tour of elk grove

After Superweek Carlos and I stayed one more night with our host, Steve. He sent us off the next day with another cookout and a guitar, two blow up mattresses, a towel holder and eddie bauer duffel bag. Steve is selling his house and really wants to move to South Carolina (Good luck Steve).
Carlos and I arrive in Elmhurst, IL Tues evening and are greeted by our new host, Bob. We stay in the basement again and Bob takes us riding the first two days. The third day Carlos and I ride the same route we went on the day before and we get soaked in a rain storm. I felt pretty lucky we didn't get carried away by a tornado but there were flooded streets and downed tree limbs. It was pretty crazy.


On Wednesday, I take the train to downtown Chicago and do some sightseeing along with catching The Dark Knight. I finish my excursion with a sunset and wine.

check out the cig in this guys hand

Tour of Elk Grove was another bomb shell for me. For the weekend, we stayed at an extended stay and were joined by Jorge Alvarado of Khala/LaGrange and Christian Helmig of Metro/VW. Both these guys were riding great all weekend and fun guys to share a tiny hotel room with. I felt great but could never manage to get my grip at the front. Once, on Saturday, when Carlos was in a break up the road I tried to jump across and instead brought the field with me. Carlos saw this and got pretty pissed at me. There were a lot of crashes. One crash, at the front of the field, occurred when two guys started taking swings at each other and one guy crashed and took out those around him. I avoided all the pavement kisses but felt this is what I did the entire race, avoid crashes. I finished in the field at a solid 39th. Carlos won the field sprint for 5th.
On Sunday the field was down from 100+ guys to 85. I felt better but really never could assert myself at the front. I pretty much just sat in the middle and finished there too. Carlos won the field sprint again but one guy had managed to sneak away.
Feeling a little discouraged, Carlos and I headed to Kansas City on Monday. We arrived around 9pm in a real nice neighborhood. We are staying in a house that is being renovated and owned by my friend's parents. It's empty and under construction but we have everything we need. This weekend is the Tour of Kansas City and then I head home. I stretched last night and realized my knee was still a little jacked from crashing on the last day of Superweek. It's a little weird to demand so much from my body but be blind to some of the subtleties of my workings.