Last year, during the nascent stages of our glorious revolution, the Racing Union's Supreme Council for Propagation of Message and Truth sent out a request to our citizenry for a stirring patriotic anthem befitting our quest for all that is right and true on two wheels.  An anonymous sympathizer sent us a particularly gusto-filled little number set to the tune of the traditional Welsh anthem "Men of Harlech."  For further reference, and a moving ode, please peruse the following link: http://www.racingunion.org/PermaLink,guid,638193ef-c7be-43e0-b47c-ccf9f55d0218.aspx

However, today we received another inspiring anthem from our own Comrade Kevin (who's been tearing it up at Greenbelt lately), clearly aimed at our younger compatriots throughout the Union heartland (aka "The Fruit of the Union").  As an expression of our deepest gratitude to a comrade who has clearly been reading his manifesto, an extra ration of potatoes has been reserved for young Kevin at the Plaza de la Revolucion.  Just what the hell am I talking about, you ask?  Well, Kevin wrote a song about it, and even though our humble compatriot may not want it posted (heh-heh...), here it goes:

         You frontin the union? 
         Slow yo roll you ain't got that
         We fed yo communion,
         Don't act like you all phat.

         East side or west side, you know we roll hard,
         Forget all thorps corps, that shit should be barred
         You with us or against, don't fuck wit' tha vanguard.

         Ya'll actin like bitches, sponsor's little whore,
         Watch your step or you'll be right out the front door.

         Rollin on the win, hear the Union Da!
         All you others just droppin a jaw,
         Where they come from, ain't never saw.
         Raise yo glass to the Union, a resounding Huzzah!

Well, there you have it, dear friends.  I hope that this little ditty has brought a tear to your eyes as it has to mine.  To borrow some immortal words from none other than the illustrious Flavor Flav himself, I would like to say: "yeeeeeeahhhhh, boooooyyyyyyeeeee!."  In my own words, I say: Da, Union, Da!

- - - josh

just got a series of message from sim over in the south of france.  he just got a cushy gig covering a series of races including flanders.  he sent along some nice pictures showing some of the details of the race.  the text is from his emails...

cobbles: "And here's one for the fine people of DC.  If my memory serves me right, people are often complaining about pot-holes in DC and about the state of VA roads.... "

museeuw's super pimp'd ride: You thought Museuw had horse power?  Sure he did... and still does!  Check "da-man's" sweet, fuel guzzling, non-ecological Audi beast...Shuv that in your Eco-friendly pipe and smoke it.  No doubt about it, this one is on steroids...No need for a license plate on this bad boy... if you can't figure out who's car it is... well.... enough said.

and finally, a cake celebrating the event.  i broke out some shots detailing the details.

this one isfor rudy vercaine, the last flandrian in virginia.  when your country has an equally solid traditionat cycling and at sweets, well, you've got to roll hard.  and these guys roll hard.

and once you're done with the cakes, the kids can take the decorations and have little pretend races.  what's not to like.  i declare this union approved.

you can email sim here and reach him on the web through his workplace here.

- - - posted by scott

this post goes out to all the haters.  you simply would not believe the amount of venemous mail we receive here at central receiving under the plaza de la revolucion.  some people try to emulate our smooth rhetorical style.  others try, but inevitably fail, to achieve the incredibly high levels of truthiness we bring to the table.  but most just take an anemic stab at it; calling us names or saying ridiculous things.  it's really pretty pathetic.  if it were amusing, it would bring us joy, but it's generally just grumpy. 

today, i ran into something that is not bicycle related but which did amuse me.  i wish more of our hate mail was like this.  that would please me.

