I got a new mountain bike...finally!

'08 Yeti 575, '08 XT w/ XTR rr der. Fox Float fork. Sweeeeeet.

Georgia's petition...equal prize money for women racers

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/equalpay/petition.html

Cross Nationals, Kansas City

This last weekend the National Cyclocross Championships were contested in Kansas City, KS. I flew out thursday w/ Rachel Lloyd, her bikes, my bike, and our bags. When we got in to Kansas City, we discovered that management (you know who you are ;-p)had reserved us a standard size car, and all the company had left was a bunch of convertibles. It was about 30°, not the best weather for a droptop even if all the stuff would fit inside. We got the cheap upgrade to a nice SUV, and all the bags and bikes easily fit in, AND it had all wheel drive...which would come in handy. We went to the course after putting the bikes together at the hotel and did a couple of very muddy, cold laps. The conditions were pretty terrible, with wet soupy mud in some sections, sticky mud in others, and a small amount of wet grass. I raced on friday afternoon, the last race of the day. I got called up 96th, which guaranteed lots of fun for me. Steve Tilford got the holeshot and pretty much killed our race. I rode around and tried to destroy part of the fencing around the course. Out of 119 supposed starters, i finished 63rd, which was actually more pathetic than it seems 'cuz about 30 guys didn't start, and about 10 more dnf'd. I pretty much suck.
The next morning were the U23 races, w/ the women going first. I dragged my wheels out for Amy D. to use, and brought my camera as well. I walked to the course w/ Fred Dreir of Velonews, and he somehow mistook the fact that i was letting Amy use my wheels for her b bike as meaning that i was her "personal mechanic". Pretty funny how it says in Velonews that i was running around in the pit washing bikes while i was actually running around everywhere else taking these shots...
That's Amy on the way to her second straight U23 championship. And Natasha Cowie got on the box too...

Congratulations to 2 wonderful racers who will undoubtedly have great racing careers!

The weather was pretty bad on Saturday, with snow throughout the day, and most of the night. We woke up Sunday to clear skies and no wind. Rachel was pretty fired up about the conditions, as she is probably the most skilled bike handler on the circuit. At the start of the women's elite race she got bumped around a bit, and came through in 5th place. By the 2nd lap she had moved up into 2nd, and was slowly catching Katie Compton. As the bell rang for the final lap, Rach was about 30 seconds behind Katie. She pulled back some time, but finished 22 seconds back. It seemed to me that there were a ton of people that were really happy to see Rachel come back to cross racing and get such a great result. I wish her the best of luck in Europe and wish i could be on that plane in January!
Sunday night was the post-nationals party, which started at Dave and Busters.

After many cocktails and some ferocious video game action the crowd moved downstairs for some...

of this. I had never tried riding the mechanical bull, but it was a blast. Barry liked it too...

Andy won himself a nifty new jersey in the Masters 30-34 race, and got 6th in the elite race...but...

he got launched. It ended up being a pretty fun night...

USGP rounds 5&6, Portland, OR

Holy shit...Portland was a mess. Very similar to the mess that was the CX nationals in '04. Cool course, really sticky mud for the round 5 on saturday. After much rain overnight, they changed the course a bit and it was a bit less muddy, but no less epic. Rachel had a rough time w/ her shoes and cleats on saturday and finished in 11th. On sunday she got a great start, and was riding in the top 7 when things started happening. Things like Lyne B. crashed and ended up getting soaked from neck to toes. She pulled out right around mid-race, too cold to go on. I yelled to Rach that she had dropped out and to keep going hard. The next lap Katie C dropped out and i lost a bit more of my voice yelling at Rachel. She was catching Wendy Simms (who looks better in a dress than her b/f Norm, for sure) and i gave her the time gap. She caught and passed her the next lap, taking over 4th. With a lap to go, she was 15 seconds behind Alison S, and going faster. If the race had been a lap longer, Rach would have caught her and finished 3rd, but she ended up in 4th, a great result after saturdays problems.

I also helped out Stu Thorne w/ the cyclocrossworld.com guys, we had 2 guys per rider, Stu and Mike from Mavic Neutral support taking care of Tim Johnson, and Marc and I taking care of Jeremy Powers.

Bring on Nationals!

