Team Extreme, enjoyed a couple of respectable performances recently during a west coast road race and criterium.

In the Santa Cruz criterium -- the same race he crashed out of last year -- Looby made amends with a middle order finish among the 95 starters.

"I went into that race to try to do better than last year and actually I had a very good race,'' said Looby from his California home yesterday.

"I probably finished around 45th but I definitely had a good day that day.'' On the weekend the Bermudian was back in action, competing in the gruelling Wine Country Road Race, a 77-mile event with an 11-mile loop featuring a steep incline up to about 1,000 feet.

"There wasn't even a mile of flat, it was a really hard race,'' said Looby.

But he was pleased with his performance, finishing 29th out of the 125 starters in an unofficial time of three hours, 45 minutes.

"It wasn't a race for me, I actually prefer a climb that's a lot longer,'' Looby explained. "This climb was very steep and we actually lost about half the field on the first lap when 60 guys got dropped. That's how hard the climb was.

"From each lap we lost about five or six guys and there wasn't a main group when we finished, just about five or six. The climb was so hard it broke everybody up.'' The `saddle-sore' Looby was then forced to pull out of a criterium the following day, feeling the effects of his efforts in the road race. "It's hard to ride when you can't even sit down,'' said Looby, who rode halfway through the event before pulling out.

Looby will be back in action this weekend when he and his team take part in the Sea Otter Classic in Monterray on Saturday. It will be a hilly 91-mile road race of five laps and Looby expects it to be more to his liking than the steeper climb he experienced at the Santa Cruz Classic.