Redlands CA, Prologue Preview

We got up to our host house in Redlands last night, it turned out to be super nice. Some people say that they're all nice, but I've also heard horror stories. Our host family is great, they have lost of candy around the house, and a super-sweet backyard.



This area is crazy, with the massive mountains on every side. The thing is, you can't really see the mountains that well because the smog is too thick. This morning we ventured out into those mountains to find the Prologue course. It's just 5k, so how bad can it hurt? Well I'll answer that tomorrow, but it looks like it might hurt a little bit. The "flat" sections aren't flat at all, and the uphill sections are pretty seriously steep. For those of you Bloomington readers, think of doing Sample backwards, the climb just as you turn left off of Old 37 onto Sample Rd. That pitch, for about 4 times as long.... yeah. That's how the TT ends. There is also a steep kicker about like that in the first half mile of the TT, just to try to get you to blow up early. I think it's going to be all about who hits the steep slopes with the most left in the tank.

When we were out preriding, so was everyone else, Slipstream, Toyota, BMC. The funny thing about seeing all of the good guys out on the course this morning, was how emphatically they wave. They are all super-fast, yet one of the biggest, goofiest waves I got was from Toyota's Henk Vogels. He has been around the scene forever, and has a nice list of accomplishments, but you don't see him acting too sweet to wave. Take that as a lesson to any of you Bloomington kids who think you're too fast/sweet to wave at another cyclist when you see them on the road, you aren't. Neither is Henk Vogels. We passed the Toyota guys an awkwardly high number of times while preriding, and they still gave nice big waves every time. That's PRO.

My road rash isn't healing up as quickly as I would like, but there is just too much to keep it all covered. Luckily the place that it feels the best is on the bike. I think I should be able to suffer through a few minutes on the bike tomorrow, and hopefully it will improve before the 146k stage on Friday.

I took a few pics of stuff over the last few days, so here ya go:

Phil's New Fiordifrutta SuperSix to be built with Red and R-Sys


My bike rebuilt and reglued


Reynolds Assaults @ The Bike Haus... (Maybe they do exist)


Wish me luck tomorrow!