Crookham (soon to be) M.D.

What a great last weekend in San Francisco. By chance, one of the old stalwarts of the Jet Fuel team, Jason Crookham, sent me an email saying that he was back in town, so we hooked up for a couple of rides.

Jason has put in some of the best rides of the team's history. 4th in the 2001 Milk RAS in Ireland comes to mind; Joe talks often about how Jason played havoc with the team leading the race, the Brits, by constantly getting into attacks and going up the road in a bid to steal the lead. Another great ride was taking the King of the Mountain's jersey at the GP de Beauce by being in a day long break the first day of the race.

The best story about Jason though was in 1998 when I first met him on our trip to Keene, NH for a weekend of racing. We arrived the evening before the road race and had just settled into our hotel when Jason decided to pull his bike apart and replace his bars, stem and seatpost. Joe, Matt and I stood there dumbfounded, not believing what we were seeing, thinking that Jason was ruining his chances in the coming race. Road cyclists are often milimeter freaks and Jason was just going at his overhaul with no regard for measurements whatsoever. Needless to say, Jason proved us all wrong, pulling out an impressive win the next day on his new bars, stem and seatpost.

Jason has always been a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy and as we traded tales from the big ring on our ride I told him how great it would be to have him on the team again. There's still two months to the start of the season I said, but it didn't convince him. Oh well, I guess he's got bigger fish to fry, like becoming a doctor.