More sad news... Jim Hanson has died of complications of the lukemia that he has battled for the last year. Jim was a retired physician and a avid ultra-cyclist for years. In the year 2000 - first year of the Big Dogs Century Challenge - Jim had the most centuries for the year. Later, Jim eased back on the long rides but worked tirelessly to support a variety of cycling events in Colorado, Arizona and the Midwest. Many of you wil recognize Jim as the primary volunteer at UltraMidwest events. Always ready with a story and a smile, Jim, you will be missed!

Keep up with Ultra Action, and whatever else I tweet, join Twitter and follow ultraMidwest!

Of course, it's July which means that the second toughest bike race starts today - RAAM, of course, is the toughest. TDF prologue was won by Cancellara (TEAM SAXO BANK). Team Astana had 4 riders in the top ten and Lance, well he was number 10. 

Please notice that we have added a couple new Big Dogs merchandise to the Dogware catalog. We provide this website free of charge for the cycling community and pay for it through the races that we promote as UltraMidwest, and by selling stuff. I would like to create a new run of Big Dogs jerseys for the 10th anniversary of the group. If you are interested, drop me a line.

Big Dogs Tweet! Twitter is now working! IF you are one  of the few who were able to follow us you will have to re-establish the twitter account. To get cell phone updates and to be able to reply to tweets you must join at www.twitter.com. Then register your cell - if you want to get text messages - and click on the UltraTweets button in the left menu. Once the Twitter updates window opens you can read the tweets and follow them by clicking on the Follow me on Twitter link. This will open the UltraMidwest Twitter page - press the Follow button and you're in!

Quote of the Month:  "Standing in the pouring down rain trying to figure out where we were & where we were going was interesting at best..." D Hatton