U.S. Grand Prix of Cyclocross, Round 1

Today was the first round of the USGP series, in Louisville, Kentucky. I travled out here w/ ProMan/Paradigm racer Rachel Lloyd to be her mechanic. She's making a full-time comeback to cross this season after previously making 2 trips to europe w/ the national team at the world championships.

We got a room across the river in Clarksville, Indiana...so that's 2 new states on this trip i've not been too before. The motel is about 10-12 mins from the course, making it pretty convinient. They've got a hose that i can use as well, but i only had 1 bike to clean today and did it at the course. I feel bad for the guy that's working for VeloBella this year...he had a ton of bikes to clean and i was done in like 5 mins! Since it's only Rachel and I, we don't have a lot of stuff w/ us when we travel...no canopy, no bike stand. Just the 2 bikes and some tools. Erik Wallace of Thule was very cool and offered us the use of his set-up, so we have a place to hang out that's covered. He's got a coffee machine in the trailer so there's always fresh stuff to keep us awake.

Rachel got a little pinched at the start and was just inside the top 10 on the first lap. She managed to make her way past some riders pretty quickly, and got up to 6th by the halfway point. Katie C was long gone off the front, and the first group was Alison S, Lynne B, Wendy S, and Kerry B. Georgial caught them and hung for a lap, and then rode away on her own after Katie. Kerry ended up coming off and Rachel got by her and that was where she ended up.

In the men's race J Powers go the win to continue a great start to his season, w/ Tim Johnson in second. Wicks got 3rd and Ryan finsished in 4th. Here's a couple of pics from the mens race...

I lasted an hour...

I went out to Livermore on Sat. the 20th to check out one of their cx races. It had been a couple of years since i last raced out there, and this event was at the same place...the lovely Livermore Rodeo Arena. This course ended up being one of the best (for me anyway) that i've raced on in quite a while. It was basically flat, w/ the usual run up the steps of the grandstands in the arena. The LARPD races are pretty small, so they grouped the A's w/ the Masters A's and single speeders, and we all raced the full hour. At the start i got bumped pretty hard by some fool trying to win the race in the first 27meters, but we all made it to the first barriers upright. To them...not over them. A bunch of guys went down and I managed to get by probably 5-6 of them. After that first double, i was on the end of a train of about 10 guys, w/ Snead, Kramer, Mtn Larry and Bodge at the front. To my surprise, i managed to stay w/ them all the way through the first lap, when i overshot a corner and got caught up the course tape and some guys got back by me. I chased for the rest of the race and picked off a couple of guys in the last couple of laps. I was pretty surprised i never got lapped by the leaders, as that usually happens in the 45min masters races i've been doing. I'm not sure exactly where i finished, but i was pretty happy w/ the way i raced, and since this is the location of the District Championships i might be able to have a decent race...if i can stay out of the damn course tape!

New scooter time...

Went up to Santa Rosa w/ Kat Carroll on tuesday to pick up a brand-new scooter for motorpacing. The U.S. Womens Cycling Development Team has a deal w/ Genuine scooters from Chicago to use their product for motorpacing. We hopped in my truck and headed north, stopping for lunch at Chilleno's burrito emporium, where some guy named Levi was also enjoying lunch (so much that he didn't have time to talk to us...). Then we headed over to Revolution Moto to pick out the machine. After much thought, Kat decided that a nice red scooter would work, and Roy went over to prep the sweet, red Buddy 125 . After he got it ready and gave Kat the low-down on how to start it, ride it, and turn it off, we loaded up and drove it home. Obviously we needed to get photos, so Kat donned her new racing striped helmet and jumped on...while the Buddy was still firmly strapped into the bed of my truck...

Mt. Tam Hillclimb...

Today was the 47th annual Mt. Tam hillclimb, an event uniquely suited to my talents...oh wait...i just live close so i do it every now and then. I wanted to beat my personal best time up the hill, which i did by about 2 mins. Which means i went slow and nearly everyone else went fast. Enough about that...i got a new cx bike friday...i actually ordered just the frame/fork, but for some reason Scott sent me a complete bike. And charged me for a complete bike. Soooooo, i guess i'll take the new parts off the Scott and put 'em on my old steel frame and do the old swapperoo. If you know anyone that wants a nice orange steel cx bike w/ brand new Shimano Ultegra stuff on it, you know who to get a hold of. Here's the new bike, an '08 Scott Team CX. While i'm at it, here's my road bike, a Bianchi Freccia Celeste. And my supermoto bike, an '04 Honda CRF250R (which is currently for sale...). And my street supermoto, an '05 Suzuki DRZ400SM (which is NOT for sale).

