Kansas... again!!

At the request of those of you who will not be joining us at Cyclocross Nationals in Kansas City this weekend, i'll be updating my blog to give you the daily reports through the eyes of the Richard Sachs team.

Our troupe of five will be trickling into Kansas City by air over the next two days, and the team will be represented tomorrow on the race course by none other than our fearless leader, e-Richie. After that we'll watch for results on Saturday from Matt and Will in the Masters 35+ and collegiate races, respectively. Finally, for the finale, Justin, Will, Matt, and I will compete in the Elite races on Sunday afternoon.

OK, so there you have it. Keep your eyes on the blog - updates and photos will be streaming in! For now, you can enjoy this picture of me crashing on Saturday... I don't know how it happens, but there is always a photographer ready to capture it every time I fall off my bike...

Small Town Saturday Night

Day one of two is complete at the Northampton Cycle-Smart International cyclocross race (the longest running annual cross race in america by the way!) Since the race was near my hometown, I split off from the team tonight and headed for mom's house. I've just learned that I'm missing some good fun at the race hotel though!!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Richard Sachs
Date: Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 9:53 PM
Subject: Re: ah ha!
To: Amy Wallace

we're watching the shining -

all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo
all work and no play makes jack a dull boy atmo

The Road Trip Winds Down...

Everyone is boxing up bikes and packing away dirty laundry here at Oli's house, ready to head homeward early tomorrow morning. I can't exactly say that anyone is going home with extra hardware, but someone is going home with this sweet plywood plaque!!

Yup, our buddy Will Dugan took the #1 spot on the podium in the U23 race today!! The women's race for Alie and I went... well... it went! We had fun anyway. WILL on the other hand rocked it, racing in a group for 10th spot for most of the hour-long event. Eventually finishing 16th, he was the first U23 rider and was congratulated by his teammates after the real podium girl gave him nothing but the bouquet and plaque.

Homeward bound tomorrow, and we reconvene next weekend in Northampton, Massachusetts for the next UCI cyclocross races there.

Oli rides the flyover...

Nothing like a good ol' blog to post embarrassing pictures of your friends...

Also, our team sponsor SRAM asked us to promote this organization, the World Bicycle Relief group. Check out their website here.

The Bluegrass State

The final destination of the October adventure road trip has been reached – so here we are in Louisville Kentucky. Not only is this weekend the first in the USGP of Cyclocross race series, it also happens to be the home of the one and only OLI! We all caught up fast last night after checking out the race venue that afternoon, and today didn’t do a whole lot other than eat, make a couple airport runs, and ride bikes a little bit. More tomorrow, with race reports included! Richie, don’t worry, we are going to look good. Myles, we’ll check out the bridge and take some recon pictures for you!

Loveless Lunch

Today's lunch was one of the tastiest meals I've ever had:

The Loveless Cafe & Motel on the west side of town was ridiculously good. The key lime pie was nothing to scoff at either.

Thanks everyone for your "things to do in Nashville" suggestions - we're trying to fit it all in!!!

Update from the Music City

Here we are in Nashville! After a nice bike ride yesterday on the Natchez Trace Parkway, we headed downtown for the obligatory visit to the Country Music Hall of Fame. The visit also included a tour of RCA's famous recording Studio B, where thousands of classic country hits were recorded. I mean, we're not necessarily into classic country, but the tour was really neat! and the Hall of Fame itself was great - lots of memorabilia and paraphernalia and amyalia and whathaveyoua. 

After dinner with Freya and her parents, we all headed to Nashville's symphony hall for a bass and mandolin performance by Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile. Well... as much as Alie and I appreciated the symphony scene (and we did! they were fantastic musicians!!) we didn't feel that this was exactly what we needed to fulfill our musical requirements for the evening. After the symphony, we headed for Broadway and found more bars than you could count on two hands, all with live bands and no cover charge -- if only Boston worked this way!!  All in all, we had a fantastic time exploring Nashville's Tuesday night music scene. And we've gotta put in a plug for this guy, our band of choice for the evening - Craig Campbell was awesome!! Check out a clip of his song "the whiskeys fine".