Last weekend I joined Ned and Eric Woods @ the PV Bicycle Centre anniversary. The day started with a 2 mile uphill time trial, on signing up Ned was very quick in handing me the clip board, he's obviously learned a few tricks over the years. One being: always be the chaser, not the chased, so I had to sign up knowing I was going to be Ned's prey up the hill. From that moment it was game on, I really didn't want to be caught by the "Captain", a little over 6 minutes later I was at the top and safe. We then joined a great BBQ that the shop put on, it's been too long since I've had a bbq and it was very much appreciated :-) Thanks PV Bicycle Centre!!

I did a quick run home and a superman change to then head to the So Cal High School league

Fundraiser on the Queen Mary, in Long Beach. It was a good night with some great stories and some bidding wars going on. I had a laugh to myself when Ty and Johnny "Blogger" started taking great pleasure in bidding against each other for the signed Eddy Merckx Jersey. Pip then decided she wanted to get in on the action when the signed Lance jersey came out. I'm like- "what, what do you want that for??" her reply: "It will look good on the wall in the lab". I guess working directly on cancer research and Lance being one of the greatest cancer survivors there was some merit to that and how could I disagree?? I sat there in both excitement and fear, of how much damage was going to be done to the bank account. As Pip is the most persistent and committed person there is once she starts something she is going to see it to the end no matter what it takes, so we came home with a signed Lance jersey.

Sunday was the So Cal District Cross Champs in Ventura. It was a course with a good mixture of technical ability and power required, though with the wind and the long straights it was going to take a mighty effort for anyone to break away, hence the front group staying together the whole race. To my surprise the barriers were set up in such an attempting way that I couldn't help but to have my first attempt of hopping them on a Cross bike. I got more confidence each lap until mid race I got a little ahead of myself and had too much speed between the barriers, I stuffed the second one and landed in a heap, so I made something like 21 out of 22 barriers for the race. Luckily I was able to remount and still be on the back of the front group. Coming down to the last lap the front group of 7 was still intact; I made sure I was on the front for the last lap, knowing that the series of corners after the barriers would be a perfect place to get away, as I'd be on the bike and gone while everyone behind me was still re-mounting. The plan worked perfectly and I took the win, though I didn't get to keep the jersey being a non US citizen. Congrats to the 2009 SoCal champ: Gary Douville :-)

This weekend was Turkey Cross in Glendale, the course was setup so dismounting was the only option :-( though there were enough loose / drifting corners for me to use to my advantage. I attacked into the series of tight corners at the start of the 3rd lap and slowly edged away from Mark Noble, Brent Prenzlow and Brandon Gritters for the win.