Barcelona

Since the US Open things have been a bit hectic. It has been an adventure, and quite a fun one at that. We flew out from the US Sunday night. Thankfully our flight wasn’t packed and we had the same head steward on the plane, Alex, who was awesome to us on the way out, and even better on the way back! We grabbed seats in the back and slept almost the whole way. Our arrival in Lisbon was fairly uneventful, aside from an argument with our cabbie about how our 8.50Euro tariff for the ride somehow turned into 27.50 Euro? Still haven’t worked that out. He was saying something about tip?!? In the end I had to give him a 20 since I didn’t have any smaller change on me and I wasn’t surprised when he drove off quickly without giving us change.

Trucker hats on next - straight into the van and headed for Barcelona. We drove across Portugal to Spain, marking our 3rd country and second continent in 24hours and next thing we knew we were dead lost in Madrid! We have been averaging about 9 U-turns in each country/race venue we hit but we used all 9 of those in Madrid. It was a pretty wicked city to drive around and look at though, so no harm done. A quiet spot in a little mountain town looked very inviting for our 1st jetlag fueled sleep and we were out for a solid 11 hours. We woke only due to the excessive heat in the van, jumped straight into our seats and drove another 7 hours to complete our roughly 1400km trip across Spain.
Barcelona has been worth it though! We dropped Tommy quickly at a campsite about 15km from the city and grabbed a city bus. We were warned that the bus stopped running around 10:30pm (it was 9pm at this point), but we were excited and headed in anyway. With no clue where to go, we got brave and made friends with a cool looking group of girls who unfortunately spoke as much English as we did Spanish. We figured ourselves out though and followed them around the city grabbing some drinks and having a few laughs as we tried to understand each other. Next thing we knew it was 3:30am and they were escorting us to the “autobus” that would take us home. 1/2 hour later…dropped off by the driver with the disheartening word “TAXI” the last thing out of his mouth. We were in the middle of NOWHERE and there were no cabs for miles around! There wasn’t much we could do, so we guessed our location and started our few mile adventure through farmer’s fields and unfinished roads until 2 hours later (6am) we stumbled into Tommy.

Wednesday was much more relaxed. When I was younger my parent’s took me to Barcelona and I was amazed with Gaudi’s “Sagrada Familia” (Cathedral) so we headed back there to have a closer look at it. It really is an astounding cathedral. We walked around for a couple of hours just staring at the intricate architecture and sculptures that cover the building. I will post photos, but they won’t do it justice! It is something everyone should see. They are still building it, it has been a work in progress for over 120 years. Hopefully I will return one day before I die to see it finished!

Heading now for France (Chamonix) for a few days in the mountain and a good “Belouga Burger” before the next World Cup.

US Open

I made a last minute decision to fly out to the US Open at the Diablo Freeride Park in Vernon, NJ and so far I have been LOVING it! The track is sick! Loads of rocks and flat turns and an awesome berm section. I can't get enough of this track. And to make it better my long time friend Missy Giove turned up out of the blue to race/ride. It's been just like old times hanging out and riding with the Missile.
We were camping down at a local camp ground. It was pretty cool too. The owners were such nice guys and we sat around chatting and sharing stories most nights. If you are ever looking for a place to crash out here, check out Toye's Recreation. It is a bit out of the way, but so worth it! Closer than any other campsite too, which is cool.

Qualifying was okay today. Sabrina is still on top of her game and it is good to be racing her while she is going this fast. Hopefully tomorrow I can close the gap.

