Monthly Archives: June 2011

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the new home of my blog.

Astute readers have undoubtedly noticed that the URL for my blog has changed from a WordPress-hosted address to http://counterattackingreality.com. All my old posts have been redirected here, so even if you really liked to type my name into your browser (creeper…), you’re bound to end up back here. It’s like one of those terrible, Central Valley, VeloPromo races that we all despise, but to which you still find yourself driving, at 4am, every year.

Naturally, when selecting an appropriate domain name, I considered a lot of options. For example, my first choice was “randmiller.pro,” but that would be a blatant lie. A slightly lesser lie (and one which would have undoubtedly made me more famous) would have been “paulmachpro.com,” but I have to assume that Paul Mach (Bissell) has copyrighted his name to protect his image. I thought about “nateenglishcritracing.com,” but as it turns out that domain name just isn’t allowed by the rules of the internet. “randmiller.am” would have made a lot of sense, but at this point my readership in Armenia is pretty low. The bandwidth for any sites hosted on domains containing “maxjenkins.anything” was far too narrow; that figures, given the ‘bandwidth’ of his appendages. According to a WHOIS search, Kevin Klein (Yahoo?) has registered every single address containing the words (or derivations thereof) “yahoo” and “cycling,” though he seems to have forgotten to actually register the Yahoo Pro Contintental Cycling Team as promised.

In the end, I decided to cleanly align the URL with the blog title: Counterattacking Reality. I hope you like it, because I paid $11.99 for this shit and I’m here to stay.

By tomorrow night, I’ll be back to my usual cycloblogging ways with a full disclosure of last weekend’s racing and a discussion of the Elite National Championships; for tonight, however, we have some housekeeping to do.

1. If you’re subscribed to the wordpress.com blog via email — and assuming your subscription was not in error and that you don’t hate this dungheap of a blog — please resubscribe using the “Counterattack Reality!” button to the right.

2. If you’re one of those techno-savvy folks subscribed to the RSS feed of this blog, you may want to resubscribe to the new one, as well. I’m not sure whether the feed readers will automatically update or not. I’m about as good at “the internet” as I am at climbing…

3. While we’re all acclimating ourselves to the new site, will you please tell your cycling friends/enemies to check it out? Why wouldn’t you want more people to see me making a fool of myself?

As always, thank you for reading! See you tomorrow!

Rand

Before I get going, here’s a kind of cool photograph taken from my balcony this evening.

While “malicious fog consuming an urban environment” makes for a good picture, it makes for awful cycling. I left my office this evening for a short, hilly ride up Twin Peaks (the name of the hill in the preceding picture, though both twins are enveloped in fog), wearing nothing but bibs and a short-sleeve jersey due to the 80 degree weather. In true San Francisco style, I was attacked by that Evil Fog Monster mid-ride and proceeded to contract hypothermia.

Cycling in San Francisco is like petting a cat. It purrs and snuggles and makes you happy for a few minutes…and then it bats at your face with a clawed paw when you least expect it. Bad kitty! Bad!

Now, hopefully by now the negative feelings toward me and my blog have subsided following last Sunday’s unfulfilled attempt at live blogging the Pescadero RR. I find it remarkable how disgruntled you people can become when something unavoidable like poor cell phone service interrupts my lighthearted attempts to do some cool blogging. I’m not the effing New York Times, people, I’m one dude with a course marshal’s flag in one hand and a data-connection-less smart phone in the other.

Actually, once I realized I had no cell service, I used the phone (and flag) for some epic air-guitar photoshoots, so the day wasn’t a total loss.

Nevertheless, in spite of the overwhelmingly aggressive response to my live-blog failure, I think the endeavor showed promise, and it was a lot of fun while it lasted; I think I’ll try again sometime.

On the bright side, the whole experience brought me closer to my Pro Cycling Idol and .pro blogging idol, Paul Mach (Bissell). You see, I waited in line for several hours at Nevada City so that I might get Paul’s autograph. When I finally got the chance to speak to “The Sock” in person — as he’s know amongst his fan base — he joined me in bemoaning the blogging lifestyle.

“Yeah, man, I know what you mean,” he said in an undeniably wise, .pro tone of voice, “once you set any expectations at all, then don’t meet them, people freak out! I always tell them, ‘Uh, I have a life, I can’t blog all the time.’”

Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Mach has “a life,” but he is supposed to be training and compression-tight-wearing all day long, so he has a valid point.

