The Aussies.
The Aussies were the most friendly of the games. We met Stewart,Dennis and Desmond at X/O's. Stewart is the one giving me my medal for the road race. Dennis helped with the road race registration(L) and Desmond (R)won every track event he was in. The other fellow in the pic with Stewart and myself is Robereto. He's in charge of the Games for Cologne. He's a math prof at the University of Paris. I think I want to got Australia now.

Medal Attractions
Besides free drinks. The medal also attracted the young ones to me. So instead of my usual "flypaper for the freaks" or "magnet for the weird" I had these two and others. The smiling head shot is Roman he was going to do the marathon and is from Cali. Nice smile. Nice guy. Can't remember the other twinks name.
Must have been all those free drinks. Either way. Thanks for my 15 minutes of fame.

More pictures of Wrigley Field and Closing Ceremonies. Sorry about the double.

Here's some shots of closing ceremonies.

Closing ceremonies and more new friends.
So we have this train thing figured out and head up to the closing ceremonies. It's hot out ,really hot. But now they have it figured out,water,snacks and portajohns,clean ones. So Bob and I make a plan where to meet after. As I get to march onto Wrigley field with 10000 or so others. I mill around, all my team mates have left. I see Rich and Jeff and we march in together. It was pretty cool. This is the second time I've been on a stadium floor. The first was a at a Supercross In Pittsburgh in 1978. The closing ceremoies had some fun acts. The gun twirling baton group. The DC cowboys. Cyndi Lauper was fun,even with the bad sound.
The mayor of Cologne got a little out of hand. She really got worked up and it just got silly. I was glad I went.
We found Bob easily ,he started his exit while the Mayor was ranting.
Off to Boystown for drinks,food and fun. With our great chicago guides who took us to some fun bars for drinks and conversation. We headed to Yoshis. A french restuarant run by a japanese couple. The waiter cried that I got a gold medal. He was really emotional. I had a Kobe beef hamburger with wasabi cheese mango ketchup. It was incredible. I know a burger? I wasn't real hungry. Oh and the tuna tartare appetizer was amazing. I'm spoiled. Nothing like that in B-Town. I don't even know where to get a good burger here. Cliff had sushi. Bob had a chicken dish. I can't remember what Rich had.Sorry. But it all looked and smelled amazing.
Cliff had the right spirit to get into racing. One of the games mottos was. Your personal best! It's not if you win or lose. You did your personal best.
He was like "Screw that I trained hard. I came into this and expected results". It was his first race. Cliff welcome to cycling. Wait till you license and race masters with former Olympians,pros ,cat 2's and other guys that are really good. Stick with it. It's a beautiful but humbling sport. Then for a real tatse of the sickness try a cyclocross race. You'll need another bike then two for cross. But by God it will make you strong and teach you how to suffer. Hope to see you guys again soon and stay in touch.

More fun people from the Games.
Wayne is on the left. He's a city boy from DC,without the attitude. He was right up there for his road race,then flatted.
He was not happy after that. He does have a great sense of humor and we did have fun joking around. It was all made better for him in the team time trial. Smile Wayne.
Bill is on the right. He's from Rehobeth. It was his first race. Baptism by fire. He had a good time and came away ready for more competition. Welcome to racing. We'll take a ride at the beach. Or come visit, we'll do hills. Hills make you strong.

Some things are better left unsaid.

This is Bob from home.
This is a sex store that had more devices than one could imagine and things we had to ask about. The staff was very knowledgeable and friendly. I didn't realize elctrcal current could be used in so many ways. The pic on the left is not christmas tree and weighed 12 pounds. I'll let you figure out what it's for. No christmas gifts were purchased here.

My Mom worries that all people online are serial killers. I remind her "I'm online"
The people I met in Chicago aren't.

This is Tim. He gave me a standard " NO I don't think we'd be a good match reply". OK that's cool.
But he was at the basketball party and I recognized him. He turned out to be a nice guy and apologized for his reply.

This is Tom. A perfect example of a mid westerner. Polite ,friendly, outgoing and fun. I met him online too. He really showed us Chicago. We had a night time tour of the city's architecture as he drove us around the city and back to our hotel.
Also on my "gold medal tour" night. He took us to a mexican restaurant called Platiyo, www.playtiyo.com. Where we had some excellent mexican food after not being able to get into Frontera earlier in the week.Tom knew the owner and we got right in.Very nice.I had a chilpotle fish dinner. Nothing like at home. We had some after dinner tequila there that was superb with a hot tomato chaser.
Tom aslo showed us most of the shops and clubs in Boystown. The Brown Elephant was like a gay Salvation Army. Gaymart was pretty funny too.
Tom is also a fabric aratis and does some very nice work. Thanks Tom we'll be in touch.

The next few posts are about people who made Chicago really fun.
This is Rich and Jeff. They're from California.I met them online. Rich was really helpful with some things about the games. Jeff's basketball team hosted a party and they invited us. We had a great time meeting them and the party was alot of fun. The bar was packed with people having a good time. We did run into them again after closing ceremonies. Thanks guys.
See you online.

