Forgive me as it has been a while since I last posted an entry. The end of the race season along with preparing for Interbike next week has pushed updates to the back burner.

Last week was my last race of the year and what a doooozy! The Parker Mainstreet Omnium was one hard event. Things kicked off with a difficult 7-mile time trial where I slogged my way to about 50th place. The first half of the course was gradually climbing into a head wind and I found myself standing on the 53 x 23. I can just envision the likes of Chris Wherry gliding by me in a 56 x 19 seated.

Stage 2 was a 100m RR and the wind was even stronger that during the TT. The wind was wipping at about 40mph and all 120 guys were single file within 2 iles of the start line. I set my 3rd highest CP5 of the year within the first ten minutes at 407w! Brutal.

Bit by bit groups rolled up the road and at least I had two teammates up ahead that finished top 12. Jon Baker and Christian McCarthy had great rides. I lead out the field sprint for about 24th place and Vitamin Cottage got 1, 2 and 4th in the field sprint.

After the road race we had two guys sitting top 10 with Chuck Coyle and Jon Baker.

The crit was action packed but well controlled by Tiaa-Cref. The fun came wih two $500 primes and on e$1,000 prime. Hats off to Chuck who celebrated his birthday by winning one of he $500 laps. My 50-year old teammate Alan Mcormack wa s2nd to Will Frishkorn in the $1000 lap. Wa to go Alan! Finished the crit in 13th place and my teammate Joey Pinkerton was 11th.

At the end of the weekend m Vitamin Cottage team had a good showing and battled it out for a few top 10's. I was a great way to end the 2006 season. Look for the Parker Omnium to get even better. This was a great race and very well organized. I was also the only Colorado NRC race. A big thanks needs to go out to the promoter.

My friend Frank Holt just passed along a link to You Tube which shows a brief segment of the Gore Pass RR heald a few weeks ago. Gore Pass goes up to 9,500ft and in September this is risky business. We raced in hail, rain and drove through snow to get to the start! Go check out the link below and I am the orange Vitamin Cottage rider that rides by at the 7-second mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-7d-r5x7BM

Thanks for passing this along Frank.
Also go check out this great site at www.broadbandracer.com. there are some great video blogs from Christian Vande Velde.

More to come soon.
Dirk