Sweet Cherry Pie

Two days ago as most of the nation sat stuffing their faces with mountains of hot-wings, swallowing mounds of molten seven-layer dip, and watching Superbowl XLIV kickoff a small legion of spandex bandits descended upon Napa for the official kickoff of the 2010 road season. A few hearty lads and I decided to ride over to the Cherry Pie Criterium from Davis, and though my legs certainly don't agree I think it was wonderful. Plus I had some great inspiration. Sure Switters and Dibble and @TheStaz were cursing me at every rise in the road (and not because I was driving the pace, I assure you), but it was a nice three hours of base on some beautiful roads. Riding to a race reminds me of Belgium where that was standard practice instead of a rare treat, and anything that makes me nostalgic for Belgium is typically good. We were so fired up that we decided to do a little commemorative pre-ride photo shoot that somehow turned into a video shoot. I blame the camera(wo)man:


Despite my lackluster climbing we made it to the race with plenty of time to get kitted up in some new Yahoo! Cycling corporate threads. The socks were the highlight for me. I think the highlight for Tyler was that he got women's shorts with no bibs. Ha! It was a joy to get all the guys into the same kit, and with all the talk of being a serious NorCal hit squad I think we finally looked the part.

I don't know why, but I was more nervous on the start line of Cherry Pie than I have been in a long, long time. I think it was a combination of the first race of the season and the pressure of wanting to ride hard for a stellar new team. As the announcer was firing up the crowd before the start I think my heart rate jumped 20 bpm. The race itself was great. The Y!CT had things on lockdown from the gun and all I had to do was mark moves and watch the guys run rampant on the field. Dirk got some great help from Filip, Phil, Tyler and Adam up front and took the win out of the break by a mile. Mark Adkison has some great shots from the race and I'm going to see if he'll let me toss a few on the blog. Until he gives me the okay you can scope them out on his site, Hors Categorie Photography. Also, I think we managed to impress someone from the Berkeley Bicycle Club who had some kind words to say, and who in turn impressed me with his crazy video that syncs race footage with his power, speed, etc. Wild.

"Yahoo! Cycling Team put on a clinic, animating the race, winning and filling the top ten. If you google “bicycle racing”, you should see a picture of the Yahoo! squad after today’s mastery. I imagine you would get the same result if you Yahoo’d Yahooded googled “bicycle racing” on Yahoo."

The racing was great and the team worked incredibly well together in our first outing, but for me the coolest part of the day was before the race when we got to meet some new fans. A couple came up to us with their little pup "Chili Dog" who was decked out in a Yahoo! Cycling Team sweater (I'll look for a photo). They weren't Yahoo! employees and they didn't have friends or family in the race. They had just heard about the new team in a cyclingnews.com article and decided to come check out the nearby race and cheer us on. Normally I'm not much for pet-sweaters, but I'll definitely make an exception for Chili Dog. What a champ! It was an honor to have some fans out there and I'm glad we could put on a show for them.

Speaking of cats and dogs that's exactly what its raining right now, but I've got to go do three hours and if I don't get out the door now I may never go. Time to put on the fenders and rain jacket and, as Switters just instructed me, my big-boy pants. HTFU, Parnes.