WE WON!!

Well, actually Dave Hogland and Melinda Silbernick won but we really did win as a team. I have never been in a race where the team has worked as a team from beginning to end! I have been in a number of races where it really never gels but today we worked it about as well as we could and we came away with the win!

Phase One: Last night I drove up to Alex with Jorge. There could not be a better traveling companion! We laughed the whole way! We got to Alex and ate supper at Evan's mom's house. Great dessert by the way!

Phase Two: Went to "Jake's Bikes" downtown with the one and only Jake. What a great guy!! He went over our bikes and then put us up for the night! It was GREAT!!

Phase Three: Weird race dreams... I mean really weird.

Phase Four: Breakfast at "Sue's." Great start but I should stay away from syrup before a race. Not a big deal but I could taste it for about the first five miles.

Phase Five: Change at the shop and register. Amy and Melinda show up and so does Dave! (We didn't know if he was coming.) Mike New also showed up and he would be a major player for us in the race!

Phase Six: Warm up and getting to the race. What a beautiful morning.

Phase Seven: The Race. Our team attacked at least 12 times. I put in a few digs as did everyone else. It helped to sort out the group and see who was who. As we reached the end there was a split in the group. As I came up to Evan he said, "Get up there." That was tough. They were moving and I did it a foot at a time. Ouch... one reason I am not crazy about road racing is that it hurts. That hurt. There were about 10 to 15 of us in the lead group. I finally recovered. In the meantime Jorge, Evan and Steve slowed the chase from behind. They insured that this was the final selection. Mike New, a former semi pro who raced in Belgium asked me how I was doing. I told him not so great but I motioned to Dave and said that he had it still. Mike pulled up next to us and said that he was going to go off the front and that we should let the others chase. We were about two miles out when he went. He put some distance on us right away and sure enough the group started to bridge. I waited until we were about 10 yards behind Mike and pointed at my wheel. I could see Dave was there in my mirror. It worked like clock work. I pulled him up the left side and told him that was it, he had to go now... and he did. Man that was fun. We all celebrated at the finish. Melinda was in the group too and won the women's race as well. We were all very excited and happy until we found out that Noah had crashed early on but he was OK and rode in himself at a good pace.

Phase Eight: We celebrated at Jake's with a little lemonade and then we went back to the registration to get a shirt. We thanked Mike D. for a great race and started to head home. We stopped for lunch and had a great conversation all the way home. As I said Jorge is about as good as a traveling companion as you are going to find.

We both agreed that it was a great day. Thanks for the picture Dave and for coming up and winning the thing!!