The Home of Most Excellent Dudes

I can’t tell you how many times I have seen Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Too many. The telephone booth falling out of the sky into the small town of San Dimas California is an image tattooed on my brain forever. It was a strange coincidence that Julie and I wound up moving there more than ten years ago for a short stay. No telephone booths to speak of, but there was a Circle K right off of Bonita Avenue that deserved a photo or two.

This past weekend, Julie and I embarked on a most excellent adventure to the homeland of Bill and Ted Esq. to do the San Dimas Stage Race. Touted as one of the most challenging and well organized stage races in So Cal, we were full of anticipation as to what the weekend would bring.

The weekend kicked off with a 4 mile uphill TT with over 1,200 feet of climbing. I was feeling good about myself as I rode past numerous other riders. That was until I got passed by the guy who took off after I did. The effort at the top put me in 14th overall, well out of GC contention. Julie and the other MCS girls gave it their all as well. A tough group of women out there though, and the results put them in the bottom third of GC.

Saturday’s road race was an 8 mile circuit race with a considerable hill to climb thrown into the middle. It was enough to break up the field, but not enough to promote huge time gaps. I pushed hard on the ride and did some work for an SDBC guy in GC contention. I led out the finishing sprint for him, and gave him enough to take second on the day. I wound up finishing 9th which I was pretty happy with. All of the girls got dropped in their race, but no one finished last, and they all made the time cut to compete in Stage 3.

I am finally over the fear of crit racing, and I am actually starting to enjoy the speed of these races. We revisited the site of the infamous Circle K to race in Sunday’s crit. I worked my butt off to stay in the front group. Unfortunately I had a bad line on the run into the finish and finished 13th instead of up top where I should have been. Still finished 12th in the overall which was fine by me. Julie and the girls had a tough go at it, but finished the race mid pack overall. No crashes.

This was my last race as a Cat 5. Time for a whole new challenge now as I move up into the 4s. Until then, “Be excellent to each other, and …party on dudes!”

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