Family Night at the Top of the World

Shaunie had the brilliant idea to have family night at a park in Newport Coast. She whipped up a portable dinner while I blended up my own dinner (green smoothie) and off we went.

Nom, nom, nom.

Shaunie and the kids ate spaghetti with creamy tomato sauce and we all had some yummy watermelon, cucumbers, and raw broccoli.

Jilly teaching us her lesson.

Evelyn taking her turn teaching.

Keeping that little beasty calm during the lesson. All he could think about were the cookies that came after the lesson.

 We brought a kite, but it wasn't windy enough, so instead we took a short hike on one of the these trails.

 Off we go, into the great nothing. Well, not really (see below). On the map this is referred to as a jeep trail, but there were no jeeps. Only people and bikes. I know of at least one more bike that will be on this trail soon!

The Laguna Coast Wilderness Park in the background. Hiking and MTB trails abound.

 Okay, now for a goofy photo.

The payoff: Staring at the Sea

Almost back to the park. The kids were kind of tired at the end (Hooray!), but they still had enough energy to play at the park as we'd only hiked 2.2 miles and they had just had cookies. Also, yes, there were houses nearby, hard to escape that down here.

The other side of the park, looking toward the rest of Orange County.

Amgen Tour of California: Stage 7 - Mega Post

We arrived at Citizens Bank Arena at about 10:30. This is a United Healthcare Rider being interviewed.

It wasn't as busy as we suspected it might be. But more people kept showing up as the start drew near.

This guy, outside the Team Jelly Belly bus, was a big hit with the kids. Jelly Belly makes a cycling product called Sport Beans. Basically they are jelly beans with electrolytes, they taste kind of like salty Gatorade. Luckily, these samples were just regular Jelly Bellys.

We hadn't been there 15 minutes before the kids decided that this pro cycling race-stuff was cool. I think the Jelly Bellys had something to do with that.

The United Healthcare team's very fine Willier bikes.

One of Team Sky's Jaguar F-Type team cars. Fancy.

They cram a lot of back up equipment on these cars. I think each rider has a spare bike in case they have a mechanical (something goes wrong with their bike) or they crash on the course.

Mark Cavendish's custom painted Specialized Venge.

Closeup of his logo and the Shimano Di2 FD.

I thought it was a bit odd that Etixx-Quickstep had a rented RV. But they are a Europe-based team. This crowd was waiting for Mark Cavendish to emerge. 

Switzerland-based BMC Racing Team had their own team cars, van, and bus there. No expense was spared. Dem bikes...so nice.

American rider, Joey Rosskopf grew a beard for the Tour of California. Respect.

Hincapie Racing's Andzs Flaksis (Latvia) and Robin Carpenter (USA) heading to sign in on their Felt F1 bikes. Niiiiiiice. Their teammate, Toms Skujins (Lativa) was wearing the KOM jersey this day, having captured it with some gutsy breakaways earlier in the tour. He had also been donning the yellow race-leader's jersey, but lost it on stage 6 to Peter Sagan. This stage proved to be Skujins' downfall as he was dropped on the first climb and lost the KOM jersey to Daniel Oss of BMC. Still, he had an amazing two or three days on this tour and surely he'll be on the radar of many other teams.

Who is Gerald Ciolek of MTN Qhubeka talking to there?

Oh, it's only George Hincapie, Lance Amrstrong's long-time teammate, in the flesh.

Daaaaaaaaaa bears. (Wearing TOC jerseys). Nice bus George!

Cool cars, cool, bikes, cool colors.

It was interesting how as riders would head to check in, they would just ride through the throngs of people. I kept thinking about how no other sport allows such access to the athletes, as we'll shortly see.

I've been a fan of Team Garmin, in their many incantations, for a few years now. For 2015, Team Cannondale and Team Garmin merged, forming a super team. But the results haven't been as stellar as were predicted. Still, they have some great riders, and the bikes are nice to look at.

Me with a silly grin on my face, standing next to a row $10,000 bikes. Don't knock them over, don't knock them over, don't knock them over...

Team Garmin has always been very much about presentation and style. I mean, they have argyle kits, how cool is that? They had some highlight videos playing on the flatscreen outside.

With the merger, the argyle has been toned down this year. It used to be blue, white, and orange. But the Cannondale merger forced them to figure out how to use neon green. It's okay, not as cool as their old kits.

The kids were still happy, but they had started to ask when the race was going to start. Shaunie took them to scout out a good spot to watch the start while I hung around waiting for a glimpse of one my favorite riders.

Ready for the close-up. Dang.

Young Joe Dombrowski. He's a noodle, no wonder he's such a great climber. Joe took 4th on this stage, which saw the riders climb just under 12,000 feet in 80 miles. In other words, they did roughly the equivalent of the Breathless Agony (11,200 ft in 75 miles). But they did it in under 4 hours! I've ridden Glendora Mountain Road before and I couldn't believe how fast they flew up those steep, sustained grades. That's why they're pros and I'm a dude with a gut and a beard.

Fan favorite Ted King, who recently announced his retirement, being interviewed by a reporter.

Me: "Hey Ted, I love your maple syrup shots. They are pure cycling fuel."

Ted: "Thank you. I'm glad you like them, they're great."

Wow! I didn't know I would be able to get this close. He was very kind and courteous. After a few photos with fans he said, "I need to go ride my bike now everyone. But thank you for coming to see us." Then he posed by his bike while a few other fans snapped photos. I'm going to miss his presence in the pro peloton. But I'll keep reading his blog. This was the highlight of my day/week/month (other than completing the Breathless Agony).

Renowned sprinter Mark Cavendish was one of the last ones to check in. At 5'8" and 154lbs, his power to weight ratio is perfect for sprinting.

The spot that Shaunie and the kids got to see the start. Again, what other sport allows the fans to get so close? This was rad.

While I was busy being a fanboy, a police officer that was helping keep cars off the route stopped by and gave the kids these TOC feed bags and Cannondale water bottles. This made their day. Evelyn is now a fan of Team Cannondale Garmin.

All ready to go. They were just waiting for the National Anthem to be sung and the starting pistol to be fired. Peter Sagan is in the yellow leader's jersey. I couldn't find the Tinkoff-Saxo bus. I think they were hiding from fans on purpose. A friend later told me that at another race he couldn't find their bus. Maybe that's a thing they do. Toms Skujins is next to Peter Sagan, wearing the KOM jersey, and Cavendish is to the right of Sagan, wearing the sprint leader's jersey.

And they're off!

Hey, Shaunie actually was there. I wasn't sure how fun it would be for her and they kids, but at this point, after the race had started, we were all really excited and ready to go find a good spot to watch the riders pass one more time.

Since the race was going through Glendora, we figured we needed to stop by The Donut Man and pay our resepects. Evelyn got a tiger's tail, a regular twist with some devil's food cake twisted in. Yum.

These are the cheesecake donuts. That's a cream cheese mix with fruit filling. Nothing inside the donut, but there is plenty of flavor. The blueberry is great.

This is what The Donut Man is famous for, their fresh strawberry and peach donuts. They are only in season for about six months out of the year. The strawberries are brought in fresh, right from the farm, every day, and prepared with the Donut Man's own glaze. My mouth is watering as I type this. If you're planning on stopping by, they are open 24 hrs and only accept cash, so come prepared.