Took a road trip today to Greenville to see the US National Road Racing Championships. Beautiful weather, great city for all things outdoors, fantastic crowds, and incredibly talented pro cyclists. Eclectic shops, fine dining, great burgers, the river walk, and cold beer brought out all types of fans and those who just wanted to get out and see what all this racing hype is all about. The crowds were not disappointed. Brad Huff was off the front all day making a great show for himself. First off in a two man break on lap two and remained in the main break which at one point had almost 3:30 seconds on the peleton. He remained in the break fighting hard for the better part of four hours until the final trip up over Paris Mountain. If you don't know Brad, you should. Great guy, funny, smart, determined, and fast as hell, big things will come for Brad, he has only just begun. Oh yeah, and he has a very interesting pre-race warm up. How about stretching and some jumping jacks. Seems to work for him!
Big George, the home town favorite was riding well with one team mate in Craig Lewis and was in the hunt until final laps. (Thanks go out to Hincapie Sports and the Team Bus with the big flat screen with the live race feed for us fans without the $100 hospitality passes.) I had the small, vocal, beer drinking crowd all cheering for Brad at the bus. But the day belonged to Rock Racing. Mike Creed in the break with Brad all day and finally Tyler Hamilton had what is takes to earn the stars and bars next year. Tyler edged out Blake Caldwell from Garmin-Chipolte by 2 one-hundredths of a second at the line. The guys at Rock not only look good, but like it or not appear to be the real deal. They now have two US Championship jerseys to sport next year.
I also watched some future racers, saw some interesting art, creative hair styles, sweet bikes from Litespeed, Storck, and Cervelo. If you get the chance to come to Carolina, put Greenville on your itinerary, this is truly a town that has it all.
Thanks for reading, Y'all tune in again soon.
3 comments:
hey Steve, Thanks for keeping us posted while Cale and I rode around in circles. I would love to go to US pro one year. Brad said you where super excited to see him... almost teared up.
that is one nice-looking giraffe. is Huff imitating it in that last pic?
and Hincapie was so excited to see me that he too almost teared up...You and Cale come on down, Nationals will be in Greenville again next year. You have a place to stay if you need.
B-Maybe Huff should autograph the griaffe?
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