Dress Like Usmo

Now you too can wear official Richard Sachs Team apparel! Check out the ebay auction with lots of team gear at this link.

.....

Sorry for the three-day lapse in blog updating... aside from the usual bike riding, there hasn't been too much going on in the world of the A-Team! We've been doing important things like filing taxes, grocery shopping, and accumulating Facebook friends. The last few days have also been fantastic weather days, and we're not missing the string of nor'easters back home at all... not one little bit!! ha. This warm California sunshine is good for the body and soul atmo.

Miles Ridden Today: 37

Miles Ridden 2008: 878

Home Again

We've finally returned home to our beds and our computers after a few days following the Amgen Tour of California down the coast. Our friends on the Slipstream-Chipotle team took home the team omnium title and a fat check at the end of the week long race... congratulations on a stylish win guys!

Alie and I watched a rainy finish Thursday in downtown SLO, a mostly sunny time trial on Friday in Solvang, then took a day off the race following to visit Alie's family in Chatsworth and get our nails done with her cousin, Rachel. Sunday we were back on the trail of the race, and our own ride coincided with part of the race route at the top of Big Tujunga Canyon. After watching the guys go by, we were freezing cold 20 minutes later and luckily got a ride back down the mountain from one of the many bike-friendly spectators that had driven up the canyon to watch as well! We scurried over to the finish area at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, and arrived just in time to join the crowds watching the finishing laps of the race and see George Hincapie take home the final stage win in pouring rain and cold conditions.

Post-race activites included finding dinner in Pasadena:

Once we found dinner with the help of the map, we also found Justin Spinelli! Congrats on finishing a tough race and looking good atmo. After celebrating a love of robots and having a few drinks that may or may not have been purchased by a super-pro cyclist, and then having a few more drinks, we eventually turned in for the night and said goodbye to the Tour of California.

Sighhh... back to the routine here at home.  We may or may not correctly recall our mileage during the last few whirlwind days, but we're estimating at...

Miles Ridden 2008: 744

Tour of Cali, Solvang Time Trial

Today marked the first day of the winter where Alie and I set an alarm to wake up in the morning. We headed down to Solvang to watch the Stage 5 time trial of the Tour of California. After saying hi to the Slipstream-Chipotle team, getting an autograph from George Hincapie, and nearly good-gaming Mario Cipollini, we hung out at the start area for a while, and saw the starts of Tim Johnson, Stuart O'Grady, Cipo, and our favorite racer Justin Spinelli. Above is a picture I snagged of David Zabriskie, 5th place finisher in the race today.

JUSTIN SPINELLI, Man of Steel atmo

Mr. Justin Spinelli himself, warming up in the car after a SEVEN HOUR DAY on the bike in Stage 4 of the Tour of California - he finished with the best of the best today in what had to be one of the most miserable rainy days you could have for a 135-mile race along the California coast. CONGRATULATIONS JUSTIN!!!!! Our hero...

Rainy Day

OK, so today may have been a rainy day in the morning, but it sure turned into a beautiful afternoon.  Not much new to report from here on the central coast.  After an exciting weekend, we spent the last two days doing some biking and a lot of shopping.  We bought so many stylish clothes, you may not even recognize us when we get back to the east coast!  Don't worry, I still bought more than one dorky t-shirt, we're not actually turning into California girls.  For now, we both still have brown hair :)

Tonight, we prepare to spend a few days watching the Tour of California, which comes to SLO tomorrow!!!

Miles Ridden Today: 33.5

Miles Ridden 2008: 646.5

Awesome Weekend!!

For the first time in a while, you get to read about something we did other than ride bikes this weekend!! We were graced with the presence of both Kristina Eaton and Alie's sister, Marina. On Saturday after a delicious sushi dinner, we met up with Rebecca and her two weekend guests, Shawn Milne and Jesse Anthony. A night and early morning of bar-hopping and dancing ensued as we hit a few hot spots in downtown SLO.  There are lots of pictures, so check out the album linked here.