Another dumb crit, and some cool moto photos...

I did the Suisun Criterium the other weekend. I was really looking forward to it after Timpani seemed so easy. I have no idea at this point (well, at any point that i've been racing actually) how to tell w/ any degree of accuracy how i will feel on any given day. I felt like a total slug this time. The course was really tight, only 2 blocks long and a really short block wide. Almost felt like being on the track at one point. I was bummed to hear that Hernandez got all broke the day before...he's a great guy and is really fun to race with. Well...i'm sure he's fun to race with, but i'm not really ever there to participate in his antics as he's usually off the front and i'm buried in the pack. But anyway...i had a teamate in the race, Herve, which was cool. Less than half way in our pack was blown to bits by a 2-man break. I, of course, found myself trying hard to stay in, and got shuffled to the back of the last group, and then dropped completely a few laps from the end as we were getting lapped by the break. Blah. That was that, i changed and got invited to have some food w/ Holly, Mary-Ellen and some others. After a nice breakfast, i headed home and stopped at Infineon to check out the kart and motorcycle road races. I managed to get some cool shots and headed back home, still trying to figure out how to get ready for a damn bike race. Oh yeah, don't forget...if you want to look at the rest of my photos, they're here. Have fun browsing, and buy some pics of yourself if you find 'em!

Motorpacing is cool...

even for the guy riding the scooter. I motorpaced Kat Carroll around Nicasio Sunday morning on Kelly S.'s scooter. Holy christ, that girl can pedal a bike. No wonder she's on the...what the hell is it called? The womens national development-go race in europe a couple of times a year-super studette team, right? And that Aarons pro team, too. I've motorpaced racers a bunch of times before, but Kat was definitely cranking out the watts. Since it was a nice-ish Sunday morning, there were tons of recreational riders out Nicasio way, and we passed all of them. At least once. It was great to see the look on their faces in the mirrors as we blasted past. A couple of guys tried to jump on at one point, and i wanted to tell them to back off since they really didn't know what we were doing, and it's probably not the safest thing to have some weekend warrior sitting on your wheel at 30+ when you need to slow down or avoid something in the road. Not to worry, the one guy only lasted about 28 seconds before he blew, his pal not even that long. Kat is leaving for a 2 wk stint in europe tomorrow...i wish her the best of luck and hope the session behind the scooter helped a bit.

First mountain bike ride in a loooooonnnnnngggg time...

Got to ride the new Ibis Mojo full sus bike last week. Full carbon frame, big 'ol Fox fork on the front, 5.5" at both ends. Big tires, big brakes, big wide bars...big fun! The last time i rode a mountain bike previous to this was back at Deer Valley where i did 2.3 runs of the super-d course on a borrowed Kona demo bike. This time i got to take our shops' Mojo demo bike out to the single track at Tamarancho, up here in Marin. At least i could ride it on trails that i sorta know... a little bit.
I met one of the guys from the shop at the Javahut in hippy-ville at 8.30am and we started up Iron Springs to the Boy Scout camp. Holy crap... that bike is soooo much fun, i think i need to own one. But not 'til the shop sells our demo and i can't ride it anymore. Hell, i'd probably buy the demo, it's even a cool green color that Chuck calls "pond scum". It's got the new '08 XT stuff bolted on, and nice DT wheels w/ some sticky Kendas w/ Stan's inside. We rode all kinds of terrain and i messed around w/ the Fox fork and rear shock; the one w/ the ProPedal set-up. I had everything all locked up for the road climb, then opened it up for the trails. Both ends are really adjustable and easy to set up for great performance. Everything was going great 'til we had about 10mins of riding left and i flatted. No big deal, being a pro mechanic/bike shop service manager type guy, right? No big deal 'til both of us realized we had spare tubes, but in our haste to ride new demo bikes we both forgot to bring any way of getting air into them. Dohhhhhhh. At this point my mountain bike ride turned into 20mins of cx training, w/ the emphasis on the running part. I ran/pushed up single track. And down single track. Then i said screw it and i jumped back on and rode the flat on some smooth stuff. Then i ran some more, before we finally reached the road back down into town, which i rode down verrrryyyy slowly.
I'm riding that bike again tomorrow night and you can damn well bet i'll have a spare tube AND some CO2 cartridges w/ me!

