Canadian Invasion !

Spring is one of my favorite times of the year here in the Wine Country. The wild flowers are blooming and the grape vines will awake from their winter nap in March. But one of the easiest ways to tell that Spring is on the way is when riders from the Great White North hit town! I'm speaking more specifically of our frineds from Canada who ride for the Victory Brewing women's pro team. Many of them were teammates of Cindy's when she rode from the old 800.com women's team in 2000-2001. Gina and Amy hit town recently and in the next week or so the rest of the squad will be in town. They use Santa Rosa as a home base for the US National Calendar races here in California. I also saw World MTB Champ Roland Green out training with Levi Leipheimer the other day.

Preparations for our camp in Italy are progressing well. We placed advertisements on the SoCal website and the SportsBaseOnline site.

I had a nice chat on the phone today with Luca, the manager of our hotel in Castelcucco. His English is coming along and my Italian is progressing as well.

If you really want to get a good flavor of the cycling culture in our Veneto region check out the BiciVeneto site. The creator of this site was a guest at the camp years ago and loved it so much that she stayed in Italy and got married to a local!