Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Free Eats for Daves on Wednesday April 29th

Attention all Daves. Come and eat at Famous Dave's BBQ:

It is a little hard to read, but All Dave's eat for free at Famous Dave's BBQ.
The local Famous Dave's is in Vista near the Krikorian MetroPlex 15 at Vista Village

The Address is:
303 Vista Village Dr.
Vista, CA 92083

Email me if you know a Dave and want to join me:

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Best Swami Cheese Cake Photo

I know you all are competitive, so please email me your best Cheese Cake photo and we can vote on who's is best. Here are my top pictures to date. They need to have a Swamis or FOS in the picture...

















Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Examiner.com Top 10 list for Tour of California

James Raia - Cycling Examiner did a nice job listing his Worst/Top 10 list for the 2009 Tour of California and look what was the best thing at the Tour...

1. The final stage mountain in stage 8 last Sunday. The race still doesn't have a mountaintop finish, but including a final-day stage with four climbs, including the Mt. Palomar ascent, was a keen move by race organizers. The only way it could have been better: If Levi Leipheimer's race lead were only a few seconds or his team wasn't as dominant as Astana was throughout the race.

For the rest of his Worst/Top 10 click here

SD Union Tribune Stage 8 Article

It would have been nice if Dave Hasemyer had at least highlighted the Swamis went out if its way to help him with the article/day (or mention the club), but Swamis or FOS got some nice quotes.

....It also fell on Robin Goehring, 44, an Encinitas bike shop employee who rode a stretch of the route ahead of the pros. “You get so pumped hearing the cheers,” Goehring said. “It's such a personal thing.” Riding the same course as the Amgen pros is to bicyclists what playing ball at Petco Park would be to baseball fans. “It puts you right there – right where the pros are,” Goehring said....
.....“The pain makes you disciplined. And that discipline is something that carries over into your everyday life,” said Connie Henderson, 42, who has conquered Palomar Mountain with the Swamis bike club.....
Click here for the article

Monday, February 23, 2009

Amgen Tour of CA Stage 8 Rap Up

We saved the best for last at the 2009 Amgen Tour of California. Stage 8 was the Queen's stage, the most difficult of the race. It was a 96.8-mile pedal from Rancho Bernardo to Escondido, which was the first time the race has traveled to San Diego County. The route included four California Travel & Tourism King of the Mountains climbs, none bigger than the fearsome Palomar Mountain, an above categorization climbs that peaks at 5123 feet, the highest summit ever reached in the Tour. With two-time defending champion Levi Leipheimer (AST) in the leader's tunic, an abundance of attacks were expected in a final effort to claim the yellow jersey.

An early break was established, but eventually collapsed on Palomar Mountain where an elite group formed including Leipheimer and his closest rivals – David Zabriskie (GRM) and Michael Rogers (THR). On the descent four riders formed a new move, which then slimmed down to duo consisting of Frank Schleck (SAX) and Vincenzo Nibali (LIQ). The pair made it over the final KOM climb of the race on the testing Cole Grade and motored towards the finish on the valley floor while the Astana-powered peloton kept the gap close to preserve Leipheimer's overall victory. After rounding the final corner, Schleck made his move and pulled away for the stage win ahead of Nibali. George Hincapie (THR) won the pack gallop to claim 3rd place for the day. The top three positions on the General Classification held up: Leipheimer followed by Zabriskie (36 seconds) and Rogers (45 seconds). Tonight Leipheimer celebrates his Amgen Tour of California three-peat and his Team Astana toasts the Team victory. After winning back-to-back stages earlier in the week, Mark Cavendish (THR) takes home the Herbalife Sprint jersey. Jason McCartney (SAX) climbed his way to the California Travel & Tourism King of the Mountains title. For the third consecutive year, Robert Gesink (RAB) leaves the Golden State with the Rabobank Best Young Rider jersey in his suitcase

Andy G from Palomar

Wow! What a great day!

Our plan was to MTB up the Nate Harrison Grade to the Palomar KOM, watch the ToC go by, then ride back down and see the racers again at Cole Grade. Some (most...) said it couldn't be done, that the pro peloton would get down the mountain faster than a bunch of middle aged, overweight wannabe mountain bikers...

Our original plan was to park on the Nate, but hwy 76 was going to be closed all day east of Cole Grade so we switched to plan B and parked at the roadside just west of Cole Grade. There were a few others there, mostly road riders heading for South Grade but it wasn't nearly as busy as we expected.

At 8:45am we (me, Tim Duncan and FOS Scott Klotzback & Rob Moffit) began the long haul up the Nate; we were loaded down with heavy backpacks and it took us a full half hour longer than usual to make the ascent. The weather was perfect, cloudy and cool; we had the whole mountain to ourselves, we were very surprised to see no other riders on the hill. At 4500ft we hit the snowline and the road turned from hardpack dirt into gloopy slop, very difficult to ride through! This only lasted for a mile or so and we re-grouped at the ranger station before heading on down to Mothers Kitchen. There was quite a lot snow left over from last weekend and the temperature was definitely on the cool side!

At Mothers we saw a lot of familiar faces but only one other recognizable Swami; where was everybody? We hung out at Mothers for an hour or so, warming up with food and coffee before staking our claim to a spot right at the South/East grade intersection, with a great sightline down the hill.

At 2:15 the first rider came up the hill, quickly followed by Levi and the chase group. Team Astana was leading the main peloton a couple minutes back, with other onesy-twosy groups after. At this point we packed up our stuff and started the long ride down the mountain. The mud which had been a drag on the ascent became... entertaining on the way back down. I was on Scott's wheel and must have eaten about a pound of mud thrown off his back wheel, together with the mess getting thrown up from my own front tire! Once we got below the snowline the trail got much better and we got up to full speed, passing several cars and dirtbikes on the way down.

We got back to rte 76 three minutes before the ToC :-) So we got to watch them go by all over again! Tim & Scott had cameras with them; we'll get Scott's pix later, Tim's are already up on Flickr.

Here's the link to the pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26579979@N08/sets/72157614232316897/

So how did Party Swamis go at the other KOM's?

Andy