Vive Le Tour !!!

It's Le Tour Time Baby!!! Time to come out and RIDE HARD!!! Celebrating The Tour de France, 45 VeloViet riders showed up and rode super hard on today's exhilarating ride.

The VeloViet Club has been busy, with remote rides and bike clinics, and it seemed we have not had a ride together from MSP in a great while. The atmosphere at the parking lot was energetic, as folks were catching up with each other. A2 Cap't Long, who we have not seen for a long time, also dusted his bike and came out. I was excited and went around and shook everyone's hands.

The lot quickly filled up. There were a number of guest riders. They included Dan, Luke's surfer friend, and Charles, Kiet's brother-in-law. Our Newbies were out in force too, with Martin and Mark wearing their new VeloViet jersey proudly. Here are some photos at the park.

Photo - Kiet, Guest Charles, and Jonathan

Photo - Daniel, Anh Minh, Thang, Toan, Lilliana, and Arnel

Photo - Kiet, Steve, Brian, Tan, Blake, and Jonathan

So how could we celebrate Le Tour without something French... well how about French-Canadian? The Animal brought out his friend Roxy, a proud French-Canadian lady that is super sweet and friendly. Not to be outdone, The Beast brought out his gorgeous wife Lilliana. These are the two ladies from today's ride.

Photo - The Ladies from Today's Ride: Roxy and Lilliana

A quick intro... and we are off!

Photo - Riders Preparing to Roll Out of Miles Square Park

Photo - Keith and the VeloViets Rolling Out

On Bushard things went well. The team was focus on trying to practice the lessons that we learned from Master Racer Haldane last week, and we were rolling slow to allow the leg muscles to warmup. Also we were all tucked behind each other in the drafting position trying to keep a close-knit pack.

Photo - Thomas and Scott

Photo - The Front Pack on Bushard

Photo - Paceline from Behind

Photo - David and Martin Attacking the Hills

Photo - Roxy and Billy

Photo - Lilliana and Greg

We arrived at the PCH rest stop and met up with Kazu and BigH. These two brought out their friend Brian. Everyone chit-chat and I went around snapping photos.

Photo - Roxy, The Animal Scott, Lilliana, and The Beast Luke

Photo - The VeloViet at the PCH Stop

On PCH, the ride excitement escalated ten-folds! There was a stretch where Greg, Tuan, Sang, Luke, and John had gapped the rest of the pack. These five guys were like 100 feet in front of the pack, who was traveling at 24 mph. From the corner of my eye, I saw a white and black flash of color slingshot from the rear of the pack and passing us in the front of the pack at a great speed! Turns out this was The Archer Kazu in his white jersey and black Rock Racing bibshort. This was an incredible display of power as Kazu must have kicked above 30 mph to catch up to the front five guys! I sense a restlessness in the peloton with this move.

A right turn on Bayside and yup out come Brian and BigH letting loose some energy. This pair also shot away. The remaining riders settle down and started grinding away on the 3 hills on Jamboree. There were a few other accelerations, but none stick as before. A little later on, we regrouped with the front pack after a right on University.

Photo - Practicing Lessons Learned Last Week from Master Racer Haldane

Photo - Regroup on University

At the stop, Cap't Thomas encouraged riders to come up and share the workload. The Viets responded! This next stretch on Barranca was some of the hardest work we have done in the past few weeks. Guys like Scott, Greg, Kazu, Thomas, Brian, Tuan, Duc, Sang, John, Arnel, and BigH were laying down the hammer and we were traveling around 27-30 mph. I was near the back and noted that there were no mercy from these guys as it was a sprint each time we stop and then start. This is actually good as everyone were working hard even though not everyone made it to the front.

Surprisingly, the VeloViet pack did pretty darn good! The A2 guys have been training and were hanging on tough. Roxy was super as she held with the A1 big boys. Roxy had me thinking that if we hook her up with Yahoo! Girl Kristy, and if we get Fixie, Uyen, Sarah, and our other lady riders to the racing circuit, we would have a pretty darn good Lady Racing Team!

We made it to our halfway stop, the CyclePro shop in Irvine. Juan, the owner, had graciously open up his shop for us. Juan also set out water, gatorade, bagel, and cream cheese for us. Excellent! Thanks Juan!

Here we met Master Mechanic Arturo and staff Armando. Cap't Thomas noted that CyclePro is one of the shop that VeloViet is strongly considering to partner with, and noted that Arturo is a excellent bike mechanic, and will do what is needed even if you need your bike built overnight. Juan and his staff were extremely friendly, and CyclePro looks like a great bike shop.

We took a photo with the CyclePro guys. Here it is.

Photo - Greg, Roxy, Kiet, and Charles Resting at CyclePro

Photo - A2 Cap't Toan at CyclePro

Photo - KyAnh at CyclePro

Photo - CyclePro Staff Armando and Arturo

Photo - VeloViets at CyclePro

The ride back was even more exciting than the first half as cap't Thomas declare a "Fast" group and a "Faster" group. I was barely hanging on with the Faster guys as they really pound the pedals on the return! I think the group had shrunk to less than 10 guys at this point. We even lost the super strong French-Canadian Roxy! Scott drop back to help pull Roxy and the second group.

On SART, the speed was crazy! Super-human Greg G was going nutz at the front! Greg pulled for a long time at 30 mph and we all scrambled to keep up. Greg finally pull out and we all took turn at a more reasonable 26 mph. After just a few minutes, Greg could not take it anymore and came around us and took over again and raise the speed back to 30 mph! This guy was an animal!

At MSP, we came in first. The next group rolled in like 10 minutes later and the final group another 15 minutes after that. Le Tour had brought additional excitement on today's ride. Everyone had watch the race in France this past week and was looking forward to today's ride.

Thanks everyone who came out and made this ride fun! Thanks to all of our guests who came and share this excitement with us, and special thanks to Roxy for giving today's ride a "French" flavor!

Vive Le France! Vive Le Tour!

Photo - Go French-Canada !!!

Out,
Phong