Happy New Year. I thought I’d better add some content to this even though nothing much has gone on since Cross Nationals. I added a web counter that monitors web hits etc. and I’m starting to feel guilty about everyone checking back here with nothing new posted. Anyway, I went up to Northern Wisconsin (Cable) the day after Christmas for a couple weeks of cross country skiing. No snow. Drove up to ABR in Michigan a few times, but that got alittle old. There is still virtually no snow there. The global warming critics have to be out of their minds. When I first went up there in the early 90’s, there was over a meter of snow before Christmas and it never stopped snowing until spring.

I’ve had some muscle imbalance (self diagnoised) issues and decided to do some weight/core stuff this winter other than skiing and construction. I went to Julia (personal trainer in Topeka) yesterday and did alot of “different” balance/weight things. I can’t believe how pitiful I was at most everything. It was 66 degrees in Kansas today. A record high for the critics. I rode 70 miles to Lawrence and back, stopping at Starbucks. Now I can barely walk I’m so sore from weights/whatever. It’s weird that when I’m sore from a different activity, it gets exacerbated from riding.

Applied for a new racing license a couple days ago. I wanted to be prepared just in case one of those warm early season trips came around just when the weather sucks here in Kansas. Anyway, when I was on “my USAC” section, I clicked on the ranking and I’m ranked #1 again under National Elite Criterium Rankings and fifth or something in the Road Race category. Someone emailed a link to this years ago when I was first in both categories and I could never figure out how or why or what they used for information/results to formulate/calculate these rankings. Last year at the end of the season, I was something like 20th. It is 11 days into 2007. No criteriums so far. But, I’ve moved up to #1. If anyone out there has figured this out, let me know. I guess they think including Tony Cruz, Brad Huff, etc. makes the “amateurs” look better. Anyway, I’ll paste the rankings below to make it look good for sponsors/potential sponsors/people that think they actually mean anything. Here’s a couple photos. A happy Steve/mediocre ski shot from Michigan with teammate Adam Mills (he’ll just hurt himself with poles.) You’ll have to take my word on it that we are standing on skis. And, a New Year’s Night, way past midnight, walk in the North Woods fun. Anyway, I’ll get back to you when something more eventful happens.

2007 Elite Road Mens Cat 1 Criterium Rankings

Rank Points Name License Hometown
1 57 Stephen Tilford 35598 Topeka, KS
2 59 Antonio Cruz 79555 Long Beach, CA
3 86 Patrick Dunaway 90607 Oakland, CA
4 87 Charles (Brad) Huff 132539 Colorado Springs, CO
5 94 Matt Shriver 110703 Durango, CO
6 96 Karl Bordine 163315 Oceanside, CA
7 101 James Carney 45167 Macungie, PA
8 102 Jason Snow 33370 Tallahassee, FL
9 110 Jonathan Page 27066 Northfield, NH
10 118 Phil Wikoff 117896 Austin, TX