What a month August has been! My birthday celebrations were wonderful…as
many of you know, my 39th was on the 14th. The club decided to have a party by having
the Bridgeton Zoo and inviting all to attend.
They even had a cake! Many
photos were taken and these are planned to be on my web site. Even found time to go out and do the back
50. Found this very enjoyable…for those
that missed that leg, or would like to do something like this earlier in the
year, then plan to ride my Peach Blossom next April. RePete thanks all that were there…and I look forward to next
year when my 39th birthday will again be celebrated.
When I started cycling some 20 years ago, Europeans
dominated the Tour de France. There
were few if any American riders…and surely no team sponsors. This slowly began to change with Team
7-11. Yes, of all things a convenience
store chain. Then Greg LeMond won the
first American to win the Tour.
Locally, a bank decided to sponsor a race in Philadelphia and was name
the Core States Pro-Am. You could see
the gates were being opened as our sport took on new recognition. Now we have an American as a 6-time winner
of the Tour de France and everyone knows his name and the sport. Our bicycles are no longer considered toys,
but machines ridden by athletes. I am
proud to be part of this great sport.
Trust all that cycle share this feeling with me. Armstrong and all the others have achieved
this status not only for themselves, but all of all that ride…
The last release of Freewheel’n left you dangling about a
showdown between an accomplished ironman competitor and ol’ RePete. Well…this is quite a story and simply to
large for this space. To find out what
happened, go to my web site and click on Quibbles.
RePete has again suffered a personal loss. My wife’s dear aunt passed away. This caused the cancellation of my Four
Lakes tour on August 21. There were
many that sent messages about this ride and several may have arrived expecting
to find the group. Obviously under the
circumstances I could not lead that ride and extend my regrets to those that
were expecting me to be there. I did
post a notice on my web site in advance to alert that the ride was being
cancelled.
Finally, a word about the Olympics. The United States did not do well in the
men’s road race. Tyler Hamilton was the
highest American and finished 18th in this competition with Bobby
Julich finishing 28th. Lance
decided not to participate. Somewhat
difficult for me to understand why Lance decided not to represent the
country. Perhaps the sounds of coins
from the Tour de France overcame that of a gold medal.