The picture on the right is about 5 years old.....I was a cat 3...in Jackson Hole, WY...raced like 6 time a year and couldn't start my season
until April or may and that was usually in the snow and peppered with weekly climbing and skiing trips.....the pic below is from a from a year ago.....I now live in Marin Ca, train 5 days a week... year round. I've gone from a do it all 180 lb, climbing, skiing, biking, carpenter bum. to a lean 165lb Lycra clad stick figure.........My body has been completely changed. I wear pants with a wast size of 31 instead of 33 or 34...I've added new holes to my belt....and my old tight shirts that I was notorious for wearing hang off of me......I have no face or ass..............and the thought of climbing rocks and mountains scares the shit out of me........

I feel like a different person with vivid flashbacks of a previous life when I used to run up and down mountains like this all day with nothing but a man purse,(an almost uselessly small pack that can barely hold a water bottle, sticky climbing shoes, windbreaker, and cliff bars). I sure miss it..........but can't imagine what it would be like to jump back into that life.....forward and onward for now.....the bike is where I belong in this moment. Have to save these images for my dreams.

Cherrie Pie 2010 the second time around

A new season is finally under way. New teams, same faces, different jerseys. Its interesting trying to figure out who is who....and on what team....but I'll tell you what.
The team to pay attention to seems to be Yahoo Cycling. They have some strong individuals. However, their real strength lies in two areas, shear numbers and the wisdom of X-Olympians/professionals....this will be a team that is going to be very competitive all year. I think Cal-Giant has finally been knocked off of their pedestal and has been sent hurtling backwards trying to get a grip on things..........Me, well, I'm looking forward to being the underdog......its a ton of fun.

Here's how it went down.
The Pace was brisk from the gun, and moving around was way easy. I followed Andrew Talansky and a Yahoo rider with the first move....After that was brought back...I chilled for a bit and when the next combo of cal giant and yahoo went up the road I easily latched on.....Each attempt was brought back, however, which is probably a given since we were only ten laps in.
I don't remember exactly, but about 20 min into this 60 min race I dug super deep, trying hard to sell something that looked as thought it was going to stick. Well I think I was the big fish taking the bait and I blew up pretty hard. Hard enough to miss out on the next move with included 5 yahoo riders and a member or two of every other team worth a shit. Bummer....that was the race.
The rest of the time we played a game of burn your matches and be a rabbit....While all the Fox's were up the road. Riders kept digging deep trying to make it across solo......but yahoo kept a leash on everything.

Yahoo keeping me under control....or contained ..whatever you want to call it.

I had only one teammate at this race, Eric Ficher. He's the CA U-23 state champ and this was my first time racing with him. Eric surprised me with his heads up racing and I'm excited to race with him in the future. One moment that makes me happier than anything, was seeing Eric following a cal giant rider up to my wheel after I put in a huge effort to get away and bridge up to the leaders. To me this is heads up racing...we had two teammates and no yahoo's in it. The only problem is that I have no throttle control and hit the gas a bit hard for too long, opening up a gap that required a lot of effort for Eric and cal giant to cross...by the time they made it up to me we were all pretty cooked and only stayed away for a lap and a half. My bad...for sure, I should have let up or let off as soon as I had the gap or not jumped so hard since It wasn't my intent to go it alone.. Still learning my own strengths and it can be a fine line......you don't allways have to give the biggest effort you have. Any rate it was a fun season opener and I consider this on the job training......I'm learning quick....and I'm glad to have a teammate thats keying in to an aggressive style of racing.
In the end I took a top 10 in the field sprint, and Eric finished safely in the pack.
I'm very happy with my form and felt like I could move around easily in the bunch. This makes me very excited for the later part of the season.
Especially The Gila, Elkhorn Classic, and Nationals.
Cheers.



P.S,
I LOVE MY PEGORETTI
Its by far the best bike on the planet.
and I raced it with clinchers.