Tour picks

Let's hear your 2009 Tour de France picks. Is Lance going to pull the ultimate comeback? Can Lance and Alberto work together? What about Levi? Will Carlos even have a chance? Can Mark Cavendish make it over the mountains? Will Boonen ride? Who will be caught doping? Even wiith all the unanswered questions for the tour this year it is time to make your predictions. Put your money where your mouth is. I will be the spoiler and give you mine. They are pretty standard, but it is what it is.

I think Astana will be the overall team and maybe have two winners on the podium. They are stacked. You can't beat them. Alberto, Lance, Levi, Kloden have all been on the podium in the past. Astana will win the TTT as well. There will be two people caught for doping this year, they always try. Fabian will start with the yellow jersey after winning the opening tt. Boonen will not race. To much drama. Here are my jersey picks.

GC - Alberto Contador - But rider on the best team. Lance will end up working for him the whole race and will be pretty humble about it.

Green - Mark Cavendish - Who can beat him? No one can. If he makes it over the hills he will win.

Polka dots - Andy Schleck - What can I say he goes for it.

Overall standings GC
1. Alberto Contador
2. Denis Menchov
3. Cadel Evans

6. Lance Armstrong

3 generations of GCers

Doug and I at the line up before the race.

Me pulling off the front.

Part of the monster group.

Liam coming into the final sprint!

Good thing I covered my hole in the butt before the race!

3 generations of GCers!

I didn't get to race last week because I had a church commitment. After 8 years in young men's (3 as president) I was released and made cubmaster! Yes. It is pretty laid back after ym. But I had my first pack meeting last week.

This week I pulled Doug out, who is here visiting for a few days, to ride with me. He was pretty nervous about crashing or getting dropped. But he did great and hung in the whole ride. In the last curve there was a nice crash right in front of Doug, but he managed to stay up. I hung in there and yet again couldn't finish with the sprint. I finished 7th and Doug said he came in around 15th. There were around 50 riders and we averaged 25 (with a big fat head wind). It is pretty fast the whole race. I spent a lot of time off the front and payed for it in the final sprint.

After the race Liam got to do the kids race. He was so excited to do it. I had built it up all day long for him and he was pumped. Liam told me he wanted to win! Instead of doing the short sprint down the straight away, he went all the way around the loop. He was loving it. When he got done he said, "I won!" The next generation is coming up quick.

Skyline Trail

Ogden valley from the base of BL peak

I don't think Daren or Glen could ride this!

First look at BL peak coming off the switch backs.

This is powder mountain road. It is 3000 vertical in 5 miles. Test yourselves on the 27 race.

The trail was still rough in some areas.

This is the trail looking back at Pineview.

This is the trail head starting up the switch backs.

Hello to all. My last post for the ladies was about the Little Red Riding Hood race in cache valley. I had alot better post written but it got deleted as I tried to remove a picture, and I couldn't face doing it all over again. I took some pictures of my adverture up the skyline trail from the divide up to the base of Ben Lomond peak. It is still pretty wet and patches of snow on top. It is a tough climb and challenging descent, but it was beautiful. I played in a golf tournament today, still a cat 1 golfer. I shot 71 and we didn't even get to wet. I was going to ride with Daren and T and Glen but they got serious wet and cold up Little Cottonwood, so today golf was the better choice. Happy father's day to all you Dad's tomorrow. Ride Safe.

Doug

The 100 milers

The 67 mile group

Congratulations to all the GC Connection ladies. You will have to get all the inside stories from them. Ride Safe Doug

Wet and wild

Kim and I ran into quite a micro burst at the end of the 100 miler Sat (us old ones have no sense). We had a great ride and everyone was so excited about the North Ogden Divide at mile 55. We all got up great, but that is a hard climb. Hopefully our next ride will not be quite so wet. Ride Safe
Doug

New member

The newest member of the GCConnection family.

Noah talked me into doing a tandem ride. We road ten miles and averaged just over 17 mph.

