Sunday October 4, 2009 Training Ride

Photo taken by Alex Hamlow

What a strange week it was. My buddy Ross lent me his LeMond for the Santa Barbara ride we had planned for this weekend. But, the ride was not to be... Here are the sequence of events that led to me dropping out of the Tour de Taco.

I cracked the frame on my bike a couple of weeks ago. While packing up for the train ride to Santa Barbara, I forgot to put my front wheel in the car with the bike and didn't realize it until I was more than half way to the Solana Beach train station where Ross, Scott, Dave and I were meeting. I did a quick turn-around to pick it up and got to the train station by the skin of my teeth only to leave my bike shoes outside the train station when I bought my ticket. I missed the train. I figured by that time, I just wasn't supposed to do the ride and pulled the plug (major apologies to Ross, Scott and Dave). As it turned out, they had a great ride down the coast.

Saturday afternoon, after making some adjustments to Ross's LeMond and swapping his saddle for mine, I decided to do Sunday's Qualcomm Million Dollar Challenge training ride which was a 92 mile sojourn from Solona Beach through Cousar and Rice Canyons in Fallbrook and back down the coast. I rode with Adam, Brian and Alex from the radio contest and was really happy I decided to do this ride. It was great sharing some road time with many of the great friends I've made by being a part of this contest.

A lot of people went to extraordinary lengths to raise money for the Challenged Athletes Foundation. The small part that I was able to contribute was enjoyable. Many thanks to H2O Audio for the waterproof MP3 player cases and earbuds that I was able to donate to Adam and Joy's fundraisers. Thanks to Wahoo's Fish Taco for donating 20% of purchases made with a flier over the weekend at their Encinitas location. Thanks to Nytro and B&L for allowing me to place fliers for the Wahoo promotion at their stores.

The Qualcomm Million Dollar Challenge is in a couple of weeks, and the Scott & BR Cycling Challenge will be decided on Wednesday.  Great times ahead!