Legit

Our friend in Lyon, France just sent me a 1983 bottle of Chateau Beaulieu Bordeaux. Oh my, this is going into the rack. Huge thanks JZ.

"Jason Berry is way out of control"

Sometimes it's not a good idea to google your own name...

The Examiner

lists the top 10 best things about the Tour of California.



Top-10 Best:

10. Rory Sutherland showed domestic team riders can have their day against the "big boys." Nice job, mate.

9. Even when the Versus coverage suffered, Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen once again proved why they're the best in the business. They always kept the race interesting, if when technology failed.

8. The race's move from February to May. More fit ProTour riders and more fit domestic team pros. The result was better racing.

7. Speaking of better racing, how about a final day that counts for once? Bravo. Nice to see Levi Leipheimer and Dave Zabriskie attack on the final lap of the final day.

6. Francesco Chicchi's sprint win over Mark Cavendish. A dose of humility is always good for any sport's best. Chicchi has charisma and maybe the coolest bike in the peloton.

5. The HTC-Columbia team perfectly executing its lead-out train for Mark Cavendish's stage 1 win. It was like watching jets in formation.

4. The movie Chasing Legends, the story of the HTC-Columbia team in the 2009 Tour de France, debuted in Sacramento the night before the race begin. For my $.02 worth, it's one of the best cycling movies every made. Do not miss it.

3. Michael Rogers is back. Frustration from his early departure from the 2007 Tour de France and the debilitating effects of the Epstein Barr virus are long gone. Add Rogers to the list of serious Tour de France contenders.

2. American cycling fans saw a rising star . . . Peter Sagan, the 20-year-old baby-faced Slovakian who speaks Italian. Take a bow, young fella. And here's to a long, clean, successful career.

1 . The aforementioned Michael Rogers, Dave Zabriskie and Levi Leipheimer riding as overall contenders and with a healthy chunk of collective career time trial wins sprinting for a stage win in Santa Cruz.

Coming soon

to a theater near you...
more photos from the premiere in the next day or two.

FOUND

Thanks to an aware pedestrian walking along the bike path, some very helpful Arlington officers and a bike that was too heavy to pedal w/o knowing how to run the electric engine Em's bike was FOUND! Huge thanks to all involved.

To Catch A Bike Thief

If you live in the DC, Northern VA area (specifically Spout Run), please help me catch a rotten, no-good bike thief.

Sometime between last night and this morning he stole from my back yard a bike with a cable lock through the front tire and frame.

This is not just any bike, it is a special commuter bike with pedal-assist belonging to the Bike Lane and loaned to my girlfriend Emily for a year so she can ditch her car. Her blog is here.

The bike weighs about 50lbs and will run out of its current charge in a day. So either Mr. Scumbag will have to purchase a new plug or sell it or try pedaling all 50lbs around town. Either way I'd like your help in finding the bastard.

Keep an eye out and let me know if you see someone suspicious riding the bike above. I know it's not likely but how sweet would it be to catch a bike thief???

Esta bien?

no time to write much but I'm done with the movie. Thank God. That sucked. No really. Not in the "oh that hill was so hard to climb but I made it" kind of way. More like "WTF just hit me from behind and did anyone get the number of that runaway truck?" kind of way.

But it appears all will go smooth till the premiere and hopefully after as well. Hard to explain how it feels but 9 months of effort and back to back 120+ hour work weeks later it's done. Why the hell did I do that to myself? Dreams are not free, they cost a lot. Sometimes too damn much. Went to get a hair cut yesterday - this was the actual conversation:
(best said with spanish accent for Julia - she's from Bolivia)
Julia: Ohhhhh Jaaaason - you have bin working tooo muuuuuch
Jason: Yes that is true. Have I been complaining? Sometimes I don't pay attention to what I say.
Julia: Nooooo. But you have so much gray hair since winter. I worry about you.
Jason:



uh


really?

Julia: Si

So this kid is headed to a World Premiere to put his baby on a stage for all to see. Wish me luck. If you're in Cali come and say hi. East Coast tour coming soon. Keep an eye on www.chasinglegends.com for more updates, I can only keep so much content updated so that's where my efforts will go.

disclaimer - sorry about posting the kickboxing photo, I know its nasty and clearly I felt a need to tell the world I was once tough. Someday I might divulge why but I really shouldn't use the blog for venting personal bs.

or should I???

GOOD NEWS!

granted this is a sliver in the face of a giant CF of an oil spill but hey, seeing WALMART take a shot to the nuts puts a smile across my face.

more here

yea I know, not like me to spread good news is it : ?

And in this corner...

It's. Done. A bit more technical work to do but the creative editing is over. So I have a few minutes to burn.
What's the cost of this movie? I've been head-down full charge till now and sitting here with a glass of wine after almost 40 hours without real sleep I'm ragged yet reflective. It's been a while since I felt so empty, so beat down. I am absolutely spent - this last week alone I clocked almost 120 hours of work in 7 days.

A different life ago I was fighting mixed martial arts instead of cycling. Early in '94 there was a fight at Penn State and it was for some punk-ass Pennsylvania Belt series but it was my first big fight. A British guy, Glen Cranham fighting out of a gym in Alexandria VA, busted my face up bad. Something like 5 breaks in my skull and nose from that one fight. Most of the damage was done in the first minute from one of the few moves you can throw that are considered a 'foul' - a knee to the face. They stopped the fight for about 30 seconds so the ring doctor could come and wipe the gushing blood away long enough to see my nose was trashed. He said, "you're nose is busted up bad kid, you wanna keep going?" Stupid question. I had work to do. Glen knee'd me 2 more times in that round then the bell saved me.

The next round I took down the guy with 2 clean shots. But his damage was done. I slipped away into oblivion as he pounded my face in - jab, cross, jab, cross, knee to the face, elbow ... then the third round and more of the same.

I didn't go down. I refused to quit. My old man was at that fight and when I came out of the ring I hugged him. I went back to the locker room, he went outside and puked in the snow. But for some reason that's the life I chose and it doesn't seem to have changed much.

Just like in '94 I've been beat down working on this movie. Glen Cranham has re-appeared and thrown some completely illegal moves that hurt me bad. Real bad. I've got pain in my mind that won't go away for years to come. But I'm not giving up and I don't care how hard it has been - the cheap shots from cheap people won't stop me.

The lack of sleep might tho, so I"m gonna cut this here. For those who read this bullshit blog, thanks. This is the most I will publicly say about the rough road it was to make Chasing Legends but if you happen to see it, while you watch keep in the back of your mind a boxing match, bloody and mean. That's the best 'behind the scenes' story I can give you. And busted up, broken down and heart totally bleeding - it's done. I finished it today. I'm going to crawl out of the ring and into bed.

Oh yea, and while Glen was awarded the win that day (the judges were uneducated in the rules) when the USMTA commission saw the video of his cheap shots they reversed the decision and gave it to me. In the end I won that belt. So to the patient come victory. Or something like that.

Ding ding.