RAGBRAI kid's report:

Ragbrai was super fun but hard work. We met lots of new people. (Some were freaks like tarzan a guy with only a rag of clothing.)But most of the people were old guys. There were lots of good places to eat. My favorite was Farmer Boys breakfast burrito. (see pic) There were tons of hills. My top speed was 34mph! I only did 2 days but that was plenty of fun for me. Ragbrai is a chance to hang out with family and friends and also get a lot of biking and hard work in too. I can't wait to do Ragbrai next year. Simone Duryea

Velo RAGBRAI

RABRAI 2008 report. The clubbers met in Mizzou Valley on Saturday evening in preparation for the Sunday launch. As you might expect, the town was inundated by legions of bicyclists. It was great!

I arranged a nice spot to stay on Saturday evening. We threw our mini-tent city up in the yard then ventured downtown to enjoy the festivities. Then things got worse. When we tried to sleep, the dad-gum trains rolled through every 8 minutes and yanked on their whistles, just to make sure every biker started Sunday bleary-eyed. I envision some fat, blob engineer getting sheer delight out of radioing back to the other following trains and telling them to blast their horns the whole way through town.

Sunday, Simone (my 12 yr old daughter and I, Joe, Cathy, Alex and J.P., Kim and John Carpenter, and Steve Sayre (see pic) rolled out towards Harlan, 58 miles of rolling hills away. We stopped at Farm Boys for their tasty burritos. Simone and J.P. did really great. I think Simone actually might like road biking now. Look at the big smile on her face in the picture with all the tasty road bikes.

Cathy, Kim and Alex and Seth headed back to Omaha on Sunday evening.

We spent Sunday night in Harlan in someones yard. She said we could use her showers after she returned from work at midnight, but we opted for the garden hose job. We enjoyed the festivities downtown that evening. That night of sleep wasn't any better, with bad weather sirens all night. We survived.

The next day the kids did about 20 miles, then Joe and the kids headed back to Omaha. John's dad Mike came and picked us up in rockin' Coon Rapids. All in all, really fun. Can't wait till next year.

Gold Rush

Cornhusker State Games results are in! Velo Veloce goes two for two in gold medals!

Fred, John and Pete (me) raced in the CSG last Saturday the 21st of July out at the Yutan course.
Fred swept to the Masters 55+ gold medal and I won the Category 4 race.Here's a picture of him firing up the turbo to his Scott Plasma at the start line. The other picture is me after the damage was all over, being propped up by the gate and my trusty Cervelo steed.

John raced well, felt strong and finished just outside the medals at 4th place in Masters 55. So, while Randy was out doing his billy goat imitation on Mt. Evans, Velo Veloce was also well-represented locally. Congrats to Randy for a impressive 27th position finish in that demanding Mt. Evans bike race.

The Yutan course treated us right. It has more rollers to begin with, then the middle half is long straightaways.Ireally love this course.

We got a nice southerly 10-20 mile wind on the return trip. The starting positions were kind of weird, with Fred (the defending champion) starting in the first position in his race. I was second in his group of ten. It's not as advantageous if you don't know what is happening behind you. I caught my one minute man about a fourth of the way into the 24 mile course, but had to keep pressing hard because most of his competitors were still behind him.

There were some really fast times posted on Saturday. Follow this link to the CSG results:http://www.nebraskacyclingnews.com/content/view/1029/246/

Made it!

Got to the top of Mount Evans. Finished 27th (in 2:33:00) out of 82 riders in cat 4 35+, averaging 11 mph-not bad for a flatlander. It was hard, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Might go back next year if I don't do Etape d'Tour.