Ride on Homies...

So now that Alberto Contador stands accused of doping more and more people are giving up on the sport of cycling. Frankly I don't blame them. I too find it disheartenning when one by one the elite of cycling continue to stain the sport with their actions. It makes one wonder how much of the spectacle that is the peleton in full flight is "real". Alberto is now threatening to retire from the sport. Maybe it is just as well.

This does not change my love of the sport - I who never made it past the grassroots level. There is something pure about clipping into your pedals on cool fall morning, heading out onto the road, and establishing a brisk pace as the kms roll away. I fell in love when I was 15 and even though there have been extended periods when I have not ridden, I have always come back.

I am grateful for all the support I have recieved on Facebook for my awkward re-entry into riding. But probably the one that means the most is the support from my "old" friend Mark Aguila whom I have known since my pre-teen years. It was Mark's and his brother Shem's influence that got me into riding back in the day. However it was Mark who joined me on my last official ride in California back in the fall of 1990. It was a short trek through the grapevines of Clovis and it is one of my most cherished childhood memories.

Now I love my bike but Mark recently picked up a beautiful GT Carbon racer complete with Zipp wheels (he paid an incredable price for them Good goin' bro!) that totally blew me away when he first posted pictures up of it. [see below]

No matter what the results are in the cases against Alberto Contador and even Lance Armstrong, the sport lives on. Those of us who ride know that it was the magic of discovering that we could pretty much go anywhere on just two wheels that got us started and it is what lies beyond the horizon that keeps us going.

Ride on my homies!