Greetings from France, I mean Quebec!!!!

I’m here in Quebec at the Tour de Beauce. We’re 3 stages deep with 4 more to go. So far, it’s been a whole lot of up and down bumpy roads. I mean really bumpy. Like years of freezing and thawing weather causing huge holes, cracks, bumps and about anything else a bicycle dislikes. Don’t believe me? One got Evan pretty good last Tuesday. Check it out here. I’ll write a good race report when I get a few minutes.

An observation……….Quebec is alot like France. Not only do they both speak French but there are some other similarities. In fact, today I saw a guy in his front yard using a weedeater and he was wearing a helmet with a built in face guard. So French!

Alright, to tide you over until I write something a bit better and in honor of his wicked crash, I’ve added a video interview with Jittery Joe’s Evan Elken. Check it out below.

Cheers.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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Party Time…..Manayunk Wall Style!,
originally uploaded by akingslife.

I owed you guys a write up about Philly……

Philly was one of the sweetest races I’ve ever done. I’ve never seen crowds quite like that before. That being rowdy, crazy and loud as all hell. The only other race that comes to mind as being that of “high levels of sweetness” is the Prix des Marbiers in France. It’s a great little circuit with a huge crowd turnout. But enough about France…..it’s Philly time.

For those that aren’t familiar with the course…..it starts in downtown Philadelphia, heads out of town along a river to a hip and popular neighborhood called Manayunk. Once there, the race goes up the famous Manayunk Wall before descending the backside and returning to downtown. The Wall is an 18% grade for maybe about half a mile. We raced it in a 53X21 or 19. We do this 14 or so mile loop 10 times. Throw in a few local laps at the beginning and a few more at the end and you have the race known as the Philadelphia International. The most important part of the course is the fast and dangerous approach to The Wall and then The Wall itself. The approach is tough because every team and their mother is doing a full blown leadout.

We pre-road the course the day before and I had to have a heart to heart talk with myself. You see, my brain saw the Manayunk Wall and said, “Oh hell” and half way up my legs informed me that Sunday would be a long long day. 156 miles and a bit over 6 hours long to be exact. But to be honest, the Wall was great fun. Yeah, I know, how could an 18% grade be fun? Well, the course was lined with some of the craziest spectators I’ve ever seen. It was great. The Manayunk Wall is one big block party. The party starts at the bottom of the climb, goes up the climb and then down the backside. We aren’t talking about your little rudy-pooh pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey 12 year olds birthday party kind of event. No sir, but we are talking about young caged wild adolescent beasts released upon the world after years of cold and sober captivity. Please refer to my piture for a visual explanation. And I’m sorry if that is your son or daughter in the picture………Suzanne and her mom were at the race and were flashed by both women and men. They also saw a viking running up and down the hill.

As for me, the race went well and I ended up rolling in with the second group for 40th place. All day I felt really strong and was able to ride the Wall in the front of the bunch. It wasn’t untill 2 laps to go that I felt my legs soften up a bit. That happened to also be when the you-know-what hit the fan and the race blew to bits. It’s crazy when the race doesn’t really start till about the 5 hour mark…..

Here’s a video Suzanne took of the bunch going up the Manayunk Wall. I’m not sure what lap it was.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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1. Write up on Philly.

2. Video of peloton going up Manayunk Wall that Suzanne took.

3. akingslife.com exclusive video rider interviews…….

I finished Philly yesterday afternoon and left the hotel at 7:30 this morning……….destination, Canada: the land of hockey, Tim Horton’s and maple leafs…………..I took 1 shuttle, 2 flights and a 1 hour long car ride to the hotel for the 6 day Tour de Beauce. We got in at 4:00 this afternoon and the race starts bright and early tomorrow morning. It’s been a tad bit busy……

We’ll talk more soon.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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Ten Years In by Hunter King,
originally uploaded by akingslife.

Happy Birthday to my brother Hunter. For the longest time I gave him the knickname “Anus”…….my mother hated it.