I suppose that’s about as good a segue into the topic of the 2011 Nevada City Classic as I can manage, so let’s get to it.

My warm up for this historical, highly-revered, hilly-as-balls race through the quaint downtown of Nevada City consisted of watching the W/1/2/3 race while I rolled around in circles near the top of the course.

(From Tom Embree’s Facebook Album)

Katerina Nash (Luna Bar) got all crazy-like and won the race solo, as I expected. I was pretty psyched to see local ladies Emily Kachorek (Primal Wear) and Susannah Breen (Fremont Bank) give Nash a run for her money, but it was also kind of fun to watch a good old fashioned smack-down in the closing laps of the event. Nice ride, Katerina!

Fast forward: my race was hard.

I knew it was going to be hard, because I had heard through the grapevine that Nate English (Polka Dot Jersey Pro Cycling*) was planning to twist the proverbial motorcycle throttle from the gun “in order to show the Pros what’s up.” That’s a direct quote from a barely-reliable source, so do with it what you will.

And twist the proverbial throttle, he did. He was joined in the throttling by riders like Kirk Carlsen (Garmin), Mach the Sock, and Ian Boswell (Trek-Livestrong), among others. To make a long story short, the race was as hard or harder than I expected. Here’s some photographic evidence.

(From MyI2U’s Flickr Account)

At first, that picture doesn’t look so bad; in fact, it’s a pretty good exhibition of my equipment sponsors’ wares. However, some scientific analysis indicates that the race was wickedly fast.

That’s definitely the most horizontal mullet-vector** I’ve seen this year, and it’s on an ascent. No wonder I’m nearly catatonic.

As a consequence of the horizontal mullet-vector, I finished in 19th place, two laps down on the leader, after spending most of the day with Andy Goessling (Firefighters Cycling). Sure, 19th place sounds pretty bad, but when you consider that even the 7th place rider was a lap down, I think it puts everything in perspective. Hell, I made $60 by being lapped twice — how’s THAT for some perspective?

Anyway, congratulations to Boswell for winning the event for the second consecutive year, to Evan Huffman (Cal Giant) for placing 2nd after some ballsy solo attacks, and to Nate English (Polka Dot Pro) for placing 3rd.

Just to spite me, both Maxim Jenkins (Team Censored to Protect Rider from UCI) and Evan Huffman began scarfing down Horneresque quantities of ice cream on Sunday.

(Right-hand picture courtesy of Huffman’s Mom)

Now I don’t even have an excuse for being slow. Thanks, guys. Now I’m eating carrot sticks and rice cakes so I don’t get dropped at Burlingame next weekend. See everyone there, I hope!

* Seriously, though, Nate, why are you wearing your Everest Challenge polka dot jersey in crits…or anywhere, for that matter?

That jersey is ridiculous — and that’s coming from a guy who’s better known nowadays as “Big Pink.” The only man ever to make polka dots stylish was Richard Virenque, but I don’t know why anyone would want to emulate that syringe-cushion.

**The assumption is that “mullet-vector horizontality” is proportional to airspeed, that wind was negligible during the event, and that I don’t purposely gel my mullet horizontally so that I look like I’m going faster than I am. These are all assumptions, not facts.

Well…that was a massive failure. I can’t wait to hear about my terrible blog skills from all you hecklers.

As it turned out, my course marshaling location was devoid of any signal, rendering my fancy phone useless.

To make things worse, no one stopped to chat with me on the way back to their cars, so I’ve been without human contact for hours. After talking to myself (and Big Pink) for a few hours, it’s no surprise no one stopped – I realize now that I talk too much and too loudly.

Anyway, I’m sure many of you are angry that I forced you to sit there hitting refresh on your browsers, so I apologize. Maybe next year I’ll get it right…

And no, I don’t know who won.

Like I said…Fail.

Well…there’s currently a break of six(ish) riders up the road in the P/1/2/3 race. Cal Giant has Jesse Moore and Sam Pickman in the move along with Keith Hillier (Marc Pro – Strava) and Brian Buchholz (Webcor) and a couple other guys I isn’t recognize including a Yahoo? rider.

I don’t know what kind of amateury field lets Moore get into a move and gives him 4 minutes, cause that’s dangerous. I asked Moore how he was feeling and he just gave me a death stare.

