Velosport Jr Team Named USA Cycling Center of Excellence

2011 Sho-Air/Rock'n'Road Junior Cycling Team

Team Velosport (Sho-Air/Rock’n'Road) Junior Cycling Team has just been named a 2010 USA Cycling Center of Excellence. (That’s a lot of links in one sentence). Here’s what being a “Center of Excellence” entails:

Funded by the USA Cycling Development Foundation, cash grants for Center of Excellence recognition are awarded to programs that meet specific structural requirements with the potential and ability to develop athletes into international-level competitors, and have consistently produced national results and coordinated with USA Cycling’s National Development Program participation. Since the program’s inception eight years ago, USA Cycling has distributed over $160,000 to grass-roots development programs thanks to the generous donations to the USA Cycling Development Foundation.

USA Cycling recognizes the outstanding work of all of these Centers of Excellence as they continue to grow the model of athlete development in cycling and contribute to the elevated levels of competition and growth of the sport in the United States.

Only 8 teams were chosen for 2010, including: Boulder Junior Cycling (BJC), NOW-MS Society, All Sport – Team Swift, Young Medalists High Performance, Peanut Butter & Co. 2012, Rad Racing, and Team Specialized Juniors.

It’s a great honor to be part of a team that puts a lot of energy and support behind junior cyclists. If 2010 was any indication for the future of the team, we should be expecting many many many top 10s and podium finishes from the 31-member team (and still growing). CONGRATULATIONS!

Team Velosport Featured in Outside Magazine Online Blog

Check out this article from The Outside Blog (Outside Magazine‘s online blog) featuring Damien Hickman and Team Velosport.

Image Courtesy of Matthias Jezek (from US Cup Fontana 3/28/2010)

Makes me proud to be part of the one of the largest cycling teams/clubs in Southern California. And extremely grateful for all the support provided by Team Velosport in terms of race support (team captains are always providing nutrition/snacks and encouraging words at all races), training (with weekly rides and organized events), and social networking (at meetings/events). Also.. can’t forget about the awesome raffle prizes and race reimbursement.

Weekend Recap: Nice Laptop Bag

This past weekend wasn’t that exciting, but there were a few things that I wanted to post about… So here goes the Weekend Recap…

Parking Lot Spin Class

Saturday morning, I volunteered to help out with the Santiago Canyon Time Trial. It’s pretty funny, because the parking lot of the Rock’n'Road Mission Viejo store literally looks like a spin class. All the time-trialists have their trainers set-up next to their cars and are spinning away for a warm-up. It’s pretty funny.

It was a BEAUTIFUL day for a parking lot spin class..

I was stationed by the tunnel that goes under El Toro. It was pretty cool to see all the racers go by.. there’s a good hill coming up to the tunnel, so they weren’t going very fast. Since I was on course-marshall duty, though, I didn’t get a chance to snap any photos. This would be a good race to help gauge your fitness level throughout the year, since they do several of these each season. The record is 24 minutes and 20 seconds (26 minutes and 6 seconds for the women’s) and has stood for several years now. The course is about 11 miles.. so that averages out to just over 27 mph!!! That’s FAST!

What Happend to All my Gears?

While I was helping out with the race, Minh was out riding his singlespeed up Santiago Truck Trail to the flag pole and then back. I met up with him later and we rode (both of us on singlespeeds) Whiting Ranch and Santiago Truck Trail (again for him.. but not all the way up to the flag pole). It was HOT and it was HARD being on the singlespeed. Mine has 53/20 gearing, Minh’s got 52/20. I was dying.. and we weren’t even out for that long. It’s probably also a result of not having been on a mountain bike since Over the Hump. My upper arms were sore too, since I was on a rigid.. I’ve never felt my arms vibrate so much.

About halfway to the flagpole.. I'm not going any further...

Nice Laptop Bag

The rest of the weekend was pretty chill. Had dinner with my cousin who was visiting from out of town. Got my first round of Thanksgiving grocery shopping done (non-perishables and goods that will last at least two weeks). Picked up a “new” used trailer to haul bikes and stuff. Killed time reading magazines at Barnes&Noble. Then the Team Velosport end of the year banquet. Minh and I got lost on the way down, but at least we weren’t late. It was a pretty good time and the best part was that Minh won this Oakley laptop bag at the end of the night.

Nice Laptop BAG!!!

But guess what was INSIDE the laptop bag…

It's like unwrapping a PRESENT!

THAT’S RIGHT!!! Minh (and I) won a new 16 GB WiFi iPad (!!!!).

YAY!!! New toy for TRAN!!!

I stayed up late last night trying to get it started up (had to install new iTunes on my laptop) and then trying to pick out what Apps I wanted. First things I downloaded was the All Recipes and Angry Birds apps. I accidentally downloaded the Angry Birds for iPhone.. so then I had to download the HD version for iPad.. at least the first one was only $0.99.

Debating downloading the Martha Stewart Cookie App, but it’s $7.99 and I JUST bought the 2010 Holiday Cookies magazine for $7… what to do?? The App looks so cool…

What are your favorite iPad apps? Any suggestions on what you can absolutely NOT live without?