Well, what a weekend that was!
Before the weekend, I was really looking forward to getting to Laguna Seca. I had had just over three weeks off and, with the truly crap British summer that we were experiencing, I was more than ready to get back on a plane heading for sunshine and, more importantly, racing again.
In my three-week summer break from racing in the AMA, I enjoyed spending a bit of time at home with family and friends. My girlfriend Hattie and I went to London on 7 July to watch the start of this year's Tour de France, which was pretty cool. A couple of years ago, I drove down to the French Alps with my bicycle and followed the Tour for about five days but, since then, in the last two years, the Tour and my racing schedule have conflicted quite a bit, so I haven’t managed to get back down there - which I have been desperate to do because it is a lot of fun.
Anyway, it was good to see the Tour in London. We staked out our spot in Hyde Park just along the Serpentine and had a fun day there. Luckily for the riders and everybody watching, the weather was really good. I had a $20 bet on with Ben Spies for who the winner of that opening stage would be. Funnily enough, I went for an American guy called David Zabriskie and he went for the British guy David Millar! Unfortunately, neither of our men won, so there was no money to be shelled out. But, we do have another bet on for the overall winner. My $20 is on a Spanish guy called Alejandro Valverde and his money is on a Kazakh guy called Alexander Vinokourov but, again, at the moment, neither of them are looking good for the overall win so I think our money is safe!