He had a blast and wants to ride everyday (watch out Mindy).The bum shot (Mindy and I laughed with his saggy bum)
Daren, I don't know how you ever put this skin suit on. it almost fits Noah and he's a size 8 year old)

Thanks to Russ for the new ride for Noah. He has been on it everyday.
We build a jump so he could catch some big air.
He rides over it great, but not much air yet.

Pre-air action shot.

boxed in

Did the Eugene crit again this week. This year has been tough. Each race has over 45 people and very fast. The average speed has been 26 mph for both races. That wouldn't be so bad, but there is a 20 mph headwind coming on the back stretch. My average heart race has been for both races 169. I am trying to kill myself with these things. This week we had some fast guys in the group, so I wanted to stay up in the front. I worked really hard to stay up there and brought back a few break aways. I was feeling really good. Going into the last corner I was around 7th and making my way up the outside. A guy pulled off the front and boxed me in. It was very frustrating because I knew I could move my way up to the front. Not only did he stop right in front of me, but he sat right up. I lost all my momentum and had nowhere to go. I was on the outside by the curb so I couldn't go around. It was frustrating, but the life of crit's. You never know what will happen!

More pics

I will start off by telling you that Bub's half naked photo's of his crash last year (and his desire for more pics) inspired me to post the pictures Mindy took after I got out of the painful shower last night.

First, my elbow (doesn't look to bad clean)

The finger

The finger braces to keep them from getting hit or bent

My hip/butt

My quad which I still can't figure out how it got hit.

My back and opposite shoulder (right side) which is weird because I landed on my left side.

I forgot to take a pic of my left

My uncut but Jammed and bruised finger

I went out for a light spin today and the bike felt good, but my finger hurts if I hit a bump and its a bit hard to shift/break. But the funny thing about today is my heel is killing me. I guess when I went down I stuck my foot out to catch myself (which I believe limited the damage to my body and bike), but gave me a nice heel bruise.

Ogden Crash Crit

It has been a while since I posted, I've had alot of things I thought about posting but some how they haven't made it on the blog. Since my last post we have been to Brady's and Alissa's in Oregon. Brady treated me to a fun little road race. If it just didn't have this steep little hill I would have been OK. We went to Jill's graduation from Law School in Laramie and then went back a week later to help them pack, clean and move back to Utah. The graduation was great and we were so glad we went. I hope I don't have to drive through lovely Wyoming for awhile. I did get to go over to Denver while in Laramie and pick up some buddies at the airport and go play golf and go to two Rockies vs Dodger games. We had a great time at the games but I felt guilty as Adam and Russ weren't there watching their home boys in blue. I hate them both, go Cubbies. Major league baseball in person is pretty dare cool. I have been sick with sinus infections for a month and thought I was better, but I raced the crit tonight and was hacking up crap all race and feel like I can't deep breath on hard exerition. There was a big C group with this being the first race. I looked around and was abit nervous as it was a new course with some funny turns and alot of weird riders. I went to the front right off to hopefully stay out of trouble. The pace was fast and there was a hard wind from the east that you had to ride into for half the lap. I was feeling good but about after 5 laps going around a corner I feel this thud on my rear wheel and realize I have been drifted into by a crazy lady. I thought I was going down for sure, but I didn't want my new bike to take a hit so some how I got my right foot upclipped and did the right leg slide dance at 25 miles and hour trying to keep it from going down. I slide it out but torqued my sliding leg pretty good. I checked and the bike was OK so I soft pedaled until the group caught me and jumped back on til the end. It was fast and scary and I'm not sure there are to many of these in my future. I was watching Adam's race and decided to jump in on his group and ride a few laps. I didn't know it was a pream lap and was killing myself to get on as I look up to the corner and see Adam on the ground with another guy. I was there 10 seconds after the wreck and checked on Adam, then the bike and the other guy. He was hurt pretty bad and not responding. I'm sure he has a broken collar bone as he had the bad angle and hang. We came back to my house and cleaned Adam up, but he is going to have a sore finger for some time.
At least you still have the finger. Bladed spokes can do bad things.

Nice finger!