On Sunday, the warm temperatures lured the four of us girls to Montana de Oro State Park near the ocean for a hike. After hiking/scampering/racing into the clouds to the top of Valencia Peak, we ran into a random boy with a guitar who took this picture for us: 

After racing back down the mountain (so much for a day off the bike!) we made our way to the town of Edna for some afternoon wine tasting at the Edna Valley Vineyard with Shawn and Jesse as well. A trip to a second vineyard was sufficient to complete the afternoon of wine tasting. We wrapped up the day with a homemade veggie lasagna at Chateau-duh-A-Team annnnd more wine with the whole crew, and watched the movie Capote.  More pictures are here.

On Monday morning, Marina headed home for San Francisco, Kristina went for a jog, and the two of us got back on our bikes for what seemed like the first time in days. After a solid ride, we came back to rescue Kristina from her studying and headed down to Pismo Beach for the afternoon. We dropped off Kristina at the airport this evening and have been moping ever since :(

It looks like it's back to the routine for the A-Team... until the Tour of California comes to town this week!!!! Stay tuned...

Miles Ridden Today: 45

Miles Ridden 2008: 567

Saturday Night in SLO

more to follow!!

Men's Colony...

After yesterday's disappointing Valentine's day, we were elated to discover this place on our ride today. Unfortunately, we left empty handed, as these men just weren't quite up to our standards. Our trusty bikes, however, took us on yet another beautifully scenic ride west of San Luis toward Los Osos and the ocean. We determined today, that our house is located at a merging point of what seem like many different countries. To our north, we have dessert-like dry landscapes. To our south, there are rolling green vineyards, reminiscent of France or Italy. West of us, it is as if we've traveled to the Costwolds or some part of England's countryside. To our east there are lush green rolling hills that look almost like ruffled quilts. We are very excited for tomorrow when Kristina and my sister will be arriving. Kristina is flying in all the way from Reno, and my sis will drive from San Fran. We're looking forward to some quality girl time and have even planned a few fun outings...stay tuned! 

Miles Ridden Today: 35
Miles Ridden 2008: 481

Valentine's Day, I Guess

Today marked our two week anniversary in our new home. It also happened to be Valentine's Day.... ugh. After receiving the usual Happy Valentine's Day wish from my dad, that was pretty much the last we heard about that. We'll be accepting belated Valentine's wishes through the end of the week.

Our afternoon ride took us to the bustling town of Pozo - town center is pictured above. To be fair, the Pozo Saloon is actually a semi-famous middle-of-nowhere concert venue. After the ride we wrapped up the day with another trip to the Thursday night SLO Farmer's Market and got some more BBQ ribs a la last Thursday. And finally - a first for our California trip I think - we went out and drank beer! Okay, so it was only one beer each, and we were home by 8:30, but at least the idea was crazy.

Miles Ridden Today: 39

Miles Ridden 2008: 446

Ocean Ride

Alie and I were happily reunited today, and celebrated by - yup, you guessed it - immediately resuming our normal daily routine.  What?!  You don't know The Routine?  Well this is how it goes: Alie wakes up around 9.  I wake up shortly thereafter, usually just in time for the french to have recently pressed our coffee.  We drink coffee, eat oatmeal supplemented with whatever fruit was at the top of the fruitbowl, and I usually have a second bowl of cereal beacuse I'm still hungry.  We stare into the abyss of our computer screens for anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours (sad, I know).  Three days a week we do some stretching and some crunches and even pretend we can do some pushups.

Today we broke from routine only slightly, and we did our stretching and crunches outside instead of inside because it was soooo nice out - sunny, warm, and perfect.  Because it was so great outside, we decided to plan a good ride - a fifty mile loop from Templeton, west on 46 to Cambria, down coastal route 1 to Cayucos, and up Old Creek Road back to Templeton.  As we headed west, we saw this HUGE walnut-sized disgusting bug, and then we started to see the clouds rolling over the hills as we got to the top of whatever range of hills/mountains we were about to cross.  Pretty neat!!

Well, we should've read those clouds as the omen they were... believe it or not, it was cloudy on the other side of the mountains. Really cloudy. A little more chilly than it was under the sun. As we started descending to the ocean, it started to get downright cold. OK, so we were freaking freezing with no "warm" clothing besides armwarmers and had to stop in a cafe in Cayucos to warm up, get a hot drink and some food, and re-motivate for the ride back. Yes, lesson learned. Onward and upward, we started warming from the inside out soon after the cafe stop as we starting climbing back up the mountains to head home. We had a great, albeit cloudy, view of the ocean behind Whale Rock Reservoir on our way up Old Creek Road.

