I finally won the jersey at the state hillclimb championship. The race is 20 miles up Mt Graham in Safford. The start is at about 3400ft and the finish is over 9000ft at a decent grade (maybe 7% average) with quite a few steep switchbacks. This year a Mexican team (P&S) showed up with some strong guys, but fortunately they weren't eligible for the state championship jersey. After a few early attacks, Carlos Lopez (winner of Tour of Guatemala 07) attacked the lead group. I didn't respond as I was thinking about the jersey.

The course is only 12.5 miles (4.4 flat then abruptly climbing 2000’ for the remaining 8.1 miles). Our field took the flat at a very mellow pace, then the _ _ _ _ hit the fan as we started the climb. In about 1 minute, the lead group was down to 6. After about 5 minutes, a solo rider accelerated away from our group. I was monitoring just one guy and felt if the escapee was a threat to the guy I was watching that he would quickly close up the gap. He did not seem bothered so we rode on as 5 as the escapee disappeared from sight.

Congrats to OA Victoria's racers, who all finished well in each of their events on Sunday! The Times Colonist Bastion Square Criterium is the biggest road race on the island, and typically one of the biggest in BC, and marks the closure of the road season here this year. The course is in downtown Victoria, a four-corner road course around the popular Bastion Square market.

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Jane, Charity, and I took Jurgen on a bike ride tonight. It was longer than 100 meters.

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Our Sonoma County chapter organized the 4th annual Tour d'Organics in Sebastopol this past weekend. Over 1000 cyclist participated. I'll get a more in depth report later, but for now suffice it say that it was awesome.

Kudos especially to all the volunteers. You rock!

I guess all that suffering out at elite nationals did me some good. I felt pretty good in training this week and pulled out the win at the Kitt Peak hillclimb TT yesterday. Most importantly, I beat a certain Bradley Saul's time from 2002 by 2 seconds!

check for yourself...

Last weekend was the elite national championships in Orange County, CA. I hitched a ride out from Tucson with my buddy Neil (saunier extraordinare) and Thomas (16 y/o cat 2). We arrived in Disneyland tuesday night, got packets and cruised over to Cara Gilles' pad in Huntington Beach.

Bike the C-Bus Bicycle Tour - August 23, 2008

The Long Street Tour's “Bike the C-Bus” is a fun way to get fit and check out a few of the neighborhoods in and around Columbus. Experience segments of the King Lincoln District, Downtown, Short North Arts District, Italian Village, University District, Harrison West, Victorian Village, Arena District, Franklinton, Brewery District and German Village.

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The Tour d'Organics preparations are well underway. Today we made the dried fruit mix (all 125lbs of it!).

I'm astounded at the amount of donations we've received this year. We have other 30 donors of food and product for the event. It's a lot to manage, but the show of support is wonderful.

We're looking forward to having everyone out this weekend.