Bike Racing > Parking

Lets all agree, without going into much detail, that human beings are not meant to be sitting in traffic or doing laps around the blocks near their home looking for a parking space on Tuesdays from 1-4pm because your road has no parking due to "street sweeping". I don't think San Jose owns a broom, let alone a 5 ton automatic broom that drives with a swiffer wet-jet bolted to the front of it. So, I parked there, tried to give myself a ticket (pictured: a note card with my grocery list on it), and they still got me:

I thought I was sooooo smart.

According to the structure of the law, I deserved that. According to things reasonable, I DO NOT DESERVE THAT. Sigh. Being passionate about justice but doing nothing about it is exhausting. If supporting NPR only costs $15/month, I cant wait to see what San Jose does with that $50 I gave them for not sweeping the streets.

What. A. Racket.

Back to things that are right and good. You know what I love about driving past all the farm land in California? Its the symmetry of all the trees and vines and plants as you drive by that look like an array of space between trees that forms an infinite number of lines going back into the field, like this:

I also like the color green... bodes well...

I took that while riding before racing the Chico Stage Race this past weekend. So, Chico is a really sweet town! Why didn't you tell me?! Donny came up for the weekend to enjoy my restful lifestyle in the hotel after the races, and we both got to watch our first full length NCAA game of the year, and Wisconsin won! The race itself was awesome, we did a circuit on this track:

I think they went a bit faster than us. The circuit itself was cool and fun, but its nature was against the 3 rules of attacking, which are: Don't Attack When:

1. You are already in the 11
2. You are doing 500 watts in the peloton
3. You are doing 35mph

So for me, it was pretty uneventful. The next day at the 90 mile Pakenta Road Race, however, was my jam! A crosswind start quickly sorted the field into tiny groups all doing a team time trial chasing each other. My group had 3 Optum riders in it, and was the front group, so my group won! Unfortunately for me I did not win. A combination of a well timed attack by Optum and a flat tire on the gravel 5 miles from the finish set me back quite a bit. Thankfully, however, it was a super good day of training, and you cant take that away from me!

The last day had a morning TT, which I couldn't take seriously without a TT bike (I did take my saddle bag and frame pump off, for some reason), and an afternoon Crit, in which I got 7th by actually trying to do the field sprint. How'd that go? You ask? I came out of the final corner 3rd.... so... that's pretty depressing. Nothing can beat the fact that the race director proposed to his girlfriend before the crit.

YEAAAAAAA!!!

Can we always have proposals before bike races?! That was teh coolest! It was a great weekend, a great race, and I had a great friend hanging out, so we decided to make a great choice and visit the Sierra Nevada Brewery which is in Chico.

Perfectly sized beers for a guy who's last beer was in February

This was just awesome.

This was in the parking lot, WHAT?!

That last picture is great, how cool is that guy? "Oh, I just drive my crazy car down to one of the first craft breweries and have me a pint and a massive appetizer and then give myself a high five. It'll be a nice little Sunday."

The last bit of my week was having to deal with my own mental shortcomings that I am experiencing with the season being neigh and wanting to win every race. That is the thing, I want to win, and its stressful, because I have worked hard for a very long time and I think its time to win. My coach Frank talked me down a bit from my craziness and now that I am sitting in bed the night before the first real race of the year I am confident and excited about the season. I also started my winning ways last night by beating that stupid 2048 game that my sister introduced me to on Monday night, PROOF:

VICTORY

So with that, I leave you for San Dimas. Its going to be a great season, and I hope to come back on here and tell you about how it feels to win.