Active Expert: Bruce Hildenbrand : Tags : eric_wohlberg

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Active Expert: Bruce Hildenbrand

2 Posts tagged with the eric_wohlberg tag

Protect Your Stuff

Posted by Bruce Hildenbrand Mar 30, 2009

One of the unfortunate side affects of the economic downturn is that burglary is on the rise. Dave Zabriskie returned from his excellent second place from the Amgen Tour of California(AToC) to find his home in Salt Lake City cleaned out. A week before the start of the AToC, three-time Canadian Olympian and now Team Bissel director, Eric Wohlberg, returned from racing in Argentina to find his place had been broken into. This past Thursday, top Master's rider, Billy Innes, had his two team bikes and several wheelsets taken out of his garage.

Let's face it. Any burglary is bad. But, when it involves cyclists and their bikes it really hits home. I guess it is just a sad fact of these times that we need to be extra-diligent and supremely vigilant in protecting our own valuables, but also watch out for others valuables as well. When one of our friends gets ripped off, we need to keep our eyes peeled for any bikes or parts for sale, especially on the Internet, that seem suspicious.

There are a few silver linings here. The guys who burglarized Eric Wohlberg's place got caught breaking into another house the next night. Salt Lake City Police have arrested two suspects in the Zabriskie robbery and Dave and his wife Randi have gotten some of their stuff back.

Unfortunately, Billy's two 2009 team Specialized S-Works SL2's w/Sram Red components and several wheelsets(Zipp 404's, Zipp 900 and Zip 808) have still not been recovered.

Again, there are several things we can all do to keep burglaries to a minimum. Keep your houses, garages, cars, etc. locked at all times. Use your home burglary alarms. Keep your eye out for suspicious items for sale in-town and on the Internet. Also, keep your eye out for suspicious behavior such as a 6-foot man riding a 50cm bike.

It's tough out there and it is not clear when it will be getting better anytime soon. Be careful out there and keep your eyes peeled.

Bruce

430 Views 2 Comments Permalink Tags: bruce_hildenbrand, eric_wohlberg, dave_zabriskie, billy_innes

Hard and Harder

Posted by Bruce Hildenbrand Mar 3, 2008

The Amgen Tour of California(AToC) organizers had the capacity to invite 18 teams to its recent race; it only invited 17. One team noticeably absent was the Canadian Symetrics squad which, in 2007, won the UCI Continental Championship for North and South America an honor which means it was the best team, based on UCI points, on two continents. Add to that, their rider Svein Tuft, not only won the individual UCI Continental Championships as well, but he also pulled off a remarkable win at the US Open, a race televised nationally on NBC TV, last April.

Unfortunately, Symetrics got no love from AToC organizers and was left out of the race. The Vancouver-based squad was on the sidelines as teams they beat in 2007 were racing in the Tour of California. I ran into one of their top riders, Eric Wohlberg, a three-time Canadian Olympian the day before the start of the AToC. His frustration was evident; there really was no good reason the Symetrics team was left out of the race.

Hey but, Eric is a champion and champions don't get mad, they get even. This past weekend was the first big race on the US domestic calendar after the AToC, The Merco Cycling Classic, and all of the US domestic squads who had competed in the AToC were set to participate. All Eric did was solo off the front for the final 25 miles of the 120-mile road race to win alone. That's an in-your-face move if ever there was one!

You have to know Eric to realize that it wasn't so much as kicking mud in your eye. It was just a case of kicking your butt. As former US Postal/Discovery Channel rider and fellow Canadian Michael Barry once told me, "Eric has two speeds, hard and harder." Here's hoping that Eric and his Symetrics team can get some love from the other top races in the US. They deserve to be at all of them, including that Tour of California gig. Hey, was all that rain some sort of karma payback?

Bruce