That was AWESOME!!

Today was the Capital Criterium. 125 pro cyclists ride 85 - 1KM loops. It was A-W-E-S-O-M-E!! Well, most of it.

I got off the metro to go find Tony and Nicole. As I was getting close to street level, I hear it. My version of h-e-double hockey sticks... Cow bells. Not just a few. A one hundred thousand billion million zillion and two. They were EVERYWHERE!! Each corner had a white tent and piles and rows of orange cow bells. Bah!

After I found Nicole and Tony, we wandered around in complete awe of what we were seeing. Even after watching for a few hours, we still couldn't figure out how they went so fast, didn't crash (as often), could bike sooooo close to each other, and be almost on a 45 degree angle on turns. It was SOOO cool to watch. They would turn, come down the hill into another turn, short flat into a third turn - that is what we watched the majorty of the time. It looked like a snake - Wow!

We were trying to find a good place to watch the finish and wound up on Pennsylvania Ave - straining our heads to see them fly by on the last few laps. On the last lap, on a turn before the uphill, it happened - a crash!! The bikers were petty much in 1 big group, it was a few people back; one guy looked like he took the turn too tight and about 4-5 guys went down, and went down hard. A few were up and really up set (rightfully so - LAST LAP!), and 1 guy took a bit longer. But a few minutes later, we saw a bit of the finish, however were still concerned about the cyclists in the crash. Once we saw laughing, we knew everyone was okay.

Even with the crash and the devil's music in the sound of cow bells, it was a really fun few hours. And no, Blain and Carlos are not interested in this type of biking...