Snobbo, regarding you being born with a silver spoon in your butt, or an Atari controller in your mouth, or however the saying goes, I bet you had those shoes with a holographic picture of a Transformer on the side and Velcro closures like my neighbour Trevor when I was five. I only had shoes with regular old laces and no holographs, a bit like a Les Miserables street urchin. I waited until I was eight to get my first bike, a torturous delay which I suspect caused some developmental brain wiring to fix in a lifelong obsession with bicycles. And now I want to ride in those Awesome Californian events you listed.