Tour
de California
February 18-21, 2007
The day after the
After riding a recommended route from my brother’s house, I screwed up and
missed the prologue in the City. I rode into the City from my brother’s house.
Riding along the shores of Tiburon and then across the bridge was just
gorgeous. I hitched a ride on a strong rider’s wheel and we flew across the
bridge. I worked my way down to the 
After some dinner at Burger King (I spared no expenses on this trip), I rode
down to
After the show Greg and his sons Geoff and Scott drove me back to Chris’
house, where they dropped me off. Greg had got me a room up in
After the presentation, which was given to a bunch of cycling press writers, we all went for a ride. The various writers, all the LeMond marketing guys, the SRAM guys, Greg, Geoff, and I. Seems like one guy was the odd man out, doesn’t it? One guy that doesn’t really have a reason to be here…except for the fun riding. I got to ride a new Tete that day and the next day, but my efforts to swap it for Chris’ titanium Tete were unsuccessful. Hard asses.
On the
ride we did a tough, 5-mile climb. Greg played his usual tricks of grabbing
everyone’s jersey pocket, but when I came by, submissively and dangled my
pocket in front of him, he didn’t grab on. Oh well. I went after the leaders
and hung on to the top. At that point there was only about 4 or 5 of us, including
one local rider, a writer from Cycling magazine (who was a semi-pro mt. bike racer), and Geoff. I was dying. You’d think with
me riding a bike this fancy, I’d be dusting everyone. Unfortunately, they
were on the same bike. Blast!
We got back into town, had a burrito, and then went down and watched the exciting finishing circuits of stage one, which finished just a couple blocks from where we were staying. That night we went out to dinner at an Italian place and most of the gang stayed five hours! Geoff, Scott, and I had enough after a mere three hours and headed back to the hotel. Around 12:30 a.m. I get a call from Greg. I’m asleep at the time. He wants to know if Shane Cooper, founder of DeFeet and out hobnobbing with the QuickStep team, which he sponsors, could crash in my room. Having two beds, I say “Sure.” I didn’t hear him when he came in. I was out. Apparently those LeMonds worked me over on the ride.
Shane took me out to breakfast the next morning. It just keeps getting worse, doesn’t it? We then went on a longer ride through more rolling terrain. There was still a pretty good climb and I hung at the front again. On the descent, Greg took off. The local rider and I gave chase. At one point the local over cooked a turn and nearly hit the stone wall on the other side of the road. I nearly hit him as he screeched to a stop. I zipped by and closed the gap to Greg, who was finally tiring a bit as the terrain flattened somewhat. I told him, “We have a break! Come on, you has-been, work with me to consolidate it!” He sat up though and we re-grouped. Later Greg organized us into an echelon and the pace kept getting higher and higher. I was hurting and some riders were skipping their turn at the front, but not Greg. Finally we eased up and none to soon for me.
After the ride, I bid good-bye to Greg and his boys. Geoff actually took off
the night before to fly home. Greg and Scott were now headed down to southern
The next morning, it was cold and foggy. I waited as long as I could before
heading out on one of Chris’ favorite rides. It climbs high on 