I'll quickly report on a few interesting race results.

First, Leadville. The news that Lance Armstrong would not ride (I'm admitting this) kept us from following up on our tentative plans to lookey-loo up in Leadville, race-side, and sent us up to Vail to mountain bike instead, so I can't provide any firsthand accounts. But it was good to hear/read that Dave Wiens defended his 'title' and Flandis pushed him the whole way, beating a whole crowd of eager enduro elites, even after mangling his leg in a crash relatively early on. An epic ride from Floyd, without a doubt. (It would have been fun to watch, but really, it's just some dudes riding by for a few seconds with their tongues hanging out -- not a particularly mindblowing spectacle if we're honest with ourselves -- and then they're gone.)

In a very different sort of race, the 15th annual Cycle Messenger World Championships in Dublin, controversy swirled around like an Irish potato storm. Competitors, in fact, continue to bicker about the organization and outcome of the race on August 5, in which the first three finishers were DQ'd for various infractions and the world championship was granted to a distant fourth-place finisher, Peter Bradshaw of Boston. Uncertainty in the final rankings puts the CMWC right up there with the Tour de France in that regard.

One thing that was decided in Dublin with absolute certainty is that the fastest and toughest female courier in the world is Denver's own Jaimie Lusk. Jaimie was first-place woman and eleventh overall. She achieved this while riding an extra three miles or more (after missing a checkpoint). Her world championship (and Bradshaw's) are the first ever to be won by messengers from North America.

[Official results of the final heat: www.cmwcxv.org/results.html]

Congratulations to Jaimie Lusk, 2007 Women's Cycle Messenger World Champion.

Robert