Clearly Pickman is in the move for comedic relief; he’ll probably crash himself out on the climb and parts will start falling off his bike and all the spectators will laugh. Brian Buchholz is about as good a climber as…me…so…good call on putting him in the move, Webcor.

The second picture on this post depicts Nate English (Yahoo?)
soft pedaling and still dropping guys in the feed zone. Or maybe he was attacking in the feed zone because he’s just realized that Moore us going to win the race by 5 minutes. I can’t imagine anyone being so callous as to attack in the feed zone…

Stastny has not been dropped yet…next lap for sure. He just turned 21 today, so it’s been rumored that his Cytomax is spiked with vodka. Happy Birthday Staz.

Well…watching lower category riders get dropped in the feed zone is kind of depressing, but I overheard a few Cat 4 guys discussing their love of beer AS THEY WERE BEING DROPPED. Awesome!

P/1/2/3 should be through soon on their second lap…let’s see if Chris Stastny (Cal Giant) has been dropped yet. Bets?

Well, after getting a slightly later start than I intended, I am here at the feed zone of the Pescadero RR.

My heart rate is actually sky high at the moment, a function of the stiff Relegate coffee, the wickedly fun winding drive over 84 to get here, and the volume of Girl Talk I was listening to on said drive.

As soon as a group comes through, I’ll start making fun of people…

Being a blogger is hard*. It’s not always fun and games and posing in Ed Hardy hats with your shirt unbuttoned.

Just last night, I approached my good friend Joe on Gchat. “Hey, what’s up man?” I asked. A few seconds later, he responded, “Ah, just sitting here refreshing my Google Reader feed to see if you’ve updated your blog. Wait…nope, you’re still slacking.”

After the wave of guilt associated with letting people down had subsided, I decided to refresh my own Google Reader feed, whereupon I found the most recent NorCalCyclingNews entry in which the quality of my posts was impugned.

OK, Joe’s right, I haven’t been blogging three times per day like NCCN’s “Hellyer”, but I don’t think the quality of my material has diminished that much. I mean, I’ve been taking photographs DURING bike races and posting them online, and I most recently made fun of Pat Briggs**! That must be worth something.

However, in order to try and regain some of the blogging clout I didn’t even know I had lost, I intend to live-blog from tomorrow morning’s Pescadero Road Race.

The classic Pescadero RR course is being used for the District Championships tomorrow, so it’s sure to provide some fireworks. Not one for loud noises, I’ve decided to sit the race out, choosing to volunteer as a course marshal instead.

Please tune in tomorrow morning; provided that I can find even the slightest hint of a data connection, I’ll be posting photographs and text updates from the race. Those of you who read regularly can probably extrapolate that “updates” means “mockery and hecklings.” I also may bring my friend, Big Pink, and he may chase riders up the finishing climb.

Hope to see you tomorrow! For the record, I’ve also been asked to interview riders from the P/1/2 and W/1/2/3 races for an article of sorts. Riders: if you see me at the race, please come and talk to me so I can get an idea of how the races unfolded.

*It’s way harder than following Paul “The Sock” Mach’s attacks at Nevada City. Incidentally, Mach does both, which is why he has a .PRO address.

**Unlike some local Masters/P/1/2 racers, Pat has a very good sense of humor and he also has mastered the art of “the internet.” In response to my previous post, in which I maligned his overconfident attitude, Briggs has begun undermining my already-meager credibility via Facebook.

I don’t have the time (nor the wit) to respond appropriately, but I can say that this internet feud is likely to continue for some time. Judging by the comments on Pat’s posts, I think that’s exactly what people are hoping for…

The best thing about blogging is the fact that it takes place online; hence, while writing a blog post, the blogger is invariably engaged by the wonders of the internet like Facebook and Twitter at the same time.

Tonight exemplifies this phenomenon. As I was struggling to begin a brief post about this past weekend, I tabbed over to Facebook and perused my News Feed. Lo and behold, Randy Bramblett had just updated his status in a most intriguing fashion.

For those of you who don’t know Randy Bramblett, I’ll summarize him thus: he’s either a moderately good bike racer or a moderately good male model, but even he has yet to figure out which he is. As a consequence, his profile is inundated by a roughly 1:2 ratio of photographs like these.

Now that you have some idea of who I’m talking about, let’s get back to his status update. This evening, Mr. Bramblett posted the following:

I couldn’t believe my eyes, because, as fate would have it, I’ve recently been adhering to Randy Bramblett’s “training plan” as well!

