Jeez - it turns out that Michael Barry has been riding the Vuelta with a broken rib! Doing those killer climbs with a broken rib - unbelievable. These guys are so effing tough that it boggles my mind. When I was a kid, I broke a rib or two from crashing my bike full speed into the garage wall. It hurt like Hell and I could hardly breath.... I know that Michael is riding in pain every day and he is doing a killer amount of work to keep Tom in the top ten. And so is Benjamin, but with his body intact, I think. And talk about tough, Tom rode the whole stage on Friday while barfing his guts out.... all the way. Never gave up.... Damn, I love those guys....

And, talking tough guy, my Iron Man Eki, is riding the Tour of Poland, along with Chechu, who seems to have recovered from his leg injury. Boy, the Discovery Team sure had their share of injuries this year...

So I spent hours yesterday going thru my hundreds of photos of the Cougar Mountain Classic. Then uploading them to smugmug is a slow process. Follow the Link to check them out... I could make them low res and they would upload faster, but then it takes time to make a copy of everything in low res mode.

But, downshot is that you gotta go to CM next year - it’s really a cool venue and the downhill from the top is freakin’ scary. One of my colleagues from Sea Otter drove me to the top in a four-wheel truck on an almost vertical dirt road. She and I both can drive anything, anywhere, anytime. It was a totally cool view of the whole Bay Area from the top. Took a few shots of the riders lined up inside a tent start gate that dropped over the edge, kinda like off a ski lift. No way would I ride a bike down that sucker...