Holy Achievements Batman

Raisin the Bar

In stage 3 of the Tour de Langkawi last Sunday, February 5 from Lumut to Cameron Highlands (150.3km), American Saul Raisin won the mountain-top finish in impressive style. The 23-year old from Georgia may very well be the next generation of American Grand-tour champions.

Once Levi and Floyd have moved on to full-time motivational speaking careers, Saul will just be hitting his stride. Look out for him at the Giro later this year as he is going to be one of the two main GC guys for his Credit Agricole team. So for those of you who didn't know, now you know...keep an eye out for this kid. (incidentally, Saul has been good for a while...he won the best young rider award at the 2004 Tour de Georgia, placed 2nd in the same competition last year and recently won the mountain jersey at the Tour de l'Avenir)


Another youngin who oddly enough is doing something...
A guy I raced with in the Cat. 5's last year is now going to be training with the Cycling Center in Belgium.

Known for giving young elite cycling talents the opportunity to get some invaluable European racing experience, the Cycling Center has turned out more than a few members of the professional peloton.

The guy I'm referring to shall remain nameless in this post due to the fact that I'm only 95% sure that he's actually the same guy named to the roster posted on cyclingnews.com

Editors note: We here at 5count aren't actually a viable media source, therefore, our journalistic integrity should not be questioned. We just post whatever the hell we want, true or not...by the way the refs from Superbowl XL were shot and killed by a Seattle fan for calling Big-Ben's QB sneak a TD.

I met the above mentioned guy, we'll call him Earl, early in the season. We both had finished in the top ten at a couple of Orlando area crits. It became obvious to myself, as well as others we raced with, that Earl was "confident" in his abilities. This "confidence" turned sharply into unrealistic cockiness by the Festival of Speed race in downtown Orlando. Earl stated (in all seriousness) before the start of our race that he was going to simply "lap the field solo".

My immediate response was, "You're a cocky son of a bitch aren't you?"

Earl replied with, "It's not cockiness, I'm just that good."

From that point on, I never looked at Earl quite the same way...by the way, I finished in the $ that night in 4th place. Earl never "lapped the field" and finished an average mid-pack.

I would see Earl periodically throughout the season and was subjected to his bragadocious ramblings of his new bike, or his training rides with local pro-1,2's. I last ran into Earl at a cat-4 road race in Deland late last season. He had gotten himself onto a competitive team based in Orlando and bragged about how they pretty much "begged" him to join the team (all this without any substantial results). It became habit for me to just disregard him and his stories.

You can understand my surprise then when I read today's cyclingnews.com article about the Cycling Center and it's roster for 2006 and Earl was right there. Were all of Earl's tales true...Is he really that good...did he make the jump from average cat-4 to elite amateur in just the past 6 months...my head was spinning (not really, I was a bit curious though).

I'm the first person to be in support of Florida racers who go on to national and international success. The fact that Stefano Barberi is now racing for the United Pro Cycling team is awesome to me. The new VMG racing team has lots of local talent who I surely plan on rooting for and following throughout their race schedule. But for such an opportunity like the Cycling Center to come along for such a braggart like Earl, I can only hope that his experiences abroad teach him some humility, tact and social grace.

Earl will no doubt get better and I understand that he's young and still has some growing to do and I really hope that Earl does do well over there and truly realizes his full potential as a bike racing machine...I just hope this doesn't turn out to be another boost to his already over-inflated ego.