Catching Back Up.

So I cleaned out my camera this morning and came across a bunch of random pics that perhaps haven't surfaced from over the last month or so. Enjoy on this blue sky Sunday afternoon...well it is here at least!

Cricket has been very adventurous of late, including this one little exploit when Norris was here.  Looking back at it now it was pretty funny.  At the time climbing the tree in thongs and getting swatted at by cricket who was freaking out wasn't a barrel of monkeys.

She also enjoys exploring inside also......

Ahh this makes me laugh.  En route to Bisbee we ran outta gas 3miles before the station.  Yep we run a tight ship on Team Rio that's for sure.

I very much like my bike this year!  Clearly the best road bike I have ridden hands down...

I have been making the habit that the week after coming home from travel races to get out on the dirt.  Green Mountain is only a stones throw away from the house and can put a smile on the face in just 2hrs.

Getting some pre-race advice from Team Manager Scott at Deer Trail RR.  Turned out to be a pretty good day taking 5th place but getting worked hard pretty well by the Groove-Subaru lads.  Coming back from the early season NRC's has left me with a much different perspective competing locally.  Hopefully a local win won't be too far away and is definitely within my reach this year.

Kat has been racing too and getting in shape for her big goal at Tulsa Tough next month.

Like me, she is also riding for a new team this year and is enjoying every bit of it.

Lastly we have another new member of the gang...Henry.  We were on the fence whether or not to get Cricket a buddy to play with.  Henry was literally on death row and after meeting the guy we couldn't pass him up.

And they have been best mates since day one!.

To further bring things up to speed I raced locally yesterday out at Hugo.  Where?  Yeah I thought so too, but essentially a 2hr drive out east from home (read: the middle of nowhere).  Actually it reminded me a ton of going out to a local Modella CCCC race back home.  Conditions were pretty solid, 85deg and windy as hell although we weren't too fussed after the tornado's we went through at Gila.  Rio represented with half the squad, being Brad, Jon (coming back from bronchitis) and myself.  Things went GREAT early, with Jon and myself in a break of 7.  We were all working reasonably well and the legs were turning nicely and I was pretty excited at the possibility of a good results and perhaps the first team win for 2010.  How quickly things can change however.  One large mechanical later I was outta the race.  Damn.  The break ended up splitting in the crosswinds with Garcia and another rider going clear until he flatted leaving Jon on his own.  Meanwhile, in said crosswinds the whole main field got DQ'ed for crossing the center-line.  Brad crashed and got carted away to hospital to clean up some solid road rash.  No broken bones however.  So in the end Garcia got caught by a couple of riders that bridged across but it didn't matter as they were previously disqualified.  At the end of the day Garcia got the win in a pretty odd day.  Me, obviously I was VERY disappointed not to be there in the finish, but you can't play the game of 'what if's'.  Sometimes that's just the way things roll and hopefully the chips fall my way in our upcoming travel races - Mt Hood and the big one at Nature Valley.