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/editorial/15986574.htm

I believe that this is what passes for a quality argument amongst the "other" side.  this thing is literally a minefield of fallacies, of every shape and sort.  non sequitur?  check.  straw man?  check.  red herring?  check.  fallacy of many questions?  heck, the whole thing constitutes an emphatic yes. 

in many posts, i try to describe something by presenting a dichotomy between them and us, or how we view the world and how they view the world.  this is what we're up against.  literally.  i was riding my bike to work a few days ago.  i was as far to the right as practicable and not impeding traffic from what i could tell.  a car pulled up slowly, rolled down it's window, and we had the following dialouge.

driver: "it's not safe for you to be on this road."

me: "it's only unsafe if someone makes it unsafe."

driver: "you should really be on the sidewalk"

me: "it's actually against the law for me to ride my bike on the sidewalk"

<pause>

driver: "get your %#$&ing bike off the %#$*^&* road."

me: <silence>

now, dear reader, you may wonder why i bring this up.  i see this as a rare glimse into the real thoughts behind the driver.  they were sort of forcing this nice facade and a veneer of caring.  the whole "it would be safer for you to be off the road" is a ruse.  you are in their way.  and they want you to know it.  they try to tell you politely, but that will only last so long.

to tie the whole post togethger, i am beginning to wonder if we are being too subtle and polite to get our point across.  we have tried to take the high road, but it's like yelling at a wall.  maybe it's time to lift the rhetoric a bit.  in the next post, a description of the surreal encounter i had yesterday of how cyclign fits into the "system".

-sg

portal to the revolution: www.racingunion.org

our guiding principles: http://www.racingunion.org/Document.aspx?manifesto

union forces amassed along the potomac today.  the plan was to storm bethesda, acquire rations, spread our zeal for the union message and then slip undetected into the gray suburban environment before the oppressive forces of mabra could be marshalled to silence us.  we knew they were looking for us so we opted to dress incognito.  incidentally, those gang signs mike is throwing up are not "union-approved".

josh met us at a base of the capital crescent.  he's on an off-week from his chemotherapy regimen and wanted to get out.  he went straight to the front and stayed there.  simply amazing.  that guy kicks ass.

dc is a bagel wasteland.  it's as if a whole bunch of people just woke up one day and realized that, well, you can just throw any old lump of dough with a hole in the center into some water, bake it, call it a bagel and charge a dollar for it.  this is not "union-approved".  there are still a few establishments around that produce solid products and obviously take pride in their work.  these places are as close as we can get to the traditional methods, products and quality that one would find in any artisanal butcher and baker's shop throughout europe.  and it's what you can expect after the revolution when we devolve this society back down into a series of agrarian communes with a focus on subsistence.  but more on that later!

the fact that we need to ride to bethesda to find a decent bagel is hardly the main point of this post though.  it was chilly but the sun was out and it was clear and a beautiful day.  a chance to ride our bikes, talk amongst ourselves, tell some jokes and stuff our faces. 

brothers and sisters: we will prevail.

- - - posted by josh

Several months ago (during the earliest stages of the great cycling revolution in which our beloved Racing Union was born in the bowels of the command bunker deep below the Plaza de la Revolucion), it was decided that comrades toiling and sacrificing for our cause should be properly outfitted for the forthcoming battle.  Under the guidance of the Racing Union’s Minister of Technical Apparel Design, a citizens committee worked day and night to create a uniform worthy of our epic struggle for right.  A design was chosen, and a sympathetic apparel producer in South Carolina was enlisted to help our new kits come to fruition. 

Through our agents in South Carolina, a Colombian spandex concern was contracted to produce the new uniforms.

Delivery of the uniforms commences, fittingly on two wheels.  Unfortunately, due to challenging road conditions similar to those found on the gravel stretch of the Poolesville Road Race, our couriers experience a few mechanicals.  Soon, however, our brave comrades resume delivery.

Despite the best efforts of the couriers, authorities unsympathetic to the revolution (and resistant to the change it represents) attempt to stall the delivery at Customs, further delaying the delivery of the uniforms:

As delays continue, a restless citizenry protests:

Interim measures for uniforms are considered by the Supreme Council for Wardrobe and Technical Apparel…

Rococo:

Teutonic:

Uhhhhh...?

And, in the truest spirit of the principles of the Racing Union, D.I.Y.:

While they all have their merits, as well as a certain sartorial splendor, none fulfill the Union’s exacting requirements for technical cycling apparel.  Patiently, the revolution waits for the arrival of the new Racing Union uniforms.

