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 I had one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time. I spent Friday flying out to Atlanta. Being picked up by Jim Birrell, along with his son Chandler, was cool. We had a long drive up to Dalton. We had to go right through the middle of the ATL during the heart of rush hour, and it was brutal. I will say the company was excellent, and Jim is a super interesting and intelligent guy, who does so much for cycling that stays behind the scenes. The way he wants it. So, we arrived in Dalton and met up with the pre-ride dinner, and I sat with Saul and Aleeza Zabriskie. If you are looking for inspiration, look no further than Saul. He is such an uplifting person to be around, I was so happy that I decided to come. The ride was a huge success. There were over 520 riders, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Saul and I actioned off his jersey (twice) for $1000. That was just cool to be a part of. Steve McCauley of USA Cycling was really helpful, along with Amy Smith, who did a great job helping Jim and Yvonne (Sauls folks) organize the day. I then drove down to Atlanta with Kevin Livingston. He is such a cool guy, and he always keeps things light. We laughed pretty often on the way down, and then we stopped to get gas near the airport. He started working the pump, and I opened my car door, and put my feet out. At just that moment, this guy comes out of a barber shop, sets up a PA speaker way larger than the ones I use at races, and just blasts out some hip hop music. I mean, this was extremely loud. It, of course, made Kevin laugh, which made me laugh, and they weren’t stoked. Luckily, the music was so loud, it had stunned people, and no one did anything. As we got to the airport, we had time for lunch, so we both went to check in, and than meet up again. After a pretty good lunch, we headed to the gate via the train. As we went through security, there was a woman kind of getting spun monkey about something, but we got past that. On the train though, she came flying up, and got her arm and head into the closing door. She was trapped, her legs and one arm were hanging outside the car and everyone was horrified. I wasn’t. Aparently, Kevin wasn’t either, as he started laughing. Once again, that made me laugh, and once they opened the door and the lady was safely on, she was pissed. She took turns staring at us, which made Kevin laugh. He’s a great guy to travel with.

So, I flew to LAX that night. It was not fun. the kid sitting in front of me was slamming his body back and forth in his seat for the entire six hour duration of the flight. At least the people in my row were cool. I went to Baja Fresh at 9:45 stoked to have beef fafitas. the were 86′d, and I was crushed. I drove on to Ojia, where I met Steve Hegg and shared a cabin by Ryan Yee’s house. Ryan did one hell of a job with the Garrett Lemiere GP this year. The race was a blast, and I did some velonewstv stuff at the race with Mari Holden too. That should be up soon, and I have a feeling the producer Dorothy Wong (a racer who works for Mad TV) did the race right, with some inspired footage. The velonews tv crew worked so hard, and have so much talent, I expect big things. We all went to Ventura for the after party, and than it was back to stay at the Yee’s. Ryans parents Larry and Kathy are the best hosts ever. They along with the Lemiere’s make sure I always have a great time in Ojai. The weekend wrapped up with another really cool experience. I played golf at the Ojia Vally Club with Ryan and Steve Hegg. To say we had a blast is an understatement. The course is one of the best in the country. Our foursome would have easily spent $1000 there to do what we did. Hegg is good at everything, and basically shot scratch golf all day. He is the true natural born athelete. I won’t forget my drive on 18 either, which was way over 300 yards, and felt awesome.

 My next race is the Tour de Georgia, hope you can make it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Daves Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.