This is Adams sliced off finger. This is the ring finger here, so don't be offended.

Well I hope Adam recovers quickly. I'm not to sure about these crazy crits, or should I say the people that ride in them. Good luck to the GC ladies in the Little Red on Sat. It will be a first in distance for many of them, so ride safely and enjoy. The additions to our team kit our complete in design and ready to order. I am sending in the order in the next few days for you need to get your desires in. Doug

Not down in Eugene

Sutt that is not good. I still have the scars from my fall last year. We had our first crit out here on Tuesday. With my knee slowly recovering I was wondering how I would fair. My training is not what it was compared to last year. I am a little behind after taking a lot of February off to try and recover from my tendinitis. But my knee is starting to feel better ... slowly. Not quite 100% yet, but it isn't getting worse.

I am pretty disappointed that they increased the price by 5 bucks and shortened the laps/time. I was hoping the prizes would be better, but they aren't. But I was happy to be riding in them again. I sat back at first to get a feel, and only closed the gap a few times. I felt pretty good. I knew one guy was pretty strong so I tried to stay close to him and match him. He likes to go out early and hold it. And he did just that. Unfortunately, I got stuck trying to follow him and had to go around. I came into the sprint and finished 5th. It felt fine. A solid 5th for my first race of the year.

Be safe in your rides! Sutt recover soon. And post some crash pic's.

Down and out

First crit, first crash and I almost cut my finger off (see Doug's post for pics). The new Ogden cash crit layout is a bit sketchy with the third turn at about 15 degrees past 90 (the corner I went down in), and they cut the lap distance down to .8 of a mile per lap.

Let me now back track and start from the start.
For the first couple of laps I was just kick'n around the middle to back half of the pack (getting the legs warmed up), but this girl (who almost took Doug out in the C flight, See Dougs post for more detail) was all over and was causing gaps at every turn (she couldn't hang with the C group, what the ---- is she doing trying to ride with the B's). At this point I went closer to the front and hung out. At the first prim I didn't go for it (I always try for the second one) because I hadn't pulled and I thought it would be a bit crazy being the first one of the year.
After the prim sprint about ten of us kept the tempo going for a lap or so, but with no organization and nobody really wanting to pull into the wind we didn't stay away and that is when the problems came. The group would go from about 28 down to 22 and then back up. I didn't sprint once (went down going into the last corner before the second prim sprint) and my max speed was 31 and the group average (for the 22 min I stayed upright) was 24. A real yo-yo group and that wasn't even in the turns.
So going into the last turn I'm about 4th wheel right next to the guy who just missed out on the first prim when the winner of the first prim shoots up next to me from the sand bag in the back only to clip the guys wheel right in front of me (he had no angle and over shot the turn) as we exit the last turn. I start to see his front wheel wobble and at first I think he might ride out of it, but then slam he goes down right in front of me. I try to wheelie over the back end of his bike in an effort not to go down or endo, but something went wrong and I flew over the bike hit the ground on my left side. As I'm flying/slide across the ground I feel my left ring finger bend back and I thought it would break (funny what your body feels and is thinking of during a crash). Little did I realize until later that my finger somehow got jammed into my front wheel. I do know that it stopped my wheel from spinning because I felt it hit the fork like when a kid jams a stick in the spokes.
So most of my finger nail is cut off (see Doug's pics), most of the skin from the first knuckle down is also gone, a few cuts on my elbow, shoulder, quad, hip, bruised heal and I jammed my pinkie good. Luckily no broken bones and Doug was right there to make sure the BIKE WAS OKAY!! Which was good. (only came out with a flat front tire and a few small scratches.) As the night carries on my hip is stiffening up and my heal is making it hard to walk. Other than that things are great as long as I don't hit my finger (Mindys typing for me).
Back to the crash. After walking around in pain for a second my first thought was if the bike was okay. Once that was confirmed I thought about jumping back in the crit, but my finger was bleeding to bad and hurting. And then the adrenaline wore off and I knew I was done. I guess I'll find out how bad it really was after a nights sleep.