Now, I know what you’re asking, and the answer is yes. Yes, that is a real Ed Hardy hat. No, I don’t know where I got it. It’s been sitting in my house for years, waiting for tonight’s breakout photo shoot. I think Randy must have left it here or something.

OK, that was fun, but let’s get back to bike racing…tangentially, at least. I may write about this weekend’s races properly tomorrow or Thursday, but for now, I have better things to discuss.

You see, the real reason I wanted to write a post tonight was to call out one Patrick Briggs on an outlandishly bold comment made on Saturday afternoon. Following Saturday’s Joseph Mendez Criterium in Pleasanton, Pat Briggs (Yahoo?) was talking to my teammate Joel Robertson about the upcoming Masters National Championships.

Much like Randy Bramblett, I’m sure not all of my readers are acquainted with Pat Briggs and the legend surrounding his character. If you’ll allow it, I’d like to introduce him properly before I continue.

Rumor has it that Briggs has won every single race Velopromo promotes at least once in his career. If we divide the district’s riders into two categories — riders who “make it big,” and riders who “don’t make it big” — Briggs is undoubtedly the most successful rider in the history of the latter category.

I first met Pat Briggs — as far as I can remember, at least — at the Albany Criterium in 2007. This criterium is a four-corner affair circumscribing a middle school in some nondescript part of the East Bay hills. Like a playing card tipped on its end, this course has two short, flattish straightaways and two long straights: one uphill, and one downhill. By virtue of the inclines, it has resulted in a breakaway win every year I’ve entered the event.

In the 2007 edition, as a fresh Category 2 racer, I found myself in an eight-man breakaway which contained three Cal Giant riders (at the time, Pat Briggs was a member of that team, the perennial juggernaut of our district). At one point during the event, a solo rider had feebly attacked the group and was dangling a few seconds ahead of the rest of the break; I pulled through in turn and brought him back on the hill, thinking I would ingratiate myself to my breakmates for doing my share of the work to keep the breakaway smooth and compact. Oh, how naive I was…

As I pulled off and rotated toward the back of the break, I was greeted by Briggs’ gruff, wailing voice, so loud and angry it seemed as if he was berating me for my very existence.

“GOD DAMN IT! Why are you pulling so hard to bring that guy back!? That’s not your f*&king JOB!” Briggs rode up alongside me, looking like a tightly-clothed pirate with his earrings and soulpatch, glaring at me out of one eye like I’d just pilfered his stash of pirates booty from belowdecks.

I was taken aback, to say the least, and replied “Uh, I’ve never been yelled at for working in a break before. I was just taking my pull. What the hell is your problem, dude?”

Briggs responded, “Why don’t you f*&king think about what you’re doing? What a dummy! Jesus…” He swiftly cut in front me, shaking his head in disgust.

At the time, I just didn’t get it. I didn’t realize that a large part of P/1/2 bike racing is about getting into your competitor’s head and convincing him he’s a lesser rider. At the time, I assumed Pat simply hated me or thought that I was worthless and stupid. I was intimidated, and it caused me to miss the split that ultimately decided the race — the best I could muster was 4th place. At the time, I also didn’t know that Pat’s renowned for arbitrarily yelling at his competitors (and his teammates, for that matter).

Now, nearly four years later, I’m the guy who is known for arbitrarily yelling at my competitors (and teammates); I can only hope I’ve become as intimidating as he was back then. I mean, I’m forging signed Patrick Briggs trading cards and selling them on Ebay for a living, so I must be close. But the past is the past, and the intimidating Briggs of yesteryear is nothing more than a vague memory to be recalled when the blogging material runs thin. Let’s get back to Saturday afternoon.

If you remember, Briggs was talking to my teammate Joel about the upcoming Masters National Championships. Here’s what was said.

Joel: “Hey Rand, Pat’s trying to convince me to race the Masters 45+ road race at Nationals. What do you think?”
Me: “Uh…ok. Sure. We aren’t gonna reimburse you for that crap, though.”
Joel: “I figured as much.”
Briggs: “You know, it’s crazy. I wanted to race down an age group, in the Masters 35+ category, but they [USACycling] won’t let me!”
Joel: “Wait…you mean you have to race in the 45+?”

Here comes the good part:

Briggs: “Yeah! Can you believe that? I mean, I want to call them up and tell them ‘If you’re gonna make me race the 45+ race, I’ll just stay home and you can MAIL me the stars and stripes jersey!’”

