Lots of things to cover from my few days away from the blog.

The
increasingly good feelings I had about my form took a hit Sunday.
Twenty-five minutes and I was out. It was HOT and maybe that played a
role. Despite my short race, I still saw some signs of improvement.
After my below average start, I steadily worked my up the field and
planted myself rather firmly in the front half of the pack and wasn't
feeling terribly stressed. If anything except the heat did me in it was
getting back up to speed as we crested the hill. That bothered me some.

This
weekend is the newly expanded Tour of KC. This is a weekend I never do
well so I don't go in with any expectations. Maybe the new Friday night
race will suit me. Basically, I use KC as just training. A way to get
consecutive days of racing in the legs and alead up to Gateway Cup.
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A few random observations from the trip to Jeff City.
--
Once again I thoroughly enjoyed a Cajun Chicken Wrap from Via Roma
Cafe. It has become almost tradition to treat my taste buds to this
post-race meal.
-- The Dickey Bub store in Union, MO is a very strange name and, dare I say, a little naughty sounding.
-- Have you ever noticed the statue/mascot at LNT (or is it TNT) Sales alongside I-44? This "thing" is a statue of a moose... with wings. What do you call that?
-- My compliments to nervy old man that made a LEFT turn on red off of Hwy 21. Good move, mate.
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Several days ago I vowed to come up with a list of favorite pro cyclists names. I limited myself to ProTour teams only. The names have been gathered and then further whittled down to a smaller, but still good sized, list of names. What I confirmed is that I like Basque and Belgian names most with a little Italian, Germanic and Scandanavian mixed in. There were a good number of eastern European names as well but most missed my final cutdown. I also have a strange fondness alliterative names. My list of names is in no particular order with some comments...
Marco Velo - the quintessential cycling name even though Velo does not mean anything bike related in Italian
Erki Putsep
Staf Scheirlinckx
Blingen Fernandez - Bettini should change his name to Blingen
Pietro Caucchioli - you can't help but try and use an Italian accent when saying his name
Mads Kaggestad - a little bit of a rhyming name
Fumiyuki Beppu
Jurgen Van Goolen - solid belgian name
Andoni Aranaga - the start of my Basque fetish
Inaki Isasi - quite possibly my favorite name
Inigo Landaluze
Iban Iriondo
Carlos Da Cruz
Beat Zberg
Massimiliano Mori
Alessandro Spezialetti
Josep Jufre
Win Van Huffel
Bram Tankink - mentioned once before that this is a manly name
Peter Van Petegem
Wouter Weylandt
Koos Moerenhout - I always have an image of a cow when I see his name.
Joost Posthuma - I think I like his first name. Reminds of an old school fave, Joop Zoetemelk
Leon Van Bon
Riccardo Ricco - Wasn't he married to Lucille Ball?
Kasper Klostergaard
Karsten Kroon
Volodymyr Dyudya - Camptown races five miles long. Oh de Dyudya day