Meanwhile, despite the mounting delays, comrades throughout the heartland spruce up the public realm in preparation for the arrival of the new kits:

Finally, the uniforms arrive via special courier:

Citizens rejoice!

Now, a sneak preview of the new uniform, before final inspection by a representative from the Ministry of Quality Control for Technical Apparel:

Quality Control arrives on the scene and begins a thorough inspection, starting with a close examination of design elements and graphic image quality. 

Next, our inspector checks the antimicrobial integrity of the garment’s underarm section…

Despite the risk of further delays in delivery, the inspector takes a moment to get lost in the overall comfort of the new Racing Union jersey.  While this may not seem like an important part of the inspection process, the comfort of our comrades should not be overlooked.  In bringing on the revolution, we cannot risk potential distraction due to the scratchiness of inferior fabrics against comrades’ skin.  The Union requires nothing less than the most technically advanced space-age wonder fabrics.

In addition to the aforementioned attributes, the inspector rigorously tests the new garments for structural integrity, compliance, and zipper functionality:

After a lengthy and grueling inspection, Quality Control delivers its final approval.

Da, Union!  Da!

--- posted by josh

i have been thinking a lot about two things over the last few days. i know what you're thinking; but it's not this or this or this or this.  no, i've been thinking about my flat at poolesville and the fact the people have started calling me a communist.  now both of these things are wrong, but for different reasons. 

the first thing is that my flat at poolesville was just wrong.  i had been riding okay, nothing great, but 50 miles into the race and i'm beginning to think about how it will end for those of us who are still a full four minutes behind the break.  eli caught a flat and i remember telling him he had a good race and patting him on back as i went by.  and you know what i got for that good karma: 100 meters down the road, blammo, my front wheel is shot heading into the deep gravel.  joy.  no wheel van in sight.  no nobody in sight.  my high hopes come settling down along with the dust cloud my fellow riders have left.  a minute later, the wheel van comes ripping by (driven by our old friend pete lindeman) and it's empty and doesn't stop.  it's been reassigned as the follow vehicle for the race. 

the second thing is that i am not a communist.  i have heard people throwing around labels, mostly in jest, and the jests are usually pretty funny as well.  we revolutionaries do have a sense of humor after all.  but it is incorrect to call me a communist.  i could go on and on about the distinctions between various ideologies, in both theory and practice (think manifesto of marx and engels vs. animal farm) but you'd be bored.  the differences between leninism, maoism, troskyism, et. al. are significant, but they often seem to reduce themselves to self-parody.  it puts one in mind of the nice piece of humor from the life of brian on the judean people's front and the people's front of judea.

i would like to clarify that i personally am really more of a collectivist.  and i'm hardly alone in this.  you may have seen recent news articles illustrating these principles on a much larger scale.  and since the revolution is proceeding apace, it might be helpful to let you all know what you can expect in the very near future.  in very simple terms, property will be considerably less private and considerably more public.  the things surrounding you will belong to, and be used for, the benefit of all of us. 

here's an example of a hero of collectivism:

and an anti-hero of collectivism

still not quite sure what this all means?  let's try again by going back to the topic i initially introduced in this post: my flat at poolesville.  i got a flat and was forced to pull out of the race.  why did this happen?  what was the real problem there?  if you said that my team car was derelict in it's duty, you're as far off as you can be.  the revolution will not allow team cars, opting instead to sieze them and turn them over to small farming communes where they can be retrofitted with more-ecologically friendly engines and help the workers in their daily chores.  if you said the wheelvan didn't bring me one, you're still in way too bourgeois of a mind-set.  property will be collective.  when one person flats, another individual will share what they have with them.  so the real problem at poolesville was that the collective of racers (them) did not support their fellow racer (me) by providing another wheel when one was desperately needed. 

i know some of you are still struggling with this so i have added a sample problem which should really help to drive the point home. 

question: we're riding together at hains point.  it's the thursday before a big criterium and we're doing a good sprint workout to polish the skills in positioning and finishing.  i have a tire that's going soft.  what do you do?

