Tax Time

April 15 means Tax Day in the US, and my return is done. I had to pay uncle Sam a few pesetas this time around instead of getting a few centavos back--thus it goes. I had finished my taxes about two weeks ago in anticipation of my trip to Redlands, California, last week. Even with this kind of foresight, it's been once again a busy time in my life.

Paracyclists were part of the Redlands activities

My trip to the LA basin was quite successful, as I found out just yesterday: I had attended USA Cycling's first Level-A road Commissaire Seminar that has been offered in a while, hoping that I might learn a few things and maybe pass the class and thus increase my chances of working a few of the bigger US road races. On the mountain bike side I am at the top level, as an International Commissaire, but road opportunities have been rare and I was stuck at the B-Level (only one step up from the bottom rung) for years.

The peloton approaches the feed zone, as seen from the commissaires' car

Well, I am happy to say that after three days of excellent instructions by two of our best road commissaires, Phil Miller and Mimi Newcastle, I apparently didn't bomb the final exam (written and oral) too badly and actually passed the class. Yeah! Of course, that doesn't mean that I am qualified to be the Chief Referee for Road Nationals (although I am indeed the CR for the Mountain Bike National Championship later on this year in Mammoth, once again), but I have a much better understanding of our dynamic sport and hope to expand my horizons.

Commissaires watch the race from cool cars like this

This weekend I was supposed to working another high school mountain bike race, this one in Comfort, but the forecast of heavy rain resulted in a postponement until next week. Oh well, I didn't have anything planned for next week anyhow, so that's no big deal. The weekend after we'll have the HS finals in Dinosaur Valley, and then I'll turn around immediately and drive out to Silver City, NM, to work the Tour of the Gila, one of the premier races in our region, if not the US. I'm excited to be part of the crew for the first time ever.

Once I come back a week later I'll have about 36 hours to wash my clothes and get packed for another trip to Germany. Sabine and I are planning  cycling vacation in Frnce, so that will be fun. as you can see, life just keeps going for me!

Jürgen

PS: I apologize that post #250 in these chronicles deals with taxes and rather mundane trips, but that's all she wrote, as they say.