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Pat Briggs, the undisputed king of the asinine one-liner, has outdone himself and has claimed that he’s guaranteed a victory in the Masters 45+ National Championship road race; it’s such a done deal, in fact, that he doesn’t even have to show up.

I’m gonna hold Pat to this. If he doesn’t win that road race now, I’m going to mail him a paper printout of the stars and stripes jersey, once a week, for a whole year.

If he does win, I guess I’ll buy him a six-pack of beer and let him the win the Timpani Criterium again. That seems fair.

In the end, though…after watching National Amateur Criterium Champion Steve Reaney (Cal Giant) flail around at the Tulsa Tough NRC crits this past weekend, I don’t even know why Pat wants one of those jerseys…

Sometime late Friday night, something magical happened.

You see, sometime between the posting of last Friday’s blog entry and the time at which I stopped eating Girl Scout Cookies by the boxload, Alison Starnes (Peanut Butter & Co) friended me on Facebook!

For those of you who weren’t “watching*” the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic via Twitter feed, on Friday afternoon, Alison Starnes threw down with a beautiful and luxurious one-minute victory in the hilly first stage of the race, earning herself the leader’s jersey in the process. It was a performance that merits use of the word “Baller,” if you ask me.

Now, admittedly, Starnes has about twenty million friends on Facebook, but on the night that she took the yellow jersey at Mt. Hood, she befriended me.

I took this as a sign that I should race like a baller this weekend, as well.

I wanted to mimic Starnes’ solo victory, so during Saturday’s rain-soaked Dash for Cash criterium,  I attacked solo from a rather disjointed peloton with six laps remaining.

(From David Cheung’s Flickr)

I pedaled as hard as I could and failed — I was ultimately caught entering the final corner of the race and could only muster 8th place.

I was pretty disappointed, of course, but the day was not completely lost. First of all, a few of my teammates were well-positioned in the pack and finished well in the ensuing bunch sprint.

More importantly, when I got back to my car, I found a bag — eerily, the bag was inside my locked vehicle** — from my supporter and sponsor, Clean Bottle. Inside the bag was a seemingly endless supply of new, ultra-hardcore, Black Clean Bottles.

Not even the blackness of my dour mood could stand up to these emo, black bottles. It didn’t hurt that I found a pretty sweet hat in the goody-bag as well. New bottles? New hat? How could I be grumpy anymore?

Smiling, hydrated, and upbeat, I sat down that evening, cracked open a…um…recovery beverage, and read the Mt. Hood reports from Saturday’s ITT and Criterium.

Sure enough, Starnes’ ITT was good enough to hold onto the leader’s jersey for another day. I was inspired yet again! [Ed. note: I had been hoping to be inspired by my friend Chris Stastny, but he dropped like...ten places in the GC in the ITT, so I found new inspiration.]

This newfound inspiration led me to assemble, polish, and tune my “TT bike,” a haphazard contraption that’s less aero than your average Hybrid and is so heavy, it’s never actually been weighed at an NRC Stage Race; the officials used to just pick it up, laugh hysterically, set it back down, and say, “Yeah, this is definitely over the UCI weight limit.” It’s kind of like when a dog looks like its owner…

But I digress.

I entered the Dunlap ITT this morning and proceeded to have my dignity extracted like a corroded, dead tooth at the dentist. The dentists, in this bizarre analogy, were three Specialized Masters racers — Chris Lyman***, Kevin Metcalfe and Craig Roemer — as well as four other guys. Max Jenkins (United Healthcare), Rob Meyer (Metromint), Jonathan Lee (NorCal Bike Sport) and a Taleo guy whose name I can’t remember at the moment all helped with the operation.

I am no Alison Starnes — I think that much is clear. I wish I could race with that kind of panache, but there’s just no chance.

Even though my Dunlap TT time this year was 11 seconds slower than last year’s, at least my new hat — the Clean Bottle hat mentioned above — was better than the hat I had at the Dunlap TT in 2010.

I’m only bringing that commemorative photograph back because Nate English (Yahoo?), one of the few guys who puts up with me poking fun at him on this blog without threatening me with physical violence, took the stage win at today’s Mt. Hood Cycling Classic and secured the GC. I frequently make fun of Nate because he can climb (and I can’t), but the bottom line is that his climbing prowess earned him a high-caliber result I can only dream of. Congrats, Nate!

