Tour d' Ephr-notta lot to report

Five days removed, there's not much memorable about this year's TdE.

Road Race: Spent the morning watching the ambulances come and go. Lined up for the Cat. 4 race in good position in the staging area. Waiting for the medics to clean up the mayhem from the women's race, I decided to take one last potty break. Of course, the officials opened the staging area flood gates while I was takin' a wicked pissah. I exited the john to find my ever-so-loyal (for how much longer after my brilliant bathroom break move?) teammate, Dave Kemp, still holding my bike upright and waiting for me. We ended up at the back of the group at the official start/finish line. I felt terrible for Dave. That's about as exciting as things got.

Never really worked my way up to the front on the narrow roads. Avoided three crashes out on the course. Hung back for the sprint and watched plenty of guys shoulder each other off the road and generally make a mess of things. Rolled in for an impressive 40th!

TT: Windy. I did worse this year than I did last. Naaahce. Ahh liihke. I did not make any sort of sexy time. Got to the top of the climb in 27:47...good enough for 27th.

Crit: One word for you: shelled. I was not too happy with myself. Still can't claim to be much of a crit rider. Evan reported, however, that, once off the back of the peleton, I appeared to be traveling at about the same speed (read: pretty fast). One thing that kept me in it...the guys hanging out just around corner two and, every time I dragged my tired ass up the short incline there, totally cheering for me 'cause they misunderstood my grimace for a sh*t-eating grin. I guess I was rockin' it Horner style and they loved it. Sometimes it's the little things, eh?

Two other good things that came out of the crit:

1. I got plenty of practice cornering at speed...alone.
2. The crit turned out to be, more or less, a LT test for me.

Overall, I can't say I was happy with any results. Maybe three days off the bike last week wasn't such a good idea.

Hoping for better this Saturday at Poolesville.