answer: if you said "attack!!!", that's wrong.  very, very wrong, and we have work camps re-educational facilities to help disavow you of those notions.  similarly, if you said "sprint away giggling" you're not thinking in a collective mindset.  the correct answer is to tell me to slow down so you, a fellow bike rider and racer, can collectively help me to work towards the greater glory of the cause by providing a wheel for me to finish the workout.  bonus points if you mentioned getting off your bike and changing the wheel for me a fellow racer or gave me a fellow racer a push start to help me a fellow racer catch back up to the group.

still not sure what's going on?  look at the following pictures.  this handy guide can be printed out to assist you in managing your actions such that the collective benefit is realized.

	not yours, but ours to help fulfill the aims of the revolution
	still not yours, which is an outmoded capitalistic concept, but ours which is a welcome, progressive way of viewing property.
	to be used, collectively, for the cause. not yours.
	for the good of all, to be given to me your fellow racer.  now.

- - - posted by scott

you mention to people that you're planning a little bar-b-q and the flying monkeys start screeching about class warfare.  what the hell is going on out there??!!  from the comments:

5/16/2006 7:42:21 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  Chicken and chorizo?? That seems awfully bourgeois to me. Seems like a steady diet of potatoes and cabbage is just fine for the masses.

we cannot allow this sort of accusation to stand.  if we become complacent, these ideas appear unchallenged, and possibly even earn merit in the eyes of those who are less critical in evaluating information.  throwing hurtful words like that around cannot provide us with any traction on the real problem. 

i will freely admit the revolution took a bit of a pause last night.  those who were lucky enough to receive a solid, state-provided education will undoubtedly recognize it as a caesura.  the union forces took a well-earned break to consolidate their gains in the gardens just outside of the plaza de la revolucion.  food was enjoyed in moderation, but people were truly indulgent in giving thanks to our brothers and sisters who work the land to provide the bulghar wheat for our tabouli, the root vegetables for our plates, and the teamsters who work tirelessly to bring this bounty to our state-provided housing.

but what to make of the implication that the vanguard of the party receives perks or has a higher standard of living than others?  this is the divisive rhetoric that we have become accustomed to from the self-important western media enterprises that this "pete" works for.  this claim was intended to tar us with the accusation of hypocrisy; asking others to sacrifice while we indulge ourselves in the best of everything.  rubbish!  true patriots would not need proof of our modest celebration, but for those who are more cynical, I present the following.  as one can clearly see, the grill offers a modest feast.  but look more closely...

yes, the true feast is to be found in the wisdom of the manifesto.  I asked my son, a young pioneer, and anxious to become a party member in his own right, to run into our house and get the essential stuff we needed for a bar-b-q.  and this is what he returned with:

salvadorean chorizo, bar-b-q sauce and a book of the sayings of the racing union elders.  though i am generally not sentimental, i will admit i became a bit misty; so proud that my son has internalized the valuable lessons we teach.  and though he appears to be eyeing the snausages, i can assure you we spent many fine moments discussing the manifesto. 

- - - posted by scott

race report from the Classique Nord Charente
 
The day before Paris Roubaix, is a "mini Paris Roubaix" in north western France. 

Thursday 7th April, I get an e-mail from my DS who has just returned from the tour of Majorca saying that I am racing both Saturday and Sunday.  But Saturday is not just any race.
 
Friday 8th, I load up my car and drive up to Castelsarrasin to the team house where I sill spend the weekend.  John is at the house (of course, he lives there) and so is another team mate who is from central France in Poitier and had to spend most of the week down south for some tests being run in Toulouse.  A number of other people are also at the house this weekend as Saturday morning will be an early start.  We are supposed to have a team meeting Friday evening to discuss our racing schedule for the rest of the season... but in typical French style, the meeting is first put off for about an hour, and eventually put off all together.
 
