Little Baby Ben (Benjamin Miles Goldman) was born 3 weeks early on November 14th at 3:53am, weighing in at 6lbs 13oz. He’s an incredible and magical little critter, and he is totally our responsibility!! Yikes.
Our little guy!
Spain, July 2006
Why go to western Spain in July? Well, because we were already over in France for the Tour, and Spain is just next door. So off we go, joining mom and Polly in Madrid, to revisit an area that mom had spent a little time in when she was a teenager when her family spent the summer in England. It was quite scenic, and lots of very old World Heritage Cities nearby. But yes, it was extremely hot.
Tour de France cycling epic! July, 2006
We’ve been back for many weeks now, and I’ve finally posted some of our photos to share with everyone. I’ve got them organized by day. Enjoy!
Day 1 (Ferney > Aix les Bains)
Day 2 (Grenoble > Les Deux Alpes)
Day 3 (Alpe d’Huez!)
Day 4 (Les Deux Alpes > La Lechere)
Day 5 (La Lechere > Albertville)
Day 6 (Albertville loop)
Day 7 (Albertville > Annecy)
Day 8-9, Paris
Bonjour!
Hi all. Sorry for the delay in any postings, but we´ve really had almost no access to the internet, and had very little time to do anything but eat, ride, and sleep. It´s been pretty awesome really. We´ve ridden some amazing roads, gone over some beautiful cols, and seen several days of the race.
The tour is now over of course, we´ve been through Paris (2 days), and we´re now in Madrid seeing much Picasso and eating Puros (big Churos) and chocolate. I still don´t have a way to post any pictures, unfortunately, but I will hopefully be able to do so in the next day or so.
Will we ever get to Geneva?
We HAVE finally made it to Geneva (more to come on THAT), and we have MOST of our luggage (still missing our bike wheels, pedals, helmets), but we’re working on all that. We’re here though, and meeting the others riders, everyone seems cool. Damn french keyboard sure is hard to type on! I’ll try to get more later.
Off to Le Tour, with our Team Flag!
It’s 9pm on Wednesday evening, and our taxi picks us up tomorrow morning at 3:45am, to begin our journey to the French Alps to ride, and to watch the Tour de France! We still have a bit of packing to do, so this will be brief. Kelly made up a “team” flag for us to wave on the side of the road as the Tour (and the TV cameras!) go by us on L’Alpe d’Huez. For those of you watching the tour, look for us on stages 15, 16, and 17 (July 18th, 19th, 20th). I’m guessing we’ll be 3-5 km from the top of L’Alpe d’Huez as that tends to be where final attacks sometimes take place.
Hopefully, we’ll get a chance or two to post some photos here during our trip. Check back in in the following days!
We’re gonna have a critter!!
Kelly has been successfully knocked up, and we’ve got a little critter well on it’s way to making an appearance in the air-breathing world sometime near December 7th, 2006!!! We’re very excited, of course, and already scoping out which bike routes around our house are bike-trailer friendly. Kelly is feeling great, and is still riding and running regularly. It’s looking forward to riding it’s first Tour de France in a few weeks!
Cerro del Osa trip
We spent a few lovely nights up at Polly & Jim’s mountain property outside of Mariposa, near Yosemite. We mountain biked over to Wawona and back in very unseasonably cold weather, and the big campfire at the end of the day warmed us all back up, just in time to go to bed.
Racing in the dirt
Decided to give Mountain Bike racing another shot, after a few races I did back in like 1993 in my early biking days. There’s a Wednesday evening Spring series out at Prairie City OHV park just a bit outside of Sacramento. It’s very casual, and the course changes each week. Didn’t know if I belonged in the Beginners or the Sport category, but I guess after winning 2 races in a row in Beginners, I’m probably going to have to bump up soon! It’s a ton ‘o fun, fast and sketchy, with a wide range of skills out there all at once on the course - they even have a fairly well attended 10-14 yr/old category! Makes for an obstacle course of people and bikes.
Update: After winning my first 2 races, more competition joined the startline, and I ended up in 3rd for my next 2 races, but then won my 5th race.
Van Vleck, Winter 2006
Relatively fresh snow on the ground on the way in made for a 5.5 hour trek to get to the USFS Van Vleck Bunkhouse. Three feet of new snow while we were there made for an equally long, yet gourgeous, journey coming out. An incredible, secluded winter wonderland.