Finally...sort of

After getting uncerimoniously dropped from the last 2...no wait...3 races i'd entered, i finally managed to hang for an entire race. I seem to have discovered a new way to prepare for a race. I used to think i needed to do a "race prep" ride, and a long warm-up to have any chance of racing well. After this weekend, i'm not bothering w/ any of that. Saturday i rode to work (15mins) in street clothes. After work i rode to my good buddy Tim's 40th b-day bbq in fairfax (10mins). I managed to put away quite a few beers, no water at all, and a bunch of food...including one of the biggest burritos i've ever seen and a slice of wonderful chocolate b-day cake. At about 11 or so i rode home, w/ a possibly legal b.a.c. (about 25mins), for a total of 50mins on the bike, all in street clothes. Sunday Niki and i drove down to Santa Clara, w/ me underestimating the drive time by about 10-15mins, leaving me about 45 mins to change brake pads, reg, change and warm-up. After about 10mins on the trainer, i rode to the start, w/ just enough time to pull in and turn around before we started. The first lap or 2 weren't the usual pop-the-slackers-off-the-back type, they were pretty mellow. The pace picked up some, but i was pretty surprised that i never felt like i had to work hard at all to stay in. At one point, about 5 laps in, i rolled up the front right as 4 or 5 guys took off. I figured what-the-hell...and jumped on the back. The group didn't get organized and never got much of a gap. A lap or 2 after that, i rolled back up the side of the group again right as everyone slowed and the pack mushroomed to take up most of the road and ended up off the front by myself. It was a pretty windy day, so i just looked back and swore i saw a couple of guys laughing at me. So, of course, i sat up and waited for them to catch me and pulled back in. We rolled around w/ nothing really happening 'til the last couple of laps which sped up some, and saw a couple of guys flat. And me get chopped into the cones on the short straight after the first corner a couple of times, losing a bunch of spots in the process. So much for feeling great for the whole race! I ended up rolling across the line in 38th or something, out of 54 finishers. I felt i could have easily finished up in the top 10-15, if i had been a bit more aggressive. Another lesson learned, i guess. And the other lesson? Don't run over the really shitty manhole cover w/ your Zipp 303's, 'cuz you'll crack the front rim just like me. That little instant made this easily the most expensive crit i've ever done.

