Jay Richards

Just about every day upon completion of days stage in the Tour, Bruce and I will e-mail each other thoughts and comments about what happened. (After today I had to call him) Like a lot of people, I was a bit in shock and bummed out about yesterday. I have been following the Floyd interviews and articles pretty closely and I was suprised to see him crack so badly when it sounded like he had been riding in control and never really going on attack and showing how strong he really was. With that in mind, I thought that if he could recover over night, he would give it his all today to go for the win. This is what I e-mailed Bruce yesterday:" I think Floyd is gonna be pissed. Sounds like it might of been a hydration/food thing. Unless it is his hip, I see him going for it, if he can, on the last climb to try and get the stage tomorrow. I could be wrong but that is what my gut says. It won't be enough to get back up there and if he does have a great tt, still won't be enough but I could see him going for two stage wins. " Well, I was wrong on not enough to be back up because now he is. Wow. Saturday is going to be unreal. The same time we will be riding through the woods but guess can catch it later.

I'll never forget the time I was racing the NORBA national at Breckenridge Colorado where I was riding pretty much dead last in the Pro race, getting killed by the 12,000ft or so of elevation. On the 2nd of 3rd lap I came up to Floyd who had dropped out but gave me this huge push and said "go kick some ass" or something like that. I went on to finish the race and came in dead last, 40 minutes or something behind Travis Brown but I was the only flatlander to finish which was the only thing I felt good about. But I have the memory of being pushed partly up the hill by Floyd. I think that was the last year he raced mountain bikes. Anyways, I hope he can nail it down come Sunday.

Remember that post White Earth Connections at all? Well today when I was coming home from DL after dropping Jon off at hockey, I got pulled over by the same guy I pulled out of the ditch in February. I thought this poop truck was turning off to unload in a field but he wasn't so I went around him at a high speed before the turn and the first vehicle I meet is the cop. He just gave me a warning, I don' t think he could of given me a ticket since we were off the rez. I didn't cash in on the ditch incident as he was real friendly and didn't ask for id or anything like that. He looked at me funny and I wondered if he was try to recognize who I was.


Photo from the Outside article that ran earlier this year.