Base Camp International

Thursday night was the Base Camp International in Basking Ridge, about 40 minutes from my house. For some reason I didn't go last year. It's pretty tough to tell from the side of the road how hard a race is but this one seemed really tough. It felt strange to see strong riders like Maurice Gamanho getting dropped. The course is a rolling 1.1 mile circuit with 8 turns. Not surprisingly there were three pretty significant crashes.

In attendance was Jaan Kirsipuu. Yes, that Jaan Kirsipuu. He is riding with Hong Kong-based Champion System this year. At 42 years old he still looked pretty damn strong and he managed to get himself the third podium spot.



More race photos here.

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Rambling Man

Very proud to have a photo featured on such a well-written and thoughtful piece.

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2011 Tour of Somerville

I put a gallery of photos up on Flickr from Monday's Tour of Somerville. Pure Black Racing from New Zealand and United Healthcare dominated the race. A 20-man break went away relatively early in the race and stayed away to the finish. Tim Gudsell picked up the win for Pure Black Racing.

My favorite shot (of mine) from the race:


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Photo FAIL

This morning may have been my first complete race photo FAIL. Completely without planning I went out to take some shots of the Hills of Somerset County Road Race. I shot this race last year from two different spots and actually ended up with one of my favorite shots from last year:



The lack of planning and motivation killed any opportunity I may have had to repeat that effort. And so I this is what I ended up with:


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Back from My Unplanned Hiatus

So my goal of posting every day for 30 days has obviously gone by the wayside. I decided against taking my laptop to California and blogging from my phone seemed too risky without access to a computer to fix any messes I may have created. Now that the dust has settled maybe I can get back to business.

There has certainly been no shortage of cycling governance issues cropping up in the past week or so. My first day at ToC, at the time trial in Solvang, the news about George Hincapie having testified broke. I'll need some time to compose my thoughts on all the issues surrounding the Armstrong allegations. In the meantime, here is a photo I took of Jim Ochowicz in Solvang. He appears to be receiving some unwelcome news.


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Traveling

I'm all packed and ready to check out the Tour of California. I'm not optimistic about my flight leaving on time but if all goes well I will be in Solvang for the time trial tomorrow morning.

I opted against taking a camera bag plus overnight bag for the three-day trip. We'll see how that works out.

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The List II

Pat McQuaid released an open letter in an attempt to explain the recently leaked list of TDF riders ranked by how likely they are to be doping. I read the letter as an attempt to reassure the riders that the UCI will protect their privacy in anti-doping activities. It's one of the most measured and professional communications to come out under McQuaid's name in a long long time. Of course he can't help but chide the riders a bit for being upset about the existence of the list.

I am still curious why the list was leaked at all. Presumably the leaker felt that something about the list needed to be brought to light. Its mere existence is not terribly controversial. In McQuaid's letter he promises to find and punish the leaker. Maybe if it comes to that we will get more information about the reasons. But considering the UCI's new litigious turn, we may not learn much.

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