Americans (only) in Vermont, racing mountain bikes

This last weekend the Mountain bike National Championships were contested at Mt. Snow, Vermont. I got to add another state to my list of places-i've-been. It took most of the day to get there, leaving Oakland Intl. at 6.40am wed. My flight stopped in Kansas City for a while to let some people get off (not sure why they'd want to, but whatever) and take on some more passengers. Then we flew on to Baltimore, and a 1.5hr layover. Got on another plane and made the short flight to Albany, NY. Got picked up by Alex, the manager of the Velo Bella/Kona Women's Professional Mountain bike team. We had to pick up Barb Howe and Shannon Gibson later, so we did the professional thing to do, and headed to the bar for a couple of cold ones. We went back and picked up the girls and their stuff...well, some of their stuff. Barbs' bike showed, but not her bag. After we determined that the bag was for sure not in the immediate area, we took off for Vermont. We had directions, maps, people who had made the trip before, we were set. Why we ended up getting sooooo close to Canada is beyond me, but we really took the long way to Mt. Snow. We'll just say we were a bit later than we expected in getting to the house. Thursday was a pretty mellow day, the girls rode the xc course, and Rachel Lloyd (who had come out to win the Super-D) took some practice runs. It started raining in the afternoon, and turned most of the mountain into a wet/grassy/muddy mess. The XC championship race for the women was Friday afternoon at 2.00. The course was in much better shape, but most of the racers had to dismount a few times per lap. Mary M. got a great start and never looked back, taking the win in great style. Three of the Bellas rode, Barb finishing 23rd, and Erika in 38th. Shannon had a tough day and went down pretty hard, not finishing and hoping to save something for the short-track on sunday afternoon. Following the Women's race, the U23 womens race started at around 5.00pm. The Bellas had one racer entered, Natasha Cowie. Her main goal was to beat her arch rival, a competitor she raced against many times this year and had yet to beat. Natasha got a great start, and was right at the front on the wheel of Chloe Forsman (Luna Chix) through the feed zone after the start loop. She ended up beating the rival and finishing on the box in 3rd, a great result for a great up-and-coming racer. I guess i was doing my job as 4 racers had hit the course and no mechanical problems had surfaced yet. None of the girls raced on saturday, but they did some riding and got the bikes muddy again. Good thing Mark Matson (the Kona factory team mechanic) had his nifty electric pressure washer on the trailer at this race! Shannon discovered the lock-out on her RockShox SID had stopped working, and i figured i'd fix it Sunday morning before the short-track. Sunday dawned clear and warm, perfect conditions for the Super-D. I had put some new brake pads on Rachel's bike, and made sure everything was working nicely. This was only her second Super-D race, the first being the NMBS race at Firstone earlier this year which saw her notch a win. She was fairly confident going into the race...with good reason, she killed it! After a hard start (the officials make every start different, this one a lemans-style start that involved much running up and down the start hill) Rachel was on Marla Streb's wheel in second place. On the first fire road section she attacked and passed Marla and took the lead. Marla ended up crashing, so Rachel rolled across the line w/a 28" margin of victory (which would have put her in 8th place in the Pro Mens field!). After 10 years of racing xc, downhill, and cx, Rachel had her first national champions jersey! One of the Bellas (Jennifer Tilley, who was sick but at the race anyway) had offered her Kona hardtail to Rachel to use in the short track, so they got to work changing pedal and other stuff to get it set up for Rachel. I began working on the SID on Shannon's bike, which baffled me despite my 3 day stint at the SRAM race shop earlier in the year. I ended up getting a bunch of help (and parts) from the 2 Gary Fisher/Subaru mechanics, Matt and Nick. Just about all of the racers run RockShox Reba forks, so we don't work on the SID very often. It took the 3 of us about 2 hours to get the thing working right, but we eventually won the battle of mechanic vs fork. The girls finished their warm-ups and took a couple of laps on the course. They do call-ups at the mountain bike races, Barb and Erika taking their spots somewhere in the middle of the field. Due to the fact that this was Rachel's first short track of the season, she was called up dead last. Funny thing was, as i grabbed the spare wheels and pump, i didn't see her at the back of the pack as the national anthem was played. I looked around a bit, and found her on the far left side of the pack of riders waiting for the start...in the second row! As she rolled up, she noticed a big gap on the left side of the field, and just kind of filled it. The girls got off to a quick start, and Rachel came through half way through the first lap in 4th. A group of America's most elite women formed, with Mary M, Willow K, Georgia G, Shonny V, and Rachel. Mary has been racing mostly World Cups this year, and this was Rachels first ST...so the usual Gary Fisher/Luna Chix crowd had some new company. Rachel stayed in the top 4 the entire race, looking very fresh and looking very comfortable riding right on the wheel of the racer in front of her. With about 3 or 4 laps to go, Rachel went to the front and drilled it...this move put some real estate between her, Mary and Willow and the slightly fading Georgia/Shonny. The 3 kept the small gap 'til the last lap, and Rachel just missed getting second by a half a wheel to Willow, w/ Mary getting another win. It had to be the best short track i've seen, fast paced and a lot of action. The race announcers were going nuts as they knew Rachel from her previous racing career, and knew that she had been mainly racing on the road this year. It was great to see them get the crowd really into it! Shannon ended up staying in for the whole race, finishing 16th, and Barb finished in 24th, probably a bit tired after winning this years edition of the (in)famous Mt. Snow Naked Crit. the previous night!

First Kilo ever...ouch...