Results:

1. Sabrina Jonnier - 3:02
2. Fionn Griffiths - 3:10
3. Kathy Pruit - 3:15

Lisbon Racing

Gutted!!!!! I was going so well again all weekend. Qualifying I just took my time and cruised down the track - saving it all for racing. I qualified 4th only 4 seconds behind the leading woman (Helen Gaskell). I was on it for racing! I felt good and strong and was having a pretty good run when I started slipping a bit with my front wheel around a super tight left hand turn after a set of stairs. I am not sure what happened after that....I think I may have hit the camera guy....but my bike stopped dead and I went over the bars and slid on my stomach and knee pads down the next set of stairs. I did my best to stumble back up the stairs, grab my bike and get going again, but the damage had already been done and I was out of podium range. I still held a top 5 finish, but it was not quite the win I was hoping for. Sabrina Jonnier took the women's event, followed by Tracy Hannah, Helen Gaskell, Jill Kintner and myself.
It was a great event all in all. The Lisbon guys do such a wicked job of organizing the whole event, including live TV coverage, so it is pretty cool just to be here racing. Oh well, guess I'll have to wait for next year :)

Lisbon Downtown

Finally....we made it! After a bit of a hectic drive down the coast Lee, Jill and myself finally arrived in Lisboa. Some of the Portugese are CRAZY drivers and I am surprised we are still alive! And if the driving didn't kill us, the hours we spent lost almost did. I guess that's what we get for using a 5 year old map! However, the Hotel all the athletes/teams are in (Lagoas Park) is beautiful and the weather is a sweltering 32 degrees so we can't complain.

Today was a relatively quiet day. Early morning breakfast followed by a trip to the local jetwash to clean the last of Vigo off our gear and we were back in the hotel pool by lunch!

We did some work throughout the afternoon getting our pits set up downtown Lisboa. It is such a cool city. The new city is busy and full of statues, but the old town (where we race) is really cool. We start the event from a castle at the top of a hill and then race pretty much to the seaside. The buildings are super close together and full of tiny little walkways and stairsets. There are trams that run through a section of the track and a few local cafes and businesses that we pretty much ride through their front doors! The perfect place for a RACE! We always hit up course walking as a group with film crews in toe, and this year was no different. The race organisers took us through the tiny streets and showed us the new car jump and a few other new little twists and turns. I think a few of the new obstacles are going to make for some tight racing! Check out www.lisbondowntown.com for some more photos and info.

Tomorrow is race day. 4 practice runs each followed by 1 qualifier. Top 25 men and top 10 women go through. There is a car on the line for the guys (no such luck for the ladies) and one of the Honda Formula 1 guys is going to be there watching the race and doing press conferences during the event. Even the President of the UCI is coming out to watch some racing. Hopefully I can hold it together and finally finish on top of this event. I have raced the Lisboa Downtown for 5 years and have yet to win it, so fingers crossed.

Racing

All done now. Women's racing was good. I had a rough qualifying run- 2 crashes and about 20 seconds lost, so I was in 16th position. I seemed to hold things together for racing though and I was sat in the hot seat for a while. However, my 3:06:94 was not quite enough for podium. I was 0.24 seconds off Marielle Saner who took 5th. Close one! Oh well, it was a good start to the season. Off now to Lisbon for the Downtown race next weekend. Can't wait for that!!! Always such a cool event!

Results:
1. Sabrina Jonnier : 2:52.72
2. Tracy Moseley: 2:59.99
3. Emmeline Ragot: 3:02.28
4. Celine Gros: 3:06.13
5. Marielle Saner: 3:06.66
6. Fionn Griffiths: 3:06.94

Vigo, Day 1

First day of World Cup practice has come and gone and it was MINT. I was loving the track! Big jumps everywhere and it is so fast! I had a good first day crash as well, but managed to walk away from it. I came into a section totally commited to my line. Got over the drop onto and then over the road fine, but on landing hit a huge imbedded rock which sent me on my front wheel for about 15 feet before eventually tagging a tree with my right hand and shoulder. It sent me over the bars straight past Duncan Riffles face who was peeled back against a tree trying to make enough room for me to get through. The crash was a good one, and it gave me enough adrenaline to jump back on my bike, charge down the rest of the track and be one of the first ladies to jump the big double at the bottom!
Lee has been ace so far. Fixing all my little issues like a champ! It is so nice to be able to take a break between runs and have someone else work on the bike! Thank Lee.
Qualifying tomorrow and then racing Sunday.
Hoping for some sun... and a good result.

