rsbob 

Had dinner and spent the evening with Nelson Vales (with his host family <-not to give Mrs RSbob the wrong idea) the night before the US National Track Cycling Championships in Redmond, WA. One super nice guy, no ego, and quads so large, no long pants fit, so he could only wear baggy shorts - which were not baggy on him. He won two out of two events the next day.

big john

I think that day you were solo and I did not go to the lifts. I think you had come down from them when I saw you. Those days we had some good Bike Forums rides. I think I ran into you one other time when you were with your gf. I think you did some of the rides organized by MERider? Seems like we had 40 or more on some of those rides.

I went to the Village once last year. I don't do long days in the mountains anymore but I'd like to do one this April for my 70th.

Sorry to hear about the health issues.

calamarichris

Haha, I've run into Nellie a few times on PCH where I live. He is indeed a cool guy. Just cruises the coast at his own leisurely pace; just doing his own thing in his own time. Got his Olympic medals; got nothing to prove (which is rare on PCH.)
When I was a teenager, i read once that he had 36-inch thighs. All I could think was, "How tf does he walk? I have a 32-inch waist!"

calamarichris

Thanks. Glad to hear you're still climbin and thrivin at 70. Some of the best days of my life were spent on that mountain.

RB1-luvr

in the 80s there was a local Cat 1/Pro from Ireland who came up from behind me while I was training at a pretty good pace (20 mph probably) and he flew by me whilst riding behind his wife driving a car with the hatchback up and the hazard lights on, motor pacing. I recall thinking, "that's rude (to other motorists)". He had an entitled personality someone told me.

calamarichris

Haha, I was a young Spec-4 in the Army who'd just gotten promoted to USCF Cat-3 before PCSing to Europe. I thought I was pretty hot stuff. Greg Lemond hadn't yet had his comeback after the shooting, but I was going to show these Europeans what another blonde California boy could do.
Because I was from the US, I had to race in "the International Class." Got dropped my first race in quick order. The only thing that eased the pain was so was half the pack.
Lining up on my second race, the team next to me all had the same German or Belgian colors. I asked the guy next to me: "What team are ya'll?"
"We're the Belgian Olympic Team."
["Ah fudge"]
Hung as long as I could, but got dropped before the halfway point in that race also.

When Belgians are born, they come out wheels first.

Homebrew01

I saw the back-end of pros when I raced decades ago

Viich

Ran into the whole Israel-Premier Tech World Tour and dev teams at a mountain-top coffee shop a few years ago.



Met this guy halfway around the world - we live 30km apart

calamarichris

Blech.

BobG

These guys caught up with me on the Col du Soulor in France. That's me with the camera on sidelines, Lance with the blue helmet. Miguel Indurain is in there somewhere ...

calamarichris

That's so b****in, even with Cycling's Cancer in the photo. Thank you for sharing that.

BobG

There's a story behind my photo above. The riders that day stayed in one large, somewhat leisurely pack of 170+ the entire day with no breakaways or attacks ...


Arbeost

Turns out the Tour had already awarded the stage win to the Motorola team. One of their teammates, Fabio Casartelli, had been killed the previous day in a crash on the Col de Portet d'Aspet. Today's stage win would not influence the final standings so the Tour awarded the win to the Motorola team to benefit Casartelli's family.

We got back to our hotel room in time to watch the emotional finish on TV with the Motorola team crossing the finish line together in a row.

alcjphil

A few years ago I was on a cycling vacation in France. We were doing our most difficult ride that day involving a Cat 1 initial climb and a final HC climb in the Pyrenees . About mid way through the ride we had pulled over to regroup and (team name change all the time but They are an Australian based team.) That year Matthew Hayman had won Paris Roubaix, which most of us had watched live, probably one of the biggest surprises in the history of the race. The finish featured a bunch of elite riders.
We were pulled off onto a side road, not thinking that we might block anyone but along comes the (Orica Green Edge?) team out on a team ride and they want to turn onto the side road that we were on. They stopped, and we knew who they were. They also stopped and we asked if we could take a couple of pictures. They joking told us that there would be a fee for each picture. Anyway Caleb Ewen was also a member of the group along with Matt Heymans. Where we missed out was that we should have taken more pictures when we had the chance. We were at the top of a diffucult climb, not just a bunch of groupies

AndyJoK

Yup!

I was out in central pa riding/racing the 5 day mtb stage race Transylvannia mtb epic. One of the stages had us standing in line before jumping into a timed enduro section. Noticed the gents around me all had rothrock coffee sponsorships & matching kit and considering I work in coffee too (and was aware of rothrock) I started up a convo. Their fearless leader turned out to be none other than Jamie Bestwick, multi time x games gold mentalist and legit gold metal Olympian, BMX legend! We cruised around between timed sections and chatted along the way. Really nice crew! Pretty sure one of the other guys is a current x games rider/racer Nicolas, and Ronnie. Those are all the names I can recall. good times!

Repack Rider

One day my roommate Gary Fisher told me excitedly that John Allis, then the reigning US road champion, was in town and looking for locals to ride with, since he didn't know the territory.

We headed to where he was staying, and on the way, Gary's road bike frame cracked!

So the ride was just me and the national champion. He never took it off the small ring, since it was early in the season. It took everything I had to stay with him, but of course if he dropped me he would be lost!

A few years later a former roommate Kent Bostick was national road champ.

Hawxx

Yes. Wout van Aert lives not to far from here.