It was actually my brother’s wife, Aimee, who jokingly came up with the name. As the younger brother, it was my duty to make it stick. It did…..for years.

Ten Years In (the drawing he did to the left) is actually a self portrait. Well, my brother isn’t actually a bear but those are his eyes and glasses. Click on it and read the description of the complete story behind it.

Today was the Reading race. It was a great course and it made for a great race. So far, the courses and organization of the Commerce Bank Triple Crown have been wonderful. I’m heading to bed soon, but I’ll try and post a better race wrap-up tomorrow. I’m also working on some video interviews that I’d like to post soon. Hopefully they’re entertaining.

Talk to you soon.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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Five by Hunter King,
originally uploaded by akingslife.

It’s Monday afternoon and I find myself sitting in room 221 of the Days Inn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This morning Hoppy and I switched from our lovely smoking room to a much more sinus pleasing non-smoking room. Let me tell you, the Days Inn here is a real beauty! Such a beauty, that CSC checked out after the first night and it looks like Jelly Belly followed today. Who’ll be next……Health Net? Barlowrold? We’ll see…… Out here in the sticks of Pennsylania, it’s Amish country. I saw a few bugggies being pulled by horses on my training ride today. It’s a far cry from the lifted SUV’s clogging Phoenix’s roads. I was reading a book yesterday and I learned that the Amish have gray buggies while Mennonites have black one’s. You learn something new everyday.

Lancaster went alright for me. It was my first NRC race back in about a month so I figured it would be a bit of a shock to the system. I felt strong but lacked the top end speed needed to be competitive in that level of field. There was a long fast crosswind stretch after the feed zone climb and every lap I was muttering obscenities as I closed the gap I kept openning up. I ended up coming off with a few laps to go in the mass exodus of riders created by the eye crossing efforts of CSC. Eureka! They whittled the field right down to the 40 or so guys that took it to the finish. But, on the bright side, it was just the effort I needed to sharpen back up for the rest of the racing trip. I’m excited for Thursday’s race and of course Sunday in Philly. Much respect to Jackson Stewart for snatching up the win. Quite impressive.

I overheard two things of interest in the race………

One….. was Lars Michaelson (CSC) telling his team mate, “I’m scared”……….. The first few laps of the race were very very sketchy. There was a big crash about 2k into it that took out Trent. Luckily, he got back on and ended up 12th.

Two….. was when Marc and I were cruising around after the race. There were hundreds of kids all over the course yelling for us to throw our watter bottles to them……There was one young girl, maybe 8 years old, standing next to her little brother who was wearing a “Vote For Pedro” shirt. When we passed the little girl she wanted a bottle and unfortunately, we didn’t have one to throw to her. She then said, “bikes just don’t pedal themselves, you know”……………I was speechless, she did have a valid point.

My post yesterday, of the crash video from the CSC Invitational, has got a ton of page hits…..go figure. That’s all for now.

Cheers.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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Alright, so my videos Friday of the 2005 Ronde Van Vlaanderen start were so-so, but yesterday at the CSC Invitational I got a real gem on tape. Since I flew in late the night before, I didn’t start the Invitational and instead went for a training ride and then watched the end of the race. Just for grins and giggles, I was using my digital camera to video the last few laps of the group going through the very fast and tight first corner. Here’s the group with about 6 or so to go:

The next lap I decided not to video and of course………….a crash happened. I did however end up catching most of it on film, even though it’s only 6 seconds long. First to go down hard was Richard England (Priority Health), after that it was a chain reaction into the curb. Eureka! Gord (Health Net) and Dominguez (United) were two of the favorites to go down hard. Also, you can see an AEG rider flip into the street sign. Luckily, everyone was able to walk away and it didn’t look like anybody got hurt too bad. The quality of the video is not too hot with YouTube……. The image clarity is much better with Windows Media Player. Check it out:

If you want, here’s the links staright to the YouTube site:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkqG4e-6P3E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuGeC2raOaI

Gotta run, Lancaster is this afternoon.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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