A long time ago in an orchard in Sebastopol California, Ronald Reagan was still president and a young man from Texas stopped by for an extended visit while on a bike tour. He hung out for a while, helped us out, drank beer with us, but mostly impressed the Ibis crew with his acoustic and olfactory emissions. It earned him a nickname that I still use to this day but few others know. After the stint in the apple orchard, he went off to schlep fence for the coors classic bike race, where he quickly moved up the org chart. The Coors ended, but not his career at bike races
Fast forward a lot of years and a couple more 8-year administrations and I find myself now working for him, along with about 800 other people here at the Amgen Tour of California. His name is Jim Birrell, he’s the race director and the behind the scenes guy that puts this whole shebang together.

A few years ago, Jim approached me asking about some local road knowledge for a new bike race he was developing. He flew out from is office near Atlanta, we opened up some maps on my dining room table, had Levi come over to look over the routes with us, made our recommendations and Jim went on his way.

Six months after that I was working for Jim and with the (then) OLN TV crew putting on a bike race. The Tour of California was born.

Three short years later for me (and no doubt long years for Jim), the ToC has become one of the biggest races in the world, and a MUST TRY TO ATTEND race for European pro racers. It’s become so popular in the pro peloton, that many teams are turned away each year. One of the great things about this race is that the teams are made up of US domestic teams and European Pro Tour teams alike, allowing up and coming racers to compete against multiple World Champions, Olympians, and seasoned Euro pros.

Over the next 8 days, I’ll be working with the TV crew again, providing local road knowledge so we can get those scenic shots of the Peloton riding through the beautiful California countryside. I get to listen to Bob Roll’s uncensored mouth and watch Phil Liggett charm the ladies. I’ll be chronicling the fashion, the road rash and the latest in eastern euro hair styles. Speaking of which, I caught the heir apparent to Eki’s mullet yesterday in the lobby, surfing the cyclingnews.com website. That’s Levi’s teammate Vlad Gusev. Nice work.

Sorry about the lousy picture quality. The folks at Apple have figured a lot of stuff out, but not the camera on the iPhone.

Expulsion and Revulsion
If you’ve been following cycling at all this season, you’ve no doubt heard about the controversy surrounding Rock Racing, the orally uncensored owner of the team Michael Ball and the expulsion of three of their riders who are currently under investigation by the UCI. From the looks of yesterday’s events, Ball might have to chew on a bit of humble pie if he’ll stop talking for a minute.
One thing is for sure, Ball is bring a new fashion sense to the peloton. Freddie R wore his sunglasses through yesterday’s indoor press conference, looking like a bit of a gangsta with the street inspired casual wear.

Duty calls, got to go out and get to work…

Another good team kit from Portland.