We also passed a huge grove of avocado trees, which looked really neat at the part in the grove where a bunch of them were cut down for some reason.  The climb back up the mountains was beautiful, and we rejoiced and sang when we got back to the warm and sunny side of the hills.  And again, the roads were nice as usual.  In fact the whole ride was beautiful despite the cold spell, and you should check out all the pictures in that picasa album.  good stuff.

Miles Ridden Today: 51

Miles Ridden 2008: 407

"Ferme la Vache!"

I'm back from my two day trip to Solvang, and don't know where to begin with the abundance of stories to tell. I had the unbelievable (but, believe it, ladies and gents) opportunity to spend a few days in the company of six Team Slipstream/Chipotle riders and their traveling circus. Fortunately, I started off my journey not really knowing how "pro" most of these cyclists really were. Had I known, I'm sure I would have been a bit more intimidated at first. The staff and team were very welcoming and I felt comfortable the minute I stepped out of my car. My first task was to go to Allen Lim's hotel room and help him make a rice/egg/bacon/balsamic/SALT concoction to wrap up for the guys to take out on their ride. A "breakfast burrito on the go," I was informed. After a very busy day of making sure the guys were taken care of, we all went out to dinner at a fancy pants Italian restaurant where we proceeded to drink and eat like kings (and queens!). It was nice to have a chance to hang out in a more relaxed atmosphere and get to have a few laughs together. I even learned a few fun foreign phrases. I stayed the night, did more of the same in the morning, went for a ride there, and was taken out to dinner again. Before saying goodbye, Tom, Daimeon, Allen and I dropped to the ground out in front of the restaurant for a 22 push-up challenge. Ok, so the "challenge" was mainly to see if I could do it, but they happily joined and proceeded to show me up. :)

Amy and I will be seeing them, along with our own teammate, Justin Spinelli (he rides for Kelly Benefits, another team in the Tour of California), next week, when they ride through our town! Oh, and one last thing, I feel like one of the luckiest girls in the world to have been able to do this. The team reminded me a lot of the Richard Sachs squad in their family-like atmosphere. Their anti-doping foundations provide the riders with a pressure free environment to perform to the best of their ability, with the understanding that even the best of the best have off days sometimes, and thats ok. Good philosophy, atmo.

Solo Day

Today was a slow day here in SLO county, as Alie took off early morning for some business in Solvang, and I spent the day solo.  My day involved very exciting things like reading a book, stretching, a trip to the post office, and a bike ride in 70 degree weather for the second day in a row.  The highlight of the day was Jared's rental of a Nintendo Wii, which I've spent the last few hours playing.  I won't bore you with any more details of my day for fear that you'll stop reading our blog entirely.  I think Alie's update will prove more exciting than mine when that comes along...

Miles Ridden Today: 40

Miles Ridden 2008: 341... yeah, there's some funny math going on here, we'll work it out...

Sunday night in SLO

After a tasty dinner at Rebecca and Mary's place, Amy and I decided to go out for ice cream with these superheroes. We ditched Rebecca and Mary for The Flash and Super Naked Camo Girl. The folks over at Bali's were almost as excited as we were to be in their company.

Weekend

It seems that we forgot to post yesterday!  ooops... well, I guess we were too busy riding, wine tasting, cooking, and playing ever more rounds of hand & foot.

We decided on a shorter recovery ride today so that our Saturday afternoon would be left open.  That was our SEVENTY degree and SUNNY Saturday afternoon, btw.  After our 16 mile pedal, we mapped out a driving route through wine country to do a little wine tasting.  There is no shortage of wineries around here, as evidenced by this website that helps to guide you through the local wine country - every dot and bit of text on that map is a different vineyard!!  Our goal was simple: find tasting rooms that did not charge a tasting fee.

Winery stop number one, Peachy Canyon winery, was a thumbs down for its $5 tasting fee, so we skipped it after obtaining this free pen.  Stop number two was more successful as we found some tasty beverages free of charge at Castoro Cellars, and a room full of schwag to look at if you're into buying wine bottle stoppers, cocktail napkins, olive spread, or t-shirts.  Their Primitivo wine was very tasty, but not worth buying a $25 bottle imho... Sadly I have an uneducated palate, and cheap wine usually tastes just as good to me!

