I’ve been slacking recently about blogging, but I do have a reason. When I returned from the Tour de Georgia we immediately went into “production.” This is a week of laying the magazine out, collecting the articles and finding out that we are missing a photo or other random stuff. This is when working at a magazine sucks. So we got that issue done and I just needed a week to relax and ride. Now I’m back and on the gas again to crank out the next issue. But looking back at TdG there was some stuff I didn’t have a chance to write about. On the first stage I got James Brown to autograph a copy of ROAD. Not sure why, but it seemed like a cool thing to do. I had brought extra issues of ROAD with me to give out and I kept the autographed issue separate from the others. However, in the confusion of packing and re-packing every day I must have stuck my signed copy with the issues I was giving out. So someone, somewhere has my autographed copy from James Brown. Damn!

One of the hardest climbs I’ve done is the Brass Town Bald stage. When we started the last three miles of climbing I was forced to zig-zag back and forth on the road. Talk about a kick in the ass!! One of the guys we rode with got off and walked and was faster than we were. Then to see Floyd and Tom battling it out on those slopes and riding straight up after racing for four hours was amazing.

People ask if I get in the team cars for stage races. I usually don’t because it is like being stuck in traffic for four hours. You generally don’t see anything and when you do it is an emergency, so the stress in the car goes from a two to ten in a matter of seconds. The exceptions to that rule are circuit races and time trials. Circuit races are fun for a lap, like stage 7 at the Tour of California. I jumped in with the Sierra Nevada team and got to see the mass of crowds for myself and then get out at the finishline a lap later. At Georgia I jumped into the Navigators team car during the tt. The course was fairly straight forward, with a few downhill, off-camber turns. The driver of the Navigator car had those tires squealing as he whipped the team issue Audi from side to side. Plus, I’m able to crawl out the window of the car and get some good shots. You can’t really climb out the car window in a mass start race because of the ref and because it is a bit dangerous, so I have to choose my moments when the ref ain’t looking.

So I’m at the finish of the tt and David Zabriskie comes over to me. He wants me to take a picture of him giving a CSC jersey to this guy in exchange for the Discovery Channel jersey he was wearing. David is getting CSC fans one at a time.

Just got in the ROAD jerseys from Hincapie Sportswear and they look great. We are expecting ROAD bib shorts and caps as well. Damn, we’re going to look good!