Coppoporolis is bound to be hard...

...when the likes of Levi Leipheimer shows up. That guy is a friggin' bike riding robot. It was a really hard race, as it always is, but with Levi, BJM, Jackson Stewart, John Hunt, etc. are all in attendance you can be assured that there will not be many finishers! The field wasn't that big to start with which makes it even worse. This might have been partly due to a crit being put on by the Velo Squirrels today as well.

The I went around for the first 2 laps, keeping out of trouble and watching everyone get flats. I went through a pot hole going 40 mph on the downhill and I though I'd broken a spoke. The wheel still looked straight so kept going. As we started our 3rd lap Levi attacked through the feed zone and I didn't hold his wheel, even though I'd been sitting on it for the last 10 miles. It was ridiculous, that guy is so fast. I came apart on the climb. My tire was rubbing my frame when I stood to climb and it was making noise so I stopped to switch wheels with my teammate, Dennis Guikema, who had a flat earlier on. That put my even farther behind the chasing group but I still felt like trying to race. As I was going along on the flats above the big climb with another guy when a car comes burning past us with who else but Dave Fuentes tucked nicely in its draft... That guy just can't seem to race and not cheat. And he wears headphones while racing, which I feel is insulting. I pretty much pulled the plug after that and rode back to our sweet RV, Big Red.

Many may have noticed Big Red in the last few weeks, we had it out at the Pilarcitos races a few weeks back and we drove it to Copperopolis this week! Elliot Jaramillo, team member and ancient warlord is the proud owner of this monstrosity and he and Brian Rutherford have done a hell of a job fixing it up and getting it set for use by the team for racing. The thing sleeps 4 easily and is totally punk rock. Elliot had it out at the feed zone, which means we had to turn it around in the street and drive it back down the narrow road. When groups of riders came past, we were pulling off to the side to let them pass. Finally we hit a soft spot and sure enough- mired. We had that thing sunk on one side right to the running boards. It did not look good. We were really tired, and pissed that our glorious RV was stuck, embarrasingly on the race course. But, luckily enough a trio of helpful and enthusiastic Safeway Bagboys opted to lend a hand and give 'er a push! Incredibly, after some rocking and pushing we managed to get Big Red free! We left a 30' long, foot deep burnout in that mud! It looked like there had been a truck pull contest there. We rewarded our samaritans with a 22oz chocolate stout and hit the road. From there it was a smooth voyage back to Oakland. It was fun even though out of our team of 6, not one of us finished the race!