Our third stop was a gold mine. The Eagle Castle winery was great for many reasons:

1) free wine tasting, and a long list of wines - they wanted us to try all of them.

2) it was a flipping castle, complete with a moat.

3) we found a great place to take Kristina next Sunday!

4) Alie found a handsome fellow to take a picture with, and so did I!  sigh...

After I'd had plenty to taste at Eagle Castle, Alie and I decided it was time to take off after our wine pourer tried to set me up on a date with one of the other wine pourers. huh.  We tried one more stop, but found that this place also charged a wine tasting fee.  Instead, we took a picture on this big ol' wooden wine barrel:

So that was our Saturday!  On Sunday we each went out for solo rides, as I explored a hilly route to the east at Eeyore pace in the morning, and Alie explored a western route in the afternoon at more of a Tigger pace.  Tonight we head to Rebecca's house for some dinner and fun.

In other news, we like getting comments on our blog.  Anything. Even if you just say hi!  We check it frantically and get sad when we see the "0 comments" :(  so, help us out if you will.  And we would post an update on Richie's success at the NAHBS, but we haven't heard from him... richard?  helloooooo?

Miles Ridden This Weekend: 49 - 63

Miles Ridden 2008: 321.5

Today We Rode Peachy Canyon

Two girls
Over hills and
Dales
Always pedaling through
Yellow sunshine

With
Energy we

Rolled down hills
Over mountains and
Dove through corners as
Eagles dove at us (wtf?!?) it happened, though...really...funny story.

Peacefully we
Eyed the countryside
And
Cruised along
High roads
Yearning for dinner

Cooking was hasty
And oh so tasty
Now we
Yawn
Over tea and say
Night night.


Miles Ridden Today: 43
Miles Ridden 2008: 258.5

so much news!!

Hi there blog readers.  Today was an exciting daiye... this morning we made our first trip to the local Trader Joe's.  When we got home from shopping, we found some very exciting mail!!  Richard had sent us each a copy of the first ever(?) Richard Sachs 'Cross Reference BOOK!  The cover photo of the book is our very own A. Kenzer "polishing" some spots on her cross bike this past season.  The rest of the book includes 32 pages of the best photos of the 2007 cross season... because 'cross effin rules atmo.

Speaking of pictures and our team/family of cyclocrossers... check this kid out!!!  Our teammates and friends Jon and Alicia Hamblen welcomed their first child, a brand new baby boy just tonight!  Here's one of the first pictures of the little cutie, Fox David Hamblen:

Wonderful...  hooray for babies atmo.  so there he is!

What else.  Our ride today started in SLO and headed southeast to Lopez Lake in Arroyo Grande.  It was pretty nice, and marked our FIRST ride of the winter in shorts and short sleeves due to the balmy 67 degree weather :).  After the ride we went to our very first San Luis Obispo farmer's market (aka street fest), which apparently happens every Thursday night year-round.  Between the produce stands, flowers for sale, BBQ pits, Bible IQ test booths, bouncy-bounce castles, kettle corn carts, and pint-sized Irish dancing troupe shows, we were a little whelmed by all the things to see, and then had to decide what to eat!!  After doing at least two full laps of seeing the sights on Higuera Street, Alie settled on a giro for her dinner while I went for a meat-meat-meat combo: a beef rib, a pork rib, and chicken on a stick.  It was tasty, and the pork rib was bigger than my face, as pictured below:

What a mess... but OH so tasty.

Last not least, we can't forget to mention that Richard Sachs is preparing to show his eponymous bikes at the 4th annual North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Portland, Oregon this weekend.  Good luck Richie! The man on the flyer looks oddly familiar...  

Miles Ridden Today: 33

Miles Ridden 2008: 215.5 

1 Week...

We've been in our new house for exactly one week tonight! Today was fairly uneventful. Amy and I went for our first solo rides; Amy wanted to explore some alternatives to the major road we live on, for us to ride the 5ish miles out and back from our house and I wanted to explore a road with "hill" in its name. As it turns out, they weren't lying when they named that road...an hour of climbing later, and I was on top of the world. Sorry, no pictures today.

This afternoon, we spent our time reading, playing cards and cooking up some dinner. Tomorrow it looks like we'll be heading to SLO for the Farmers Market in the evening. Stay tuned!