Fearing that the team meal that night might be a big plate of simple pasta with no sauce etc, John and I sneaked out to get some food, and I also needed a new cassette and some brake pads.  So we hit the bike shop which was miraculously still open.  I got what I needed and we headed towards the shops.  Realizing that if we got some food, everyone would eat it thinking it was team food, we decided against getting actual food and sneaked into the local McDonalds for some rather inappropriate fare.  Making ourselves feel better about our sinful act by recounting the story of Chris Horner's fight to get a burger and fries during last years Tour de France, we munched our food quickly and headed back to the house.  The guys were waiting for us to go and eat... so we all piled into the team cars and went out to a cafeteria for dinner, paid for by the team.  So John and I got in 2 meals that evening.  Americans. puh. (** - see editor's note below) 

Saturday, the big day.  The team loaded the vehicles and got everything ready for the long drive up to northern France for the Classic Nord Atlantique.  2 cars and a mini-bus, 3 drivers and more wheels than you can shake a stick at accompanied the 11 rider team for this mini Paris Roubaix.  After about 2 hours of driving, we stopped for lunch.  John and I looked at each other and people started to pull out Tupperware full of food, we had prepared nothing.  A moment of panic went through us until we found out that 4 or 5 of the other guys also had nothing.  So the team paid for our cafeteria lunch.  The choice was limited, and we needed some kind of carbs.  So I went for fries and sausage, far from ideal.  Back into the vehicles we piled for more driving.  Eventually we get there.  The team helpers get all the bikes out, get everything sorted, fill the water bottles, get our race numbers etc etc.  I had put on my new chain, so I got changed and went off to shake the legs out after that long drive.  5 meters out of the parking area and of course the chain is slipping all over the old cassette.  So I go hunting in the back of the van, all we have in 9 speed is a cosmic carbon with a TT cassette, so I put the cassette on my wheel and off we go to race 130km of dirt on a 11-19 cassette that isn't shifting very well anyway.
 
The race gets underway with a 10km neutral start, after about 20km is the first dirt section.  There are 15 in total, each one named and with a big sign at the entrance with the name and distance up for all to see.  The first hour of racing was at 44km average, and there was no hiding in the field, it was strung out all the way.  I really didn't feel well at first, and not long into the race, that greasy sausage and fries started to come up.  I threw up 3 times and got dropped twice.  I sat in the cars for a while and waited until Marion pulled up in our team car.  For some reason I was really thirsty and had gotten through a whole water bottle in only 30k.  She told me that there was a little group of riders behind me with Thibault Marc (one of our guys) in there, so I could wait for them... she was a little surprised when I asked her for a water bottle this early into the race.  In fact you are not allowed to be fed within the first 50km of the race, but I'm guessing no one saw because we didn't get a fine.  Then I worked my way through the caravan and got back into the race.  Sadly a little later the food came up again to say hello, and I was off the back, this time with Couscous (Christophe Cousinie, one of the area heroes who is on our team this year), he's not in great form at the moment as he was sick over the winter.  I sat in and let the other guys who were with us do a little work, but seeing it wasn't doing much I took control of things.  I worked my way through the caravan and got back into the race once again.  I think Couscous followed me but the other guys dropped.
 
About half way into the race, a break had got away early and we didn't have anyone in it.  As we headed up a little hill John attacked at the perfect moment, it strung us all out and I wanted to kill him because here came the food again.  Sadly for John it came to nothing.  So we put 3 guys on the front to try and close the gap to the group off the front, the 3 were Beaudet, Parks and Trouche, then we had 3 other guys sitting in the field.  As we hit another dirt section everyone flatted, there were guys all over the place.  Seemed like all but 2 or 3 of us from our team flatted.  A few meters later John got a flat too.  This race was absolute carnage back in the team cars.  Cars were stopping all over the place, they were running out of wheels, there was dust everywhere.  Seeing as we no longer had our 3 guys up front I got myself up to the front and tried to control the attacks.  But by the 2nd section of dirt near the front I started to drop back as people let gaps open.  Frankly from this point on I don't know what happened.  There were cars all over the place, riders in ones and twos, guys crashing in the middle of the "road", motorbikes going through farmers' fields.  I do remember being amazed at the amount of spectators out watching the dirt sections.  We would come crashing over the dirt, through a field out in the middle of nowhere, and there were all these people just standing in the middle of a field in the north of France cheering a bike race.  Well the rest of the race is a blur of dust and confusion.  All I know is that less than half of the field finished.  Only 2 of us from our team finished.  I was quite happy to be one of them even if that northern style of riding with lots of accelerations isn't what I'm best at.  I actually didn't flat.  Although a lot of it is luck, I think that my years of mountain biking really helped me to choose the right gear and adopt a pedal style that minimized the risk of flatting.  I was quite amazed actually because before the race I pulled out a big chunk of glass that left a big deep hole in my rear tire.
 
