Tour of Wah Wah Wah.

Yes, I'm 3/4 of the way through the Tour of Walla Walla. The race has been mostly good. You can go over the full results at the race's website, but here are some of the highlights:

20 mph sustained winds all day Friday. We rode very well. Kind of. We were represented in all the moves, we were very aggressive, everybody was near the front in the crosswinds, we had six guys in the front group of 30, and I won the sprint, thanks to a killer lead out (nobody other than a Hagens Berman rider hit the front of the race for the last 5 miles of the race). Unfortunately, all that good riding wasn't good for much -- earlier in the race, we committed a major tactical blunder in letting a very strong rider escape from the group and gain a lot of time on the field. He was marked by and HB rider, but ended up breaking away, and keeping most of his gap on the field. He was nearly 3 minutes ahead at the end of the stage.

I won the TT!!! This win marks the end of a serious drought in wins for me. Aside from the Lovell World Championships (which, sadly, isn't sanctioned by USAC or the UCI), I hadn't won a bike race since July of 2006. My number of or third place finishes was in the double digits, however -- I was beginning to feel like Erik Zabel, a perpetual runner-up. This win takes a lot of pressure off. Phew.

We got SMACKED on Saturday afternoon. I might wait to tell you about that one -- but let's just say the Red Truck team didn't exactly crumple under our might as we'd hoped. I slid from 2nd to 5th GC. Ouch.

I'm a few hours from the final criterium -- one of the funnest crits of the year in my opinion. The weather is blustery, partly cloudy, and dry. Yippie. GO US!!!