We finally made it: We are in California. After leaving our great host family in Bend, we drove down to Sacramento where we stayed with yet another fantastic host family for a couple of days before we moved on to San Luis Obispo. We got here last Friday in the afternoon and jumped on our bikes to shake out our legs a little bit. Turns out "a little" ended up being nearly two hours but at least we finally got a glimpse of the Pacific. Yep, apparently the ocean is further away than we thought... Unfortunately, we didn't have that much daylight-time left, so we couldn't stay long but maybe we'll have some time today on out off day to hit the beach.
The reason we decided on San Luis Obispo for our next stop was that there were two races this weekend: a circuit race on Saturday and a crit on Sunday. The circuit race turned out to be pretty hard with on short but very steep climb and one more sustained climb. The fact that quite a few pros showed up didn't make it easier. Also, we had to observe the yellow-line-rule. What was that again? I've been racing on closed roads for the last couple of months (pretty much ever since Mississippi in May) so that was interesting again (by the way, I still don't like it). The plan was to ride for Corey and get him some points but one of the Successful Living guys took off and was never seen again... so we raced for second. Still enough points, so I got to the front on the last climb and set a steady tempo which I had to keep up pretty much all the way from the climb to the finish too, as no one else would do it. So I ended up pulling the last 5 miles of the race and then leading Corey out. We were sitting pretty good in the run in to the finish but unfortunately got boxed in a little at the end. Ultimately, I couldn't start my sprint early enough to really launch Corey and actually came in in front of him... bummer. Still, 5th for me and 7th for Corey wasn't too bad.
What was really bad though was the fact that Peter crashed hard and separated his shoulder. That's even worse as we are getting close to nationals... At this point we don't know if his ligaments are just stretched or torn... Let's hope for the best! So I spend most of my Saturday afternoon in the Emergency room with Peter... at least, nothing broken (including his head; looking at his helmet, that was NOT a given).
So Sunday, we were one short for the crit. We still did ok, Phillip did pretty well during the race and I managed to come in 8th against some pretty tough competition. You would think that all those pros got something better to do than show up at all those local races but apparently not. Still, it was a good race (no crashes for us). Corey couldn't quite perform at his best though because his shifter cable started fraying and he couldn't get into his lower gears... not so good in a fast crit. I had some technical trouble myself as my chain skipped in my 11. Also, not so helpful in the sprint. Oh well, better luck next week.
We will probably stay the rest of the week here in San Luis Obispo and then make our way down to LA. The road trip continues!
The reason we decided on San Luis Obispo for our next stop was that there were two races this weekend: a circuit race on Saturday and a crit on Sunday. The circuit race turned out to be pretty hard with on short but very steep climb and one more sustained climb. The fact that quite a few pros showed up didn't make it easier. Also, we had to observe the yellow-line-rule. What was that again? I've been racing on closed roads for the last couple of months (pretty much ever since Mississippi in May) so that was interesting again (by the way, I still don't like it). The plan was to ride for Corey and get him some points but one of the Successful Living guys took off and was never seen again... so we raced for second. Still enough points, so I got to the front on the last climb and set a steady tempo which I had to keep up pretty much all the way from the climb to the finish too, as no one else would do it. So I ended up pulling the last 5 miles of the race and then leading Corey out. We were sitting pretty good in the run in to the finish but unfortunately got boxed in a little at the end. Ultimately, I couldn't start my sprint early enough to really launch Corey and actually came in in front of him... bummer. Still, 5th for me and 7th for Corey wasn't too bad.
What was really bad though was the fact that Peter crashed hard and separated his shoulder. That's even worse as we are getting close to nationals... At this point we don't know if his ligaments are just stretched or torn... Let's hope for the best! So I spend most of my Saturday afternoon in the Emergency room with Peter... at least, nothing broken (including his head; looking at his helmet, that was NOT a given).
So Sunday, we were one short for the crit. We still did ok, Phillip did pretty well during the race and I managed to come in 8th against some pretty tough competition. You would think that all those pros got something better to do than show up at all those local races but apparently not. Still, it was a good race (no crashes for us). Corey couldn't quite perform at his best though because his shifter cable started fraying and he couldn't get into his lower gears... not so good in a fast crit. I had some technical trouble myself as my chain skipped in my 11. Also, not so helpful in the sprint. Oh well, better luck next week.
We will probably stay the rest of the week here in San Luis Obispo and then make our way down to LA. The road trip continues!
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