Updates...

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. The days have been pretty busy for me with work, riding, and racing. Although between my last post about the San Rafael crit and now, I have made the upgrade to cat3, so I'm pretty stoked on that. Obviously the racing is a bit more punchy and aggressive, so it makes for good racing, and ultimately it's going to make me a stronger and smarter rider (hopefully!) which was my original goal at the beginning of my first road racing season.... also, Rainier is about to make the leap to cat2 in his first full season... we both started as cat5's this year, and I'm pretty damn stoked for him. Good job man, maybe I'll see you there sometime in the next couple of years haha... Two days ago at the Copper Town circuit race I also met Fergus for the first time, and got to race with him and Rainier. Then yesterday we all raced the Timpani crit in Santa Clara and I saw first hand "how it's done" in my first cat3 crit race. With one to go Rainier blasted up to the front to lead out Fergus for the win and it was awesome. Rainier was so stoked for Fergus, that I got super juiced too! Stoked for both of them, and when results like that happen, it motivates me to get myself up there too. Pack finish for me, as I just had a lapse of concentration with 2 or 3 laps to go. Not really sure what happened, but before you know it, it's the last lap and I was too late trying to make my way up to the front. Quite disappointed with that, considering I feel pretty good about positioning myself for the end of the race, but what can you do. Oh well, no excuses, my legs were more or less toast at the end anyway. Time to get back on it!

I will post photos of the past couple of races in the next couple of days. Pretty excited for September as well, with some friends from Las Vegas planning to visit and race up here. It's all been our first year of road racing, and I met Ryan, Chcuk, and Nathan through HOC and riding track bikes. Good dudes, and I think they're all doing pretty well this year. Actually Chcuk is a cat3 also and has been racing for a couple of years. He's the strongest Filipino rider I know HA!


Oh yeah, new HOC kits are being worked on right now by Jonathan and myself, and they're going to be sick so stay tuned...

-Joe