[caption id="" align="alignright" width="400"] Nico Toutenhoofd and Jonathan Baker (the eventual winner) crest the "Super Jamestown" climb on the final lap of the Colorado Centurion.[/caption]
This week, hundreds of cyclists -- professionals, enthusiasts and casual riders alike -- took to the roads in the foothills of Colorado for the
Centurion Colorado.
The event is both a race and a ride that features 100-, 50- and 25-mile courses so that participants can choose the level that's best for them. They put the racers at the front of the giant peleton and the folks who are riding just for fun further back. The goal is to get create a mass participation event that celebrates cycling.
We at
Insight Designs are proud to have created the website for
Centurion Cycling, the organization that put on the July 18th event and has two more Centurions scheduled for this summer (
Wisconsin - August 8, 2010 and
Canada - September 18-19, 2010).
We're also excited that our very own
Nico Toutenhoofd took second place (finishing just one second behind winner Jonathan Baker of Boulder) in the 100-mile event, and Insight designer
Keith Harper finished 16th.
Congrats to Nico and Keith. And congrats to the staff of Centurion Cycling for putting on a fabulous event. Best of luck in Wisconsin and Canada!
And if you're a cyclist - whether you're a beginner or seasoned amateur - you should consider planning a vacation around one of these events. The Wisconsin event takes place in scenic Dane County. And the Canadian event will be in the picturesque Blue Mountains in Ontario. Find out more at
www.centurioncycling.com.
[/caption]
It was yet another weekend of bike racing for Insight Designs business partner Nico Toutenhoofd. Nico and Mike Martin, CEO of juwi solar Inc. were doing the 16th annual 24 hours of Moab as a two-person team. (For those of you not in the know, the cyclists really do ride 24 hours in a row on some pretty tricky terrain in Moab, Utah.)
Unfortunately this time, there's no win to report. Nico and Mike had to pull out due to injury.
In Nico's email explaining what happened, he wrote: "Lesson learned... When you see the triple "X" signs on the trail, and it's the middle of the night, and you're tired, and they tell you to dismount your bike, you should... I had successfully ridden down "The Ledge" on my first 4 laps, but it was getting close to midnight, we were riding with lights on our bikes, I took a different line through the technical section, and I found myself flipping over the bars. My face took the entire impact -- I truly didn't get scratched or even bruised anywhere other than my face. I limped the 6 miles back to the medical tent where they told me to abandon the race and go to the emergency room. So I only made it half way through the 24-hour race."
Nico got 5 stitches, lost half a tooth and is pretty swollen, but he'll be back at work tomorrow. Please give him a break is his speech is a bit garbled over the next few days.
