Hello race fans!

As promised in the last blog, here is a summary of my birthday bash. My birthday happens to fall on the thirty first day of every year, which just so happens to be January 31st. Now that it’s February 9th, we’ve all had time for all the fun and excitement to settle in and I’m ready to blog all about it.

The day started successfully with a trip up Figueroa Mountain, which rises from 900 feet to 4500 feet in the backyard of our butter mansion here in Los Olivos. I undertook this adventure with Tom Zirbel and Emile Abraham, and I should point out that this was Emile’s first ride on the new bike, having just arrived the previous night. This is unusual because most people noodle around for about an hour on easy roads when they test out new bikes. Not Emile, because he’s all man. He took on this 3 hour climb fest. Also no small feat since he’s a sprinter and generally sprinters don’t like going up.

After a mild afternoon filled with relaxing and not doing much of anything, we went out to dinner at the Firestone Brewery, owned by a Middlebury alum. I had a blast there since it was the first time that (nearly) the entire team was together. So for it to coincide with my birthday made for a good excuse to go out and have fun. Adam, the Middlebury guy, knew that we were coming and he treated us really well with sample beers for the table and a hefty jug o’ beer for the birthday boy.

After a delicious meal, I was surprised with a great birthday dessert, featuring three brownies, and four scoops of delicious vanilla ice cream. I’m a man who loves his sweets, but I’ve been doing well at abstaining lately for the sake of being fast on the bike. However, a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do on his birthday, so after sending the plate around for everyone to try, I still managed to stuff down the vast majority of this platter of a dessert.