He Has My Clothes On!

Here is another one of those catching up blog entries. My adventures are so numerous and widespread that I hope I remember all the key points of the past three weeks.

After the Altoona race we headed to Winston Salem, NC to stay with one of Shuler’s teammates from back in the day, Thomas Craven. The home stay was great for relaxing. Tom has a cool dog, Pielot, that was fun to play with. He was always up for a good for a game of tug the rope and chase.

Everyone really enjoyed the top of the line espresso machine too. Apparently the ladies went through $100.00 worth of coffee in the 4 days we were there. Wow! I had a few coffee’s myself but not that many. The one thing I remember was how hot the weather was. The heat index was 105 degrees. The newspaper said we were supposed to go to the mall or library, anything other than go outside. I guess no one read the same warning because we were found riding bikes with the rest of the local cyclists. The nice thing about cycling is you create your own wind so it wasn’t stifling hot until you had to stop at a red light to wait.

The whole reason we were down south was to race the Charlotte Bank of America criterium. Tina won again with great support from the rest of the team. She even got one of those oversized checks on the podium. Not every race has those. I consider it a true sign of being a pro when you get one of those (and a hefty bonus for me. Not bad for a few hours of work. That’s like making a lawyers hourly wage. Too bad it’s not like that all the time). The check ended up in the van, which meant I had to take care of it the rest of the way back to Milwaukee. It took on a little personality all its own so I made sure it experienced some of my road tripping lifestyle.


After some celebration of Tina’s victory, I headed out the next morning for a little Doug time on the way back to Team Sports (Milwaukee). I planned on some mountain biking and camping in West Virginia but the weather was quite rainy there so I ended up going to Jim Thorpe, PA. I was a little disappointed with the riding in Jim Thorpe. It was fine but I thought it would be a little better scene wise. Never saw another person riding and the local shop was not helpful at all about where to ride. The weather was good and the camping was fine too. Not a bad time. I just wouldn’t go back.




After the camping I made a quick visit to see some riding friends and do some road riding in Connecticut. Shane and Athena are great friends. We always catch up by going on long rides. This time it was a 5-hour jaunt. Nice! We did manage to get in a one and a half hour mountain bike ride and a one hour rode ride to prove we could do short rides too.




Eventually I made it back to Team Sports just in time for the Tuesday night mountain bike ride. This is one of the coolest rides in such an urban setting. The cast of characters included Eric (Targetraining mechanic), Ben Harper (the Timex Team manger, not the musician), Tom Schuler (the big cheese), and myself (the ?).

The next couple of days were spent at Team Sports getting organized for a Timex trip to British Columbia and one more race with the Colavita/Cooing Light ladies at Crit Nationals in Downers Grove, IL. Boring stuff to write about, but all-important to getting the job done. Most of what I do is inventory management. Making sure the teams have what they need for equipment and what I need to cover any repairs and what not. The actual bike work probably occupies a small percentage at certain times.

Team Sports had some craziness surrounding it one day while I was there. The short version is that Ben and I caught a guy stealing my clothes from the storage area. He was trying to change his appearance by changing clothes because the police were looking for him. Apparently he shoplifted some stuff from the Walgreen’s down the street. What makes it funny is that when I saw the “thief” walking away in my red sweat pants (The Commonwealth Games pants that Audrey gave me), Park Tool t-shirt, and my running shoes, I ran to tell Ben to call the police before confronting him. I believe my exact words to Ben were “Call the police, HE HAS MY CLOTHES ON!” It has become the catch phrase around the office now. “Call the police. He has my clothes on!” The emphasis should be placed on the “he has my clothes on” part to seem funny. After confronting the worst thief in Milwaukee, he apologized for “borrowing” my clothes and changed back into his own jeans, t-shirt, and shoes while I informed him the police were on their way. I bid him adieu with a lecture about how he “just can’t come in here and take my clothes, dude!” The police picked him up down the street and for about two hours they were poking around the neighborhood looking for the stuff he had stolen and stashed somewhere. Since the incident was the talk of the town I had to re-tell it about 10 times that day including at the barbecue to the assembled masses at Schuler’s house. Now that its on the blog I feel I’m done with the whole incident.


For you fans of cycling you probably already know what happened at Crit Nationals. Tina has won this race (and the National Champion designation) the last 4 years. A nasty crash in the last corner before the line kept her from this year’s win. But she’ll be the first to say that’s all part of racing bikes. She is a class act for sure and she’ll be back next year. Once in awhile the team fills in spots with guest riders for an event. Such was the case at Crit Nationals. I had the pleasure of meeting Kele M. and Allison Powers. It was nice to get to know some other riders other than the ones you always see. Excellent job ladies!

Immediately after the race we had a team lunch. These are the times that are fun within the team atmosphere because in effect we are not “working” and can just have some laughs. Great people are everywhere and fortunately they are on this team and we all share some goofy times together. It’s true when they say winning isn’t everything.



After the lunch I said some goodbye to the ladies (It was the probably the last event we’d all be together until next year) and I climbed into the Timex truck to start driving to Penticton, British Columbia, Canada. That’s what I’ve been doing the last three days. Driving with Ben (and typing this entry). There is not enough room in the cab to properly stretch the legs so we are both looking forward to it being over. We are almost to the Canadian border. Which is the last major hurdle because we have to declare all the stuff that’s on the truck and have the proper paperwork in order. Oh please let there be nice border guards!

See ya,
DOUG