacks.

The final laps was under the control of Boschs new outfit - Sierra Pac? - and the sprint started early before the last turn with them letting lose the big guns.

A nice result for Morgan Stanley and congrats to Joel for another good placing.