I'm pretty bummed for John who flatted, and then (maybe stupidly) waited for a team mate who also got a flat.  John was riding a very smart race.  Now he wouldn't have been able to do anything about the group that was off the front and stayed off the front, but I feel pretty sure John was on a good day and could have got himself a top 20 finish... which in that race would have been more than respectable.

I may not have got any flats, but I did crack my rim.  I'm pretty annoyed as I now don't have a rear wheel.  That was my race wheel, and I only have a really heavy and crappy shimano rear wheel now.  Sucks.  I also tore my saddle.
 
After the race, it was back in the cars for the long drive home.  We got in at 11pm, and it was off to do it all over again early the next morning for 150km of racing with a slightly different team consisting of 5 riders who had done the Classic Nord Charente.  John and myself were there, but that's a different story.  Another slightly modified team race on Monday as well.  I wasn't part of it, John was the only one to do all 3 days.  He didn't have to, but he chose to go monday anyway, and was totally toasted.
 
Classic Nord Charente (Paris Roubaix) in a few words and numbers:
 
130km
15 dirt section:
1st hour at 44kph
41kph average for the whole race.
 
website: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.baudouin/velo.htm
France 3 coverage:
http://jt.france3.fr/
and click on 19/20 Poitou-Charentes and then click on Dimanche 09 avril.
around  7minutes in
 
Results:
1- LEBRUN Charles Henri (CC Marmande)
2- Limoges V. (Blois CAC 41)
3- Mainguenaud (Deux-Sèvres C)
22- Pozza S. (CC Castelsarrasin)
36- Siméon G. (CC Castelsarrasin)

(** editor's note - - - there is no real literal translation for what sim is giving you here: "Americans. puh."  the french have a stunning array of dismissive gestures and phrases.  the gestures tend to be small.  you are generally not deemed worthy of any sort of vocalization or arm waving unless you run over their citroen with tractor or you're caught stealing their heating oil or groceries.  as a result, the most common thing you're likely to encounter is this "puh".  it's very amusing as i knew immediately what sim was talking about.  to make this work, you puff out your cheeks ever so slightly, form your lips like you're going to say the letter "p" or the beginning of the word "pug" and then push the air out your lips.  the rest of your face is motionless.  to add emphasis, you can supplement this with an almost indiscernable shrug or a barely detectable flick of your hand.  try to look off slightly from the object of your disgust.  these small gestures speak volumes.  oh yah, and i'll try to get some pictures up fairly soon from the race.)

Sim Green used to live and race in the US, but now lives and races in southern France. Read more about Sim here.

Finally here it is, Diary # 4.

In my last update, the team was doing it’s training camp, and we had completed phase 1.  Phase 2 didn’t go as well.  A freak snowstorm that had been causing havoc in the Ukraine, Russia etc hit France and covered the country in many inches of snow.  Naturally training camp was cancelled as we could even get out of the house.  So the few team members who had made it to the team house in preparation went cross-country skiing… the rest of us stayed at home and watched the snow come down.  I went back to roots of off-road stupidity and went out for some sliding fun on the Cyclocross bike.  I had a blast riding though totally white countryside and getting lost in the blanketed countryside. 

Apart from that there is fairly little to report on.  The usual early season stuff.  Licenses etc, I finally got my license from the British Federation, I was starting to worried it would never show up.  I still have a few tests and paper to submit to the BCF, but I have a little more time for that.  I have spent a little time doing a few tests on the Time Trial bike to get my position figured out.  I have got a new TT frame for the season, so I want to make sure everything is fitted perfectly and that it all fits into the UCI regulations for TT bikes. 

