USA Pro Cycling Challenge

Hello all!  Sorry for the length of time between posts - Katie has been busy working (and getting blocked from most fun external websites) and I have been doing my best to find a job...with a healthy concentration on "balance", i.e. job hunt for one hour, ride my bike for two or three.  Makes sense right?  Right. 

So my plan is try to catch you up, and that will start with the USA Pro Cycling Challenge weekend.  It is a 7 day cycling stage race in Colorado (and thus should be named Tour of Colorado but I guess that would have made too much sense).  They got a very impressive roster of riders for this inaugural year, including the top three finishers from the Tour de France.  Katie and I caught the last weekend of racing by driving up to Breckenridge for the finish of Stage 6 on Saturday. 

When we got there they had amateur drag racing which was hilarious...here is the start gate:

And the kids in attendance got their own special course:

We perched ourselves about 1 mile from the finish and had a great view of the final action, complete with a random dude in a devil suit who was preparing to run along side the race (a Tour de France tradition of sorts):

There was a pack of three guys leading (first picture), including Andy Schleck who was 2nd in the TDF this year...they were followed about 10 seconds back by the peloton which then caught them with 200 meters until the finish line!

After they flew by, we sprinted over to the finish line and just missed it.  But we did get to see tons of riders coming off the course.  I was shocked at how close we could get to them - did that sound creepy? 

The next day was the last day of the race and it was finishing right in downtown Denver so we met some friends to watch.  It was insane how many people there were out watching.  I couldn't believe it.  Both sides of the street were two deep for miles and miles:

Once again, we did a mad dash to try to get to the finish line in time.  Sadly, by the time we got there, we couldn't see anything because of the crowds.  We hung out for the podium presentation and Katie managed to sneak towards the staging area to snap some great pics of the overall winner (Levi) and multiple stage winner from Liquigas:

What a great way to spend a weekend (for me)...and thanks to Katie for being such a great sport!  She was rewarded with a very large margarita on Sunday afternoon.