And a big get well soon to Racheal Atherton who seems to have just broken her wrist today in practice. She crashed in the same section I did. Get well soon buddy

Monday-Wednesday

Just been up the 4X track to check out Phil's newest creation. It is SICK. Such a cool track. Totally different from anything I have seen lately. Apparently he was asked to build it more like a mountain biking track, less like a BMX and he has done that. Top half of the track is full of big boulders, loose turns, loads of lines to choose from and some great technical stuff. The bottom half is open with loads of big jumps. There was a huge double that he had in there that one of the local riders tried to jump. It was a bit too steep though and apparently the kid just kind of fell out of the air! Phil has flattened it out a bit now and it looks really good. I think he might get some complaints about the course from some people. It should be totally long and grueling! It will be excellent for spectators as well since they are opening the track up so that people can be close to the action!
We have Lee here now. Picked him up safely after a few hours of being lost in Portugal! He arrived he in the accomodation in the dark and I think he was quite stoked to wake up to sunrise over the beach. I don't think he had any idea where we were going to be spending the week! He is here now, busy building up a set of wheels for this weekend! He already has a rippin suntan to match the rest of us. Jaymie is here as well. Parked herself comfortably down by the pool, trying to catch up to the rest of us! She should be a lobster by sunset.

Course walking tomorrow and sign on and then RACING. First World Cup almost underway! Brrrappp!

Sunday

Well, we didn’t get too far south. Hardly to Baiona actually before we found a wicked looking campsite- literally ON the beach. We were sold! We parked Tommy up and hit the sand for the afternoon just checking out the town and hiking around an old castle. However, a vacation just isn’t a vacation until you have a sun burn worth writing about so Jill and I hit a quite little section of the camp’s beach and passed out for an hour in the sun (waking once to roll over). I can safely say we are both fried! We like to think of it as a slightly red tan though J After that we grab a cup of hot chocolate and our Norco pit chairs and got ourselves as close to the ocean as possible (without getting wet) and enjoyed another beautiful sunset. Another perfect day gone by…. Out playful sides got the best of us before the sunset was over however and we turned the beach front into our own “modified Olympic” stadium! Jill and I battled one another in choice events such as beach long jump, triple jump, standing jump and we even added our own special touch with “Pit Chair Launch” and “Sharpest Running Berm” and “Get as far out on a wave as possible, touch the water and get back to dry sand before the wave gets you”. It was a fun way to round out the evening and our vacation!

Saturday

So far so good from Vigo. We drove a little out of town last night and found ourselves a little campsite in the suburbs with a great beach about 150m down a huge hill. We spent most of the night just hangin out on that beach, watching in the sunset and playing in the sand and the waves. Some of the locals are swimming in the water, but it is still a bit too cold for my liking. The beach is surrounded by Bamboo, which is kind of cool. It is totally like a little locals spot….I think we were the only real tourists out on the beach. We have witnessed some epic driving since we have been here as well. Jill was nearly killed by a bus screaming past us on a windy little street. He had to be doing about 50k around a blind corner and just about took us both out! I think we risk our lives every time we go anywhere near the streets here! We debated a little road spin last night but neither of us fancied the massive hill climbs or crazy drivers. En route a little bit more south today, just out of town to find somewhere more suited to a road spin and a quiet afternoon on the beach!

Wednesday to Friday

La Rochelle wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. A bit too much of a busy city for our liking. We did find a spot by the beach to camp for the night, but when we got up in the morning we realized it was not the sandy, sunny beaches we had hoped for. So, off down the coast a bit further we went. We are now sat in St Georges di Didonne on a campsite right off a beautiful sandy beach. We spent the afternoon lounging out