Here's the pics of our team. Before and after.

Final Event the team time trial. Mission Accomplished.
Our team was put together on Sunday at the riders meeting. But after the TT on Tuesday we knew we had a strong team as our individual times we all close to each other.So we had Chuck and Gerry from DC, Dave from Philly, Martin form the Netherlands,our Energizer Bunny! and myself. It was decided Chuck would lead out and I would bring up the rear. We bolted out of the start and Chuck was raging,people were yelling that we had to get a rhythm. Once over the first hill we started to communicate. Then it all fell together.It all went quiet. I love TTT's. The group had become one organism. Rotating smoothly. The stronger riders taking slightly longer pulls,the other doing their share. The humidity was high and it was like sucking water. We hot the turnaround and headed back on lap on. Then my left pedal started to feel like I wasn't clipped in. On my rotation I stood up. Still clipped in,odd. Then my ankle hit the chainstay a couple times. How can this ahppen my crank is falling off. I keep in the group till it does and then it's all over for me. I feel like I've let them down.
But they soldier on. Eventually Gerry falls off and three are left. They powered to the fastest time off the day. Dave gives us all our Lambda Cycling Foundation for our efforts. It's a really nice Giordana kit. The shorts are sweet. The only problem is I can't wear them again, as they have a big Gay.com right across the back. I told him I'd never make it out of my neighborhood alive with them on. Maybe in Chicago or Rehobeth I could wear them.So I came to Chi town with a gaol of a gold medal. After being robbed of it in the mountain bike race I got one. Mission accomplished. Blogger isn't letting up load pics to day. So will try again later. OGQ

The road race was Cat 1,2 and 3. It poured all day right up to our start. So the humidity went through the roof. Seems as though the Cat 1's decided to go from the gun and have a little race among themselves. So it was ballistic from the start. With attack after attack. Iwas hanging on in seventh or eighth trying to get the diesel warmed up as it was hitting redline. The first lap was over 26mph avg. I got tailed off on the finish climb when a dumped his chain in front of me. So it was TT mode for awhile in no mans land. Just near the finish three others caught me. So it was a sprint up the hill. Now my chain decides to jump to small ring. I slam it back up and start sprinting. Not my forte by any means. But I just kept hitting the trigger. Just like it was a hill interval and beat them.The 50+ guy said he was glad I wasn't in his group. I took a bronze in this race. Pesky 40+ kids.
Dinner tonight at the Rock Bottom Brewery. Excellent food and beer.
The Mahi tacos were great. This Brewery blows away Goose Island.

Chicago's Finest Rollin on Dubs?
We saw these police ATVS with really low profile tires.
It would have been cool to see them in action.

I rode the Lake Shore trail.
Needed to clean the legs out so I hit the Lake Shore. Eighteen miles of it total. The lake is a really nice blue green. Very inviting. The trail takes you by some beaches on the north and south and you go by all the museums on the south end along with Soldiers Stadium where ball sports take place. What? No velodrome? Odd. Traffic on the trail was ok. They even had crossing guards that work for you to keep the flow going. A nice ride.

Actually got to sightsee a bit.
Hit the Art Institute of Chicago and got to see a A Sunday on the Grande Jatte by George Seurat. It was amazing to see the real thing. He painted it square inch by square inch using equal numbers of complimentary colors in each square. Also saw some Miro's and Magrittes I'd never seen
A few Dali's too.There was a cool Van Gogh named the Drinkers. Of course you all know Edward Hoppers ,Night Hawks at the Diner.
You could take pictures but no flash.
I'm looking kind of chubby in that pic.HA!

The Race of Truth
The individual time trial was my next event. Conditions were aquatic between the heat and humidity. At the start the road was a mirage from the heat. When you started it felt like you parted the air/water and it closed in behind you. Breathing was like sucking in water. At the turn around was Michael the "Super Volunteer" of the events. He was cheering everyone and reminding you drink lots of fluids. He worked at helping everyone. Even if he didn't know the answer to your question,he'd try to find out.
Barb Reiber tooks tons of pics for the event. Here's a link to a pic of me in full TT mode. I took sliver in the TT.
http://barbrieberphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/1684895/31/83022671/Large
Her brother rode the sweet Predator TT rig and was a motor.

I'd hate to see this guys shoulders.
If the rule of thumb is run your bars as wide as your hands in a push up position. He is one stick figure.
These are some seriously skinny ass bars. I know they're for threading traffic. Saw lots of SS street rigs but many had freewheels on the not fixed. No brakes on this bad boy. This rig had some coin in the wheels even in its urban camo.

This is "Green Girl" aka Anne.
Anne rides for Nature Valley and was styling all week in her seriously green kit and matching bikes. Very pro. She dug my pink helmet at the mtb race. So at the time trial I began to lure her to the Darkside by giving her a pair of pink,purple and white with bunnies argyle socks. She proudly strolled up to me at the start and flashed her new socks before I started. Nice.
As she was leaving she hooked me up with a big box of Nature Valley bars. Thanks . Get yourself a single speed girl.

MTB pic and interview shot