Oh, and before I leave for the evening: Thanks for the motivation, Alison Starnes. Can I defriend you, and we can repeat the whole process next weekend? I promise I’ll win this time.

*Is there a verb for “watching” a bike race via 140 character text updates? Dare I suggest “Twatching”? Anyway, Twatching sucks.

**There’s a fine line between “personal sponsor” and “creepy guy who breaks into your car when you’re not around.”

***Lyman surely doesn’t want me to remind the world that I (and Mr. Lee) beat him in an ITT once, back when I like…trained and shit.

****Ryan Parnes (Raleigh Pro Cycling) remains one of the most motivational characters in my cycling life. You should get to know him. The more you know, the more disturbing it will be that I find him so motivational, I’m sure.

By now, most of you who read this blog have probably also read the results of today’s Mt. Hood Cycling Classic stage and already know that the young Cal Giant rider Chris Stastny won.

Before I go off on one of my usual, nonsensical, denigrating rants, I’ll take a brief moment to genuinely congratulate Chris on his win. That’s something to be proud of, for sure, and I’m willing to bet he’ll have more staying power than his teammate “Pro Tour” John Bennett. Good job, Chris!

Ugh. That was really hard to do. Can I go back to being an asshole?

Sadly, I’ve been a bit too bogged down to blog this week, though I had all kinds of clever things to say. Unfortunately, the world of cycling moves very quickly, and most of the Stasny-bashing I was planning to do carries little weight in the shadow of his Mt. Hood stage win.

Let me back up.

I’ll remind you that, last Friday evening, I announced my intention to enter the Mount Hamilton RR. Most of the people who know me scoffed at the concept of me racing a hilly road race, but that didn’t dissuade me. I showed up in San Jose that morning, far before my normal criterium-friendly wake up hour, with one goal in mind: to beat Chris Stastny to the finish line.

In order to silence the proof-greedy, “Strava or it Didn’t Happen” types, I decided to snap a few photographs from my travails on the opening, twenty-mile, 4000 ft climb up Mt. Hamilton. Here’s proof that I entered the race.

I intended to snap a photograph sideways such that I could prove I had gained substantial altitude, but Julian Martinez (ex-Cal Giant, now Fremont Bank) and his “Rawk-the-F-out” symbol got in the way.

I’m sure I violated like, six USA Cycling rules by taking those pictures, but it was totally worth any impending sanctions; actually, I’m kind of hoping they ban me from entering any more road races. Ever.

OK, here comes the important part of the story. You see, I did beat Chris Stastny by about twenty minutes at Mt. Hamilton, after he was dropped really early on the opening climb.

I mean, he was dropped so hard that his Cal Giant teammate Tyler Brandt turned to me and said, “Uh, he must have had a mechanical and turned around, because there’s no way he cracked that hard.”

This is where I’d usually employ the Transitive Property of Bike Racing to glorify myself, but it turns out David Benkoski (Specialized Juniors) did it for me on Twitter.

Thanks, David!

Interestingly, here’s a photograph of Stastny at the summit of Mt. Hamilton last Sunday morning. Initially, I thought that was a grimace of pain and utter embarrassment at having been dropped earlier than me, the NCNCA’s preeminent, fat crit whore.

(From David Cheung’s Flickr)

However, with today’s development, it looks much more like a lightly-disguised, coy smile — the kind of grimace-smile Chris Horner gave as he put a minute into his closest rivals on Sierra Road.

Looking at that face now, I think he knew his legs would come around for this weekend. It’s the look of a man who has been snorting GSC’s.

Just one week ago, I revealed the incriminating photograph of three Cal Giant riders using GSC’s in three different ways.

Now, one week later, all three of the riders depicted above have won a race. First, Jesse Moore won Mount Hamilton.

The following day, Benny Swedberg won the Memorial Day Criterium from a bunch sprint.

Finally, today, Stastny took a sprint victory in Stage 1 of the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic from a group of climbers.

Only Evan Huffman, the GSC-wary, carrot stick-eating Cal Giant rider in the background of the aforementioned picture, has yet to stand atop the podium. The evidence is irrefutable: Girl Scout Cookies are performance enhancing.

Well…if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! Right?

Alright, I have to go eat dinner — I’ll see you locals at tomorrow’s rainy Dash for Cash*!

*By the way…does anyone else find it ironic that the race sponsored by the International Christian Cycling Club is forecast to be held during a deluge of Biblical proportions? I’m bringing my Ark just in case.