I’m on my way to the chris thater race this weekend and its some kinda plane traffic jam. There’s about 40 planes just sitting here. People are getting irate…
Sent via BlackBerry

7 lbs, 5oz and 19 3/4 inches.
Sent via BlackBerry

Philly this year was strange for sure, i guess everone says that every year but this one was perplexing. too many teams thinking they HAD to be in the break, too many guys going hard up the wall, too many guys waiting around for a sprint finish, it all added up to no break getting significantly away, no let up of the pace for almost 6 hours, and a huge crash at the finish because everyone thought they could win the big one.

we DID do the race in record time for an average of over 27 mph, but it was never hard per se. or, at least it was not as hard as it could have been, no one really smashed it up the wall (i guess no euros to ride the thing in the 53X15 which, seriously, has happened) and no team went to the front and rode hard for more then a half a lap. there were constant attacks and my impression was that it was run off like a 100k crit…X2.5 times.

at the end coming off logan circle T-Mobile was winding up their leadout and everything looked to be going according to plan when the wheels fell off big time, i guess a Successfulcrashing.com rider went straight into the train and the whole pack exploded. lucky for me the crash fanned right and i was on the left, so i only had one t-mobile flailing on the pavement in front of me. a quick hop to the left made sure he didn’t get my chainrings inserted in his head but i think i may have clipped a pedal…sorry dude. i snuck a peak right and saw bikes flying, guys hopping the median straight into the oncoming caravan, some try and hop the median and failing, and i had to look away. it was mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time. i’d like to see the replay on youtube, i’m sure it was crazy.

anyway, survived that one and just rolled in for top 30. Emile was almost top 10 (11th), avoiding the whole mess entirely, and rich made it through unscathed and just coasted across for 50th.

I’d like to direct your attention to getwellandy.blogspot.com.

My brother had a horrific crash on Memorial Day in the last corner of a crit, he went into the curb and straight into a pole. He’s been in the ICU for a week with multiple fractures and a collapsed lung, and so it’s been a little trying on me and my family this week, to say the least.

We set up this website to spread information on his condition and recovery, for people to write in note of encouragement, and to spread the word of our fundraising efforts to defray the looming medical bills. please go visit to find out more, and drop a line to “andy” at jacquesmayniacs.com.

hey everyone, i’ve finally got my Missing Saddle site up and functional, i’ve been running my own site www.jacquesmayniacs.com for some time now but i figured this would be a cool change and might even be easier in the long run. plus, the guys at MS are great and did a good job putting things together. what do you think?

so i’m in Hood river right now just wasting time as only bikers can between stages, we had a hard TT this morning and i went alright but lost some time to O’Neil and Super-Phil, and had my worst placing of the week with third. i had a good run in the yellow jersey the past few days plus a stage win, so i’m happy with the tour so far. we have an exorbitant amount of climbing tomorrow and it’ll be difficult for everyone, so i’m going to go put the feet up and eat a ton of food right now.