I’ve also been piling up the miles.  Nothing special seeing as I spend most of my days sitting in class, but I’m getting in some pretty nice 4 hour rides, so I’m feeling fairly strong, but we will only know once I start racing.  I did get my early season schedule the other day.  I will be racing the Grand Prix D’Ouverture de Castres, the Boucles du Vaurais, and the Boucles Gerssoises.  I can’t wait to get back out there racing, I only hope I’m in good enough shape to at least help the team.

The big news has been the arrival of John Parks.  He got here a little over a week ago.  We got in some nice rides before he headed off to yet another team training camp.  We put in a few pretty hardcore 4 and 5 hour rides. 

I like riding with John, because neither of us ever give up, and we just seem to push each other to the limit while both trying to pretend neither of us is feeling it.  Great fun.  We usually end up riding full blast, side by side as if on a little afternoon jaunt.  This time the team was meeting in Amelie les Bains in the eastern Pyrenees on the Spanish border.  Most of the team was there except for those of us that have school.  The team did about 100miles a day for three days, including some races in Spain that they used for training.  They rode into Spain to the races, did the races, then rode home to the hotel.  One day things got a little miscalculated and they ended up riding home to the hotel in the dark with only the following team car’s headlights as guidance… Epic story I’m sure. 

The week’s training camp then ended with the Essor Basque, the tour of the Basque country.  The team performed well on Saturday’s event with one of our young riders spending most of the day in the break with a Pro rider from Russian Pro team Omnibike, he was caught near the end and Julien Schick (ex Credit Agricole) finished 5th!  A great performance for our team in such big races with some competition that included some pro teams from France, Belgium and Russia.  Today (Sunday) was a double stage day including a mountain top finish.  I don’t know how the team did there yet.  I have just got a call from John saying things went OK, it was interesting.  He’ll be back here tonight, so I’ll find out more.

All in all the team have had a great training session.  Our Director Sportif would like to have our team do some races in the US.  Hopefully that will work out, though we don’t know which riders would be on the team yet of course.  Hopefully there will be more to read about next time.  I’m sure there are some epic race stories just around the corner.  Think of it as “suspense”, right now it is mainly just training and getting the season kicked off.

Thanks for reading.
Sim

almost all of us are passionate about cycling, but often for entirely different reasons.  some people feel that cycling provides a healthy and convenient outlet for exercise.  others use it to channel stress from busy lives into more useful exertion.  some use it to simplify their lives, accomplishing on a bike what many use a car for.  and some just like pedaling as fast as their little legs will take them; trying to go a little faster or a little longer.

it's interesting to read about sporting heroes, but at a certain point, it can be difficult to really identify with their accomplishments.  they are impressive in a herculean way, but their feats can seem distant and unattainable.  on the other hand, there are a lot of ordinary people capable of extraordinary things.  they may be friends or neighbors or co-workers, and doing something new or offering a fresh perspective on something old. 

amateur sports can offer the chance for people to produce stunning and transformative results.  their feats may not be as impressive as a 52 minute 40k TT in an absolute sense.  however, for those people, the struggle to achieve a particular goal, or balance a passion for cycling with work, family and other obligations can be equally heroic.

so here begins some examples.  Sim Green will be our first contributor.  in a subsequent post, you'll find out more about Sim and how he is attempting to balance work and family and school and cycling.  Sim is a very good choice as he used to live and race in our district.  he was a mountain bike and road racer who lived in Warrenton, Virginia for a few years.  he raced with Whole Wheel Velo Club and Evolution, and through hard wark and perseverence, he has slowly ascended into competition at the national level in France.  oh, and he is one of the nicer guys you'll run into over a bike.  Sim is living in the south of France and will be racing in 2006 with the Castelsarasin Bouygues Telecom Team.  we'll try to get updates periodically and will post them. 

We're actively looking for more voices.  If you're interested in contributing through blogging or maintaining a diary, please contact us at info@racingunion.org