March Bike Racing - All in the Rain - No Matter the Latitude

Well first off, I raced bikes in March for the first time in a few years.  Then I won the first three that I did!  I went down to the OSU/UO collegiate ominium in Corvallis and Eugene, OR.  It was fun hanging out with my WWU homies and getting it done in the wet road race and TTT on Saturday, and then a nice windy crit on Sunday.  After the early bike racing it was back to school for a week of finals.  There was Greek Mythology to be conquered!  I did some mild conquering, but the Craneimal still bested me by a couple points.  I did manage to capture a pretty interesting scene from the collegiate weekend below:

It appeared to be some sort of vigourous mid-race cramp massage therapy...  But, now I'm in sunny California to do a lot of training myself and some the first big races of the year for my teammates.  Wait...  California has not been so sunny...  Yesterday we drove to do a local crit through a very legitimate rain storm.  Like the kind of rain/wind/flash flood combo that makes even the knuckles of some Northwesterners a bit white on the freeway.  Especially when the wipers on the team van stop working completely...  Despite all of that though the industrial park crit was a good time.  Despite any stereotypes we may have had about the Socal peleton's ability to ride in the rain, everyone kept it upright and had a good time.  Today I found the sunny part of California though, so I'll share it with you.

After today's mellow ride Ian, Kennett and I went on an epic hike through the jungle.  Kennett found a rather strange plant.

OK, actually this was just in the back yard of one of our host houses...  Anyways California is great and I'm looking forward to some long rides coming up this week.  Hopefully I'll update again a bit sooner than last time.