Miles Ridden Today: 32
Miles Ridden 2008: 182.5

License, Registration and a Trip to the Beach

This morning I was able to finally tie up the loose ends of the car ordeal. Passport in hand (thanks for the reminder, Rhonda), I made my way to the SLO DMV to register my car and take my CA drivers license test. And yes, I passed. After picking up Amy from the Bookstore where she'd been patiently waiting, we headed over to the Foothill Cyclery to meet Bexmo and head out for our warmest day on the bike thus far. After making our way out of town, we were immediately struck by beautiful views of the California hillsides and Ocean views. Our first stop was Avila Pier, where we were greeted by a mass of Sea Lions and a few random seals. They were a little smelly, so we hopped back on our bikes and headed south for Pismo Beach. We looped back and headed into SLO again for a brief tour of the Cal Poly campus and then back home so that Bex could get ready for a job interview (which she got!!) and we could get to the grocery store to purchase the goods for some VERY yummy mexican-style black bean pizza. Tonight we returned Rebecca's dinner favor by serving her at our house!


Miles Ridden Today: 40
Miles Ridden 2008: 152.5

Monday

Yesterday's adventure to Santa Barbara was worth the short drive down the coast to visit some friends for a Superbowl party.  On the way there, we enjoyed some beautiful ocean scenery, some rainbows, and a Taco Bell bathroom stop.  We were entertained throughout the Superbowl, both by the game and the commercials, but also by the first-down drinking game that two party guests initiated.  We kidnapped Rebecca from the house and brought her back to San Luis with us last night, and we're happy to have her around for a riding buddy and pal.  She gets an especially big high five today for showing us a fantastic frozen yogurt place after cooking us a very tasty lentil soup for dinner.

Tomorrow we're planning on doing some riding along the coast with Rebecca, which is sure to provide some more excellent scenery and warm temperatures in the 60's.  All you folks stuck back east will enjoy this eye candy from our ride today:

In other news, we are excited to have Kristina Eaton come visit us in two weeks!!!  Hi Kristina.

Miles Ridden Today: 31

Miles Ridden 2008: 112.5

Superbowl Sunday

Well, as you may or may not have guessed, the lives of Amy & Alie have begun to fall into a routine out here.  Eat, Sleep, and Ride Bikes.  Hence, not always exciting stuff to blog about.  Don't worry, we'll try to keep things exciting for our sakes and yours, and to that end we made a California "to-do" list yesterday. I'm not going to tell you what's on the to-do list of course, because that would ruin the surprise!  I'll throw you one bone though, because we need help finding a place to fulfill this wish - we need to find a rodeo to attend.  All the internet browsing we've done has only turned up rodeos occurring in August-October months :(

Today after our ride we plan to venture south to the Santa Barbara area to watch the Superbowl with some fellow New Englanders, cyclocrossers, BEXmo, and some of the Type 1 Diabetes team riders.

Speaking of bike riding, yesterday we toned down our mileage to an easy 21.5 mile ride... but, after day one's 38 mile ride, the 21.5 miles kicked my ass too.  Alie is either going to have to be patient with my getting-back-into-shapeness, or else need to leave me behind pretty soon!

Miles Ridden 2008: 49.5

Rabbits Rabbits Rabbits!

Today was the official start of biking in california, and we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. We greeted each other with a "Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit" first thing when we woke up, since it was the first of the month and we're superstitious. Apparently it worked, because a few minutes later, I got a phone call from the shop where we'd left my car last night, and got the best news possible...FREE SERVICE since it was just a loose wire connection that stranded us in downtown SLO. PHEWWWW! So, after a couple of last minute adjustments to our bikes, we were off on our first 38 "flat" (who are they kidding?!?!) miles of the trip. We took in some amazing views of hills, hillbilly towns, vineyards and crazy ground squirrels. When we got back we were kindly driven down to SLO by Jared and the two doggies. First stop, beer for the mechanics; second stop, pick up the good ol' coche. After a yummy dinner and some tasty $5 wine (we live in wine country, of COURSE there are competitive prices!), we are settling in to watch "Rain Man" and hit the sack early.

*sigh* - this is the life.

Miles Ridden Today: 38
Miles Ridden in 2008: 38

e-RICHIE for President atmo