Slammer Road Race

Last Sunday was the first Road Race of the 2007 racing season. The Slammer Road Race is where everyone finds out who trained and who didn't over the winter. Or it was until the time trial was added to the spring road racing series. Since I was sick and ended up in 13'th place, I was looking for a good result to prove myself. The course is a flat loop with a short steep hill about 4 miles from the finish that we go over 3 times. The weather was great, almost 70 degrees and the field was about 45 cat 4/5 men. The first 2 laps were done at a very easy pace about 19 mph. There were a couple of attacks and each time up the hill we pushed the pace and dropped a few riders. I spent most of my time near the front with my buddy Zach Crowe. There was a good cross wind coming down Kuna Mora road and I tried to organize an echelon to put the pressure on the guys at the back, but as usual it was like trying to herd cats. That didn't happen so we all waited for the finish. Even with the mellow pace we came to the finish with only 20 riders or so.

I was about 6 wheels back at the 1K mark in a good position. One of the Georges riders came to the front to lead out his buddy and started with about 800 meters to go. He only lasted about 100 meters and left his buddy out with 600-700 meters to go. That obviously didn't work and they they both ending up finished a little ways down the field. At 250 meters to go, an unattached rider opened the sprint and I was a little late following. Since no one else went, I was forced to jump myself, going a little earlier than I wanted to, but I was able to hold off the field for a 2nd place finish. The rider who jumped had a good sprint, it's debatable if I had gone with his move if I would have been able to come around him for a win. He read the race a little better than I did and it payed off for him.

This weekend is the first Criterium of the season on a new crit series. I'm using this race as a VO2 workout, so I'm not planning on doing well, but I'll post the results after the race.

Still Sick

Well, it's Tuesday and I'm still sick. I stayed in bed for 14 hours last night, and I'm about 90% today, but still very tired. I'm hoping another 14 hours of sleep will do the trick. Kristie seems to not be feeling well today either, so perhaps tomorrow it will be her turn. Oh well, such is life.

Jason Broome Time Trial

Yesterday (Sunday) was the first race in the Greorge's spring series road races. It was the opening TT which I have been hoping to do well in. My power output the previous weekend was very high and I looked set to deliver a great result. That was until I got sick just a few days before the race. While I still placed midfield, I could not even keep by breathe right strip on my nose I was blowing it so much. I finished the hilly 10 milly TT with a time of 25:45 with a strong cross wind out and back. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the opening road race next Sunday. Our top two pro riders both placed in the top 10 of the 170 person field. Ulh Albert finished 4'th and Ted Burgess finished 6'th. Congratulations guys! Full results here: Spondoro.com

Idaho Wolves

Last Monday was the public hearing at the town center on the official de-listing of the Gray Wolf from the list of endangered species in Idaho. Wolves were exterminated from Idaho at the turn of the last century to make cattle ranching in rural areas easier for ranchers by removing the main threat to unwatched and unprotected herds of sheep and cows. This way ranchers can leave their herds unwatched for days on BLM land without worrying. This process killed tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of gray wolves across the upper 35 states and removed them from America completely. In the mid eighties congress passed the endangered species act which led to the reintroduction of gray wolves from Canada into Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Today there are 1,200 wolves across these 3 states, 650 of which are in Idaho.

The plan proposed at the hearing was to "cull" their numbers from 650 to 100 in the state of Idaho by removing all government protections and issuing hunting tags for the wolves for $9.00. Since this plan is not expected to reduce the number sufficiently, an aerial gunning strategy was suggested to get the kills the state was looking for.

The public hearing was pretty evenly split between cowboy hats and Birkenstocks, however the local native American tribes and state departments were given the floor first, and they each approved of the plan which was drafted by 6 of the local cattle ranching associations and agribusinesses. When the floor was opened up to the public, the opposition for the plan amongst the speakers was overwhelming, nearly 10 to 1. Many people choose to spoke and eloquently articulated the cruelty of the state's plan. I also spoke about the stupidity of spending 25 million dollars to reintroduce the species into the state and then a few years later, selling tags to kill them for the grand total of $4,300. Stupid.

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