with so much time on his hands hopefully jan (aka michael knight) will visit supercuts.

basso just got out of the chair.

for those of you that immerse yourselves into the cycling scene like jon and i:
Tour de France Pre-race favorites Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile) and Ivan Basso (CSC) were among nine riders from five teams who were ruled out of the 93rd Tour de France. Ullrich's and Basso's names were on a list of riders released by Spanish authorities late Thursday that were alleged to have contact with Eufemiano Fuentes, the Spanish doctor at the center of an suspected blood doping ring.

drugs make thugs

thanks for all of the emails and phone calls from everyone. jon is doing better, but road rash takes a while to heal. he rode the trainer today.

jon got very lucky yesterday when a bluish gray minivan with three 20 year olds decided to not stop at the blatantly red stoplight. most of the blow went to his bike, which got swept out from under him, he hit the window and hood with his body then went flying off to the side, thankfully never hitting his head the whole time. when the bike was swept out from underneath him he managed to badly sprain his right thumb and break a really really small bone in his left hand. (imagine jon in two lobster splints) he also has some road rash all over his left upper side. friend and fellow cyclist, kori seehafer saw the whole thing happen and was with jon after the accident and helped call 911 and keep him company. a huge thanks to her.

i hesitate to even post this accident, because it makes my parents worry about this sport that jon and i chose.

jon eating a french fry and posing with his new boxing glove wrap.

i got my hair cut today. just trimmed, nothing special.

here is an overview of stages 2 (criterium) and 3 (time trial). the crit went okay. i got 3rd and anne did a good job of stringing out the field the last couple of laps. i also won 2 primes, and some money. yeah. then went into the time trial with a 22 second lead over time trialing guru, mat-ee-ja (that's how you pronounce her name, i can't spell it though) she ended up going really fast in the time trial and beating me and pushing me back to 4th place overall. bummer. jon got 6th in his overall. it was a good race, well run, and beautiful surroundings. the time trial we had today was at 9,000 feet, and my legs felt the altitude.

here are some pics from today's time trial.

jon before the time trial. i believe this is his sporticus pose. and...

i believe griffin taught it to him.

syrae and anne in front of the lincoln memorial. just a little history: I-80 was the first transcontinental road and abraham lincoln helped "get 'er done". this is the highest point on the interstate at 8500 feet. I-80 goes from NY (i believe) to SF.

warming down after the time trial.

syrae put this mullet airfreshener in my car. surprisingly, it smelled quite good.

jon and i met up with syrae and anne and are staying at the hojo from hell in laramie, wyoming. let's just say cleanliness is not top priority here at the hojo.

we did the stage 1 of the dead dog race today. it was a 62 mile out and back, the women's race was pretty calm until we hit the 7 mile climb up in medicine bow national park. it was beautiful, but i was so tired that i was unable to enjoy the beauty. i ended up getting dropped on the climb, but when we went downhill i caught back onto the lead chase group, and then sprinted in for 3rd place.

jon flatted in his race, and finished with the pack. we are both in good shape for the overall.

no pics for now. sorry.

last night the girls went up to meegan's parents house up on sawmill road (between ward and nederland). it was a 30 minute drive from boulder, and i have only ridden my bike up there, so it was strange to drive. you can see the continental divide looking west (with a small hike) and kansas looking east. it is pretty awesome.

on the way we spotted this bear on lee hill drive. i have only seen a bear one other time in my life. this guy was really little and drooling. i guess that is better than really big and drooling.

meegan's graduating class. go ned high school!

her parents live "off of the grid" and even have their own solar panels and windmill.

here is the the cpu of the house.

when the power gets low meegan has to hop on the bike to run the electricity. (not really, this is just the homemade bike stand that they have in the garage. it is really a good idea, and way cheaper than the park tool stands.)

erin the huckmeister did the boulder short track race last night. here she is schooling the local talent in her retro spoke gear.

carmello small of state criterium champion fame broke her collarbone at the stillwater crit in minnesota. get well soon carmello. she is getting married in a month, and getting fit for that wedding dress is going to be real painful.

the denver post has an article on alison "kung pow" powers. click here.

picture from the nature valley time trial. the whole thing was one big time trial to me though, because i was trying to catch back onto the group for the majority of the 5 day race. there was a steady crosswind the whole way during the 90 mile mankato loop. (i know you think that is impossible, but it felt that way) i pulled out of the race at mile 66 due to overheating, goosebumps, dehydration, and lack of talent.

so after the road race we went to hooters.

why did we go to hooters? um, i really don't know. ask kenny and syrae. the thing about hooters is that there are families in there having dinner. you should have seen the teenage boy's eyes popping out of their heads.

