How I got into cycling:

In February 2006, I dreamed that Jens! Voigt fell off a mountain in a race. Surprising that he showed up in a dream, since the only time I'd heard of Jens! was when he wore the maillot jaune in the 2005 TdF, the only bike race I'd ever watched at that point, and I had been glad that he lost the jersey to Lance (sacrilege, I know). Since it was a very compelling dream, I asked my husband Greg (the real cycling fan in the family) to check various cycling news venues to see if he really had fallen off a mountain. We discovered that he, fortunately, hadn't, but that Jens! would be riding up our own mountains the very next week in the 1st Tour of California! We followed live updates of the race on the web, Greg and our daughter Emily rode up Pinehurst to watch the peloton blow past, and we started to get hooked on the sport.

I adore team tactics and would love to be a directeur sportif, an impulse I currently satisfy by putting together VDS teams for everyone in my family. If only my sprinters understood that pedaling for 3rd place *is* important, that targeting races that earn no VDS points is NOT a priority, and that when Gadret, Garate, and Beltran end up in a break together, they should know they are all on the same (VDS) team and should work together!