Once again this year I am one of the correspondents for www.cyclingnews.com - the largest and most recognized web site for cycling news around the world. I am reporting on the 51st "Tour" or Vuelta a Colombia en bicicleta, a 17 stage event taking some 120 Colombian cyclists (and a few Italian and Venezuelan) throughout some of the most difficult mountain stages in the world. I used to follow this event with a passion when I was a child in Colombia with my grandmother Anaes anxiously - and prayerfully - rooting for her favorite Ramón Hoyos Vallejos. For those of you who may not understand how I can report on a cycling event in Colombia while living in Los Angeles, it is very simple: Cyclingnews has provided a Lear Jet for me in which I commute every day from LAX to Bogotá, take a helicopter, follow the event overhead, report on the day's stage, come back to court for a few hours, and head back again... oops there goes the alarm clock again waking me from my nap... sorry :) It's more like Real Player Colombian radio, and following the events on the Colombian newspapers web sites, translating like crazy and sending off the reports to cyclingnews.com. You may click on the event for last year to see last year's reports there. Enjoy if you have the time... next year I hope to ride the event rather than report on it... I hope to be the oldest rider ever to finish the event !!!

-- Haroldo Camacho (hscc@msn.com), June 19, 2001