Many kudos, much respect...and more than a little envy.
Wow.;-)
Thank you for that, but my last race was more than 40 years ago. Family obligations and work made it impossible to keep up my training regimen. I do have a lot of interesting and funny memories from that time period.
I traveled to a lot of races with some interesting characters in an old VW campervan. Some had hair down to their butts. We went to Canada a lot for races and never got hassled, which seemed kind of amazing at the time. When traveling on airlines I used to bring along about 50 pounds of tools and spare parts carry-on that would never be allowed these days.
I always thought that young ladies would be impressed by my success, but for the most part they could not have cared less even those who were cyclists... But to be fair, when I met my wife, she was the Northwest Regional Aerobics Dance Instructor Champion. I had no idea there was such a competition or title and I couldn't have cared less about that. She of course got plenty of attention from men, not because of her title but because she was very fit and attractive.