I used to have a real nice track bike, even took it down to Hellyer a couple 'o times and messed around on saturday mornings. Great fun, but i didn't think i'd get into racing down there so i sold it so i could buy a big lens for the Nikon. As this years masters championships got closer i kinda got swept up in the excitement of niki preparing to win herself a few jerseys, and at the last minute decided i'd bring my cheap-ass Bianchi Pista to the track on sunday and try to do the kilo. I rode it around Paradise saturday morning, then brought it to work and stuck a hodge-podge of aero bars on it. Changed the gear from what i ride on the road. And i threw the Zipp 303 from my road race wheel set on there for good measure. We drove down and made multiple trips to and from the car to get all the stuff set up. Canopy, chairs, trainers, coolers, camera bag, kit bag. Since this was only the second track race i'd ever been to, i just kinda wandered around took a bunch of photos, and asked some people what i should try to do in my race. Funny, they all just said "oh, the kilo? just start fast and go fast" Sounded pretty easy, just insert myself into the pain cave for a little over a minute. Having not much of a clue about warm-up, i just jumped on the trainer for a while, then as my start got close i went and rode around the warm up circle. I got called on deck and sat down on the podium to wait. Ruggy came over and sat w/ me and we joked a bit about bike racing stuff. He held me up for the start, and i took off. From what i heard later, i had a very un-track like start. I guess i did the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do, but i stood for the first half-lap, then sat down and got into the aero bars. The first lap was no prob, and most of the second felt ok. I could hear a few people yelling encouragement from the apron (thanks donna, niki and lorraine!). Then...the dreaded last lap. The back straight seemed at least twice as long as the previous laps...i wobbled around the final turn and heard donna screaming something about going faster, finishing hard. Yeah...right. I put my head down (not very aero!) and hit the line. I didn't really have any goals for the race as i had nothing to base anything on, but i guess i wanted to be on the fast side of 1'20". I just made it, clocking a 1'19.2", which initially put me in 4th, but i guess someone else in my age group clocked a slightly faster time at the very end of the session and i ended up 5th of 9. I was the only first-timer out there, so i'm happy w/ the result. I figure if i keep training, learn how to start better, and get some cool black wheels, i can do a bit better next year. I think i'm gonna have fun racing on the track...

The home-town race...

Right...about that race in San Rafael. I sat on the trainer in the expo area for a good warm-up, then jumped on the course for a couple of laps. Rode around w/ Glen M. who was a pro on KGSN when i worked for them 2 yrs ago. Now he is the DS for Priority Health and according to him doesn't ride much and gets dropped by 3's on training rides in Santa Rosa. Yeah, right. He thought he'd sit in for about 20mins or so and see what happened, then maybe have a go. Tom blew the whistle and we were off. Pretty quickly, too. Funny thing, Glen was right at the front. I managed a decent start and was up there too...for about a lap. Then i dropped back to the middle (or maybe i stayed in the same spot and everyone went around me) and a couple of laps later i was in the last 5. Guys were getting popped off already, but i really wanted to stay in, so i was trying pretty hard. After about 20mins i was last in line and right about the same time as Glen and a few others attacked, i got popped. I think i need to spend some time actually going fast and get a bit more power. Any and all advice/comments are welcome at this point!

The Davis 4th of July human bbq...er, criterium

Hell, why not? Seems like everyone else has one, and myspace kinda gets on my nerves. So...where do i start? Wed. was the lovely and charming 4th of July Davis Human BBQ/Criterium. With a description like that, you can probably guess that i didn't win. Didn't even finish. Hot. Middle of the outback kinda hot. At this point i'm quite sure that i no longer funtion properly when the temp hits triple digits. I did the 3's race instead of the masters so i could be done in time to get things ready for the ProMan girls. The pace was pretty reasonable, but i had nothing. Nobody i knew in the field had anything. My teamate (Gary Stein) dropped out...the other photographer racing that day (Chris/Jamphoto) dropped out. But...some guys did have something in their legs, and they managed to finish all 35 laps, and one of them won the damn thing, not sure who...but hearty congratulations 'cuz he deserves them. ProMan Shelley warmed up by doing a bunch of laps in the Pro-1-2 race. Didn't look like she had any problems staying in...very cool. Six of the all-powerful ProMan ladies took the start of the Women's Pro-1-2-3 race: Shelley Olds, Nicola Cranmer, Tracey Ford, Kristin and Helene Drumm, and the eventual SOLO winner (yep, that's 2 races on the trot won in that fashion) Rachel Lloyd. To say they totally handled this race is pretty much the understatement of the year. They started launching attacks about a lap in and never let up for the duration. They won ALL of the primes, and Rachel got into a 2-up break after the halfway point. With 9 to go, she took off and stayed away for a great win. Helene took care of second, and her sis Kristin managed second in the field sprint for 5th.
Tomorrow is the Carrera de San Rafael. Fun course, and it's only about 4 blocks from my place. Very convinient. Hopefully i can manage to actually finish this one...i'm hoping the fact that masters' nationals are happening this weekend will mean the pace is reasonable enough for me to hang. Just go fast on the last couple of laps, ok guys? Race report to follow...