kenny gets "de pants" by her mother at camp snoopy in the mall of america. this was the funniest part of our trip. my stomach was sore from laughing so much at this picture. i have blacked out sections to protect the younger blog readers.

back to racing...
here is mara our little apple eater after the mankato 90 miler from hell. she ended up 7th in this race, and then 8th overall. i was very impressed.

i had a great time being a "guest" rider on the rio grande/sports garage team. they were a ton of fun. good times all around.

this is a friday update, i have been without internet service for three days and i think i am going through withdrawal.

before the downtown criterium it started hailing "golfball" sized hail. the streets flooded so much that the sewer caps were coming off due to overflow underground. we were all hoping for a canceled crit, but they just shortened it. it was fast, and scary. the lipton girls went to the front and hammered which left the rest of us all praying to get through. there were no crashes, which was quite amazing.

mara warming up during the storm, she is holding down the tent and warming up at the same time. she is a bit extreme, but maybe that is why she wins collegiate national championships and places high in national races. honestly i thought there would be a twister that was going to take us away while we were holding down the tent.

we threw our bikes under a tree and headed into the van when the hail started. it hailed for about 10 minutes and we were all worried about our bikes. they were fine though.

after the crit we went home. here is kenny wondering when the rain is going to stop!

picture from the metro ride home after the crit. this was definitely the most exciting commute to and from a race that i have ever done. we rode there with some crazy friday night traffic and then rode to the metro in a huge rainstorm. it was pretty epic.

yesterday's road race my cassette fell off and i was feeling really good too. i am bummed. they gave me a dura ace 10 spd wheel when i have campy and said it would work fine, it didn't. i had about 8 working gears. i did get in some good time trialing efforts in since i kept bridging up to groups for 30 of the 50 miles. kenny did awesome, alison did awesome, mara did awesome, carmen did awesome (got 10th), sharon got into a crash still did awesome, laura d. got into a crash, trish waited for laura and syrae and I finished in the same group 11 stupid minutes back.

syrae's mom evette cooks us some crepes for breakfast. she has cooked for us every meal since we've been here, it is officially turned into fat camp 2006.

we had the time trial last night. allison powers my rio teammate is sitting pretty in 3rd place. it is so exciting to race as a team for another person as opposed to usually just thinking of myself and being in survival mode.

from left to right, mara 37 apples a day abbot, syrae with her alien "we come in peace helmet", sharon the jack hammer (my vc teammate), bfisk, and kenny flying under the radar of drug control keeley in 113 place.

racer gut hits kenny hard. a little girl looks on in concern.

last night kenny and i flew into Minneapolis (which translates into mosquito in native american) syrae picked us up and we are staying at her parents house.

this morning we rode around town in the convertible. it was good times.

the tin man's house on the mississippi river.

kenny practices her no hands riding.

the family after the christening.

a big wave

jon and griffin have fun swimming in the pool. we had a blast hanging out with everyone in houston this weekend. we stayed in the pool for about 8 of the 48 hours we were there. it's the only way i can handle the heat.

when i was a kid, i had to use a hose and make up a slide. not here. they have the hot new slide "banzai falls" in their back yard. it was fast and fun.

however, not made for full grown adults as seen here when griffin and i fly off the end.

when griffin got off of the toilet he decided to put his dora the explorer training seat on his head. he then pulled it down around his head, and then couldn't get it off. everyone in the family tried a different method of trying to get it off, until finally we got out the yard tools.

all smiles

we finally had to cut the thing off of him. it was hilarious.

went for a ride with jon and the rio girls, kenny and syrae.

climbing flagstaff, kenny puts the hurt on mr. overdressed, jon.

kenny has mastered the art of showering in her shammy.

today i attempted a 4 hour ride and made it to the amphitheater on flagstaff and had to call it a day. my legs are real tired. here is the view from up there. you can kind of see where jon and i got married, on that grassy lawn down below at chautauqua.

then the girls all met up at erin's place and had dinner. she has a great view from her front porch.

bridget, erin, and meeeegan enjoying some soy ice cream.

failed attempt at dishing the soy.

later bridget showed us all how to do the "texas kick". she is an expert texas kicker.

my attempt at the kick. i believe "the kick" is made perfect with embellished facial expressions. just like the silverado drill team at my high school.

meegan and erin attempt "the kick".

bridget sets us straight by showing us one more time, you can see the girls saying, ohhhhhh, that's how you do it. in the end we never quite got it.

meegan believes that "the kick" is all about wearing the appropriate texas foot wear.