Yup, a pic George again - 2005 Tour... I’ve got tons of pics of him.... Hope you saw the great article about/interview with George in cyclingnews.com a couple of days ago. It was about George’s involvement with the junior cycling team Les Amis. Les Amis is in George’s hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, but George works to inspire young cyclists everywhere.

For instance, when George and his brother Rich rode with the young diabetic cyclist, Stradford Helms, in the 2003 Death Valley Century ride in California. He has inspired this kid from that day on, and Stradford’s mother says that George is the reason that the young cyclist has beaten the odds as a diabetic cyclist.

I remember seeing George with his family at the first SF Grand Prix. We were sitting in the hotel lounge one night across from the Hincapie clan. George was just the greatest with all the kids in his family. They were pestering him for attention, crawling all over him, jumping on his back - George was just great with them. Gave them all love and attention, and was patient and gentle with them. I said at the time that he would make the best Dad in the world, and I’m sure that he is right now.... George’s own father is a modest, humble and down-to-earth man - his love and pride in George just radiates in a big grin. What a loving, warm family the Hincapies are....

Also, in case any of you have gone to my smugmug photo gallery and noticed that all the Cougar Mountain Classic photos are gone, there is a reason. I received a call from a representative of CM, telling me that the race promoters owned all photo rights, and nobody else has the right to sell any of the race photos. No problem (not that anyone was going to buy any of those images), but I deleted the images from my gallery. But I don’t see how an event that has low attendance and needs publicity can overlook the value of having advertising “buzz” from photos being seen by cycling fans. This is free publicity for the event....

I think I mentioned that I didn’t see any of the usual professional cycling photographers there - the guys and gals that I see at all the cycling races: Redlands, Merced, SF Grand Prix, etc. Now I know why. I was actually the only photog who was taking podium shots... Sure doesn’t make sense to me - photographers are not going to cover a race where they can’t recover a pittance of the costs for their time, travel, lodging and food expense by selling a few photos... It’s a great little race, but fans gotta know about it to show up and pay the admission...