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Thursday, February 19, 2009

Pretty Nice Out Right Now

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Sunday, February 15, 2009

Team Type1

Heading down to Sausalito
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Mancebo!

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AToC Stage 1 Finish

Coming soon!
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Saturday, February 14, 2009

Team Blog

We're 'reviving' our team blog.

Last year, we rarely posted on it...our last road race report was the Dash For Cash in May. Oops...the season went through September!

Anyway, here's the link to our site: Sportgenic / Squadra Ovest

I'll even make it easier to get to the blog...Here's a link directly to the blog: Squadra Ovest Blog

Lastly, for those of you with Google Reader or some other RSS feed manager, pop this link into it: http://blog.squadraovest.com/

We are going to try to keep it up this year with at least two posts per week. One will be a recap of the weekend's races and how much we kicked ass and the other will be what we are up to for the coming weekend. Throughout the year, you may also see sponsor updates, product reviews and other such bike porn.

Friday, February 13, 2009

"Let Me Google That For You"

I've been meaning to post about this for a while. It's a pretty funny site to use whenever someone asks you a simple question that a quick search on Google would have answered for them.

www.letmegooglethatforyou.com or www.lmgtfy.com

I've sent this out to a few teammates and friends...if I've sent it to you, I hope you took it in good humor. (I've never gotten a reply on one that I've sent...)

Here are a few screenshots of the end product and a link to the example I used for the screenshots, so you can see it in action.

Let Me Google That For You Example
Anyway...it's a good, fun little thing to do and hopefully you will get a laugh back from it.

I had the honor to send my friend one today...best part of that one is that she works for Google! Ha...love it.

Have fun with it!

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Race Blog is Back!

Ok, time to bring this blog out of retirement now that the season is underway.

Much of this blog will seem like a repeat of 2008 because the schedule is pretty much the same...new category for me, same races...

Today was my first crit as a Cat 2, The Cherry Pie Criterium in Napa, CA. There was a lot of hype coming into this race because it is only 1 week before the Tour of California and many of the pro's are in town. The Garmin-Chipotle team was pre-registered and there were rumors of Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer to show up. Unfortunately, Garmin-Chipotle pulled a no-show and Lance and Levi turned out to just be rumors. We did have a good number of pro's show up and race though; Bissell Pro Cycling, BMC, OUCH & Kelly Benefit Strategies were in attendance.

The Course:

One mile closed loop in Napa Valley Corporate Park. One moderate hill at start/finish with 180 degree turn at top of hill, three 90 degree turns, one looping turn, and one right-left chicane.




The Weather:
The sky was threatening rain and it was in the 50's...and there was a strong headwind while coming up the hill...matter of fact, the entire course was windy.

Race Recap:
Jan and I made sure to get a good position in the start because there were over 120 riders in our race. I felt pretty good and was able to hold position near the top 20-30 for most of the race. The pace felt ok to me. There were times when we seemed to crawl up the climb and this is where I was able to move back up into position and then there were many times that we were strung out single file as the pace was pushed to the extreme. Let's just say that I was pretty happy when the announcer was yelling "4 to go!"

Jan and I were in a pretty good spot to give a decent showing in the field sprint, but mid-way through the final lap Jan was taken out in a pretty hard crash. He managed to get away with some road rash and luckily no broken bones. I just cruised in with the main pack, happy to finish the race without getting dropped.

I think that this season is going to be a good one for us...I'm feeling pretty good and Jan was flexing some muscle out there and would have pulled off a good finish in the field sprint if not for the crash.

In other categories, our 3's pulled off a 2nd place finish (Great job Carmi...soon to join Jan and I as a Cat 2). And our Cat 4's got 2 in the top 10 (more possible upgrades!)