I'm happy to knock out the prologue and be moving on to the first road stage here at Redlands. Tomorrow's stage is a new one. It'll be fun breaking from the traditional courses that we have every year at Redlands. Today's course was painfully familiar.

Redlands

It seems like such a long time ago since my last race. At least stateside its still considered "early season" and today is the start of the first NRC race of the year, Redlands. Slipstream has a small team here with several U23 riders. We're staying in a huge home in Redlands, in Riverside county, ground zero for so called subprime crisis. After only a day of riding around, I haven't seen much to indicate dire straights here, but with the Cadillac Escalades, flashy jewelry, endless strip malls and tanning salons all around, we're going to be in trouble when these people stop spending.

Woke up at 7:30 this morning to get tested by ACE. Sipping on some coffee and getting ready for a little ride before the prologue this afternoon. Feels like race day.