OK, sorry for no posts.

We're slackers.

Anyway, I was totally planning on doing a report from last weeks Madera stage race, but the whole ordeal was so bothersome and tiring that I've just been putting it off. So here's all you need to know.

-Big Red totally broke down on the way to the first stage on friday. We were in Turdlock, and we rented a 29' diesel Uhaul truck. We made it to the race, barely. We all rode horrible TT's, except Dennis who raced in sandals since he forgot his shoes in Big Red. He set the course record for racing in sandals.

-Since we didn't have Big Red, we had to get a motel room. Dennis was our ambassador to the teenage front desk girls. He did some sweet talking to get us a non smoking room. This also got us a phone call to the room to see if we wanted to join the girls for a swim in the pool. I've never heard of motel employees calling guests to see if they want to hang out, so this was a first. We never did get to go swimming with the girls, but it did result in a lot of talk about Aaron "taking one for the team".

-I missed the start of the second TT by around 30 seconds, and about 3 pedal strokes into my race I was stung on the forehead by a bee. I think I had a pretty bad time. I've still never seen any results from this race so I don't really know.

-In the crit we had some seriously poorr communications within our team regarding our plan for the race. This resulted in Christian getting in the winning move and putting 45 seconds into the group which included our GC guy, Jesse. This little prank cost him 3rd place overall. It was a learning experience.

-We ate at a very swanky italian restaurant which had a guy playing accordian and everything. I ate about 3/4 of my meal before realizing that my pasta had meat sauce. Yuck.

-In the road race, we all rode pretty well really. Jesse didn't loose any time and maintained 4th place, and we all pretty much did our jobs. I was able to race 85 miles in the heat and not get cramps, which is pretty much a first for me. It seemed like a pretty easy race actually.

-It was really nice to get home. I hate Madera, Chowchilla, the central valley and meat sauce. I'm very lucky to be on a team that can work together to overcome adversity. Well, we didn't exactly overcome it, but we had some laughs. Actually it was a pretty expensive weekend and we totally took it in the shorts.

Oh well, there's a parking lot crit tomorrow and I've got some cool new wheels so I'm amped. And next weekend- Cat's Swill!