Saturday, May 28, 2011

USPRO National Championships

It's time for the USA Professional National Championships in Greenville, SC again. It is an event that brings the best riders in the country and tons of awesome fans to the city in South Carolina. The past few years it has been in September and has sort of marked the end of the season in the states.  The change in date this year will make nationals more in line with the world calendar but could also change the dynamics of the race a bit.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Welcome!

The other day I drove north into a small town called Helen, GA. It’s a small German town in the mountains of Northern Georgia. The goal for the day was to get some good training in, riding for a few hours constantly going up and down in the mountains. I had been to Helen a few times before and found some great routes to ride and met some interesting people, but on my drive up this time, I could tell something was different. On the road I noticed that an excessively large number of people were driving the same car as me (I drive a VW Rabbit). I have noticed a fair amount of people with this car as I just drive around town as it is, but on this day, there were literally lines of 4-5 cars that were all VW Rabbits or VW GTI’s and many of them were very customized. Of course, I thought this was awesome because it made me think that I definitely purchased a really good car. Though I just assumed it was coincidence that all the GTI’s and Rabbit’s were out that day. When I got up the hill and into town I drove to my standard parking lot, which is right behind the Helen Welcome Center. The lot is free to park in and has always been completely empty (maybe one or two cars were ever parked in the massive lot), so I have always had the option of going to the back corner and parking right under the only large tree in the lot to keep my car in the shade. To put another twist on the day, though, when I arrived at the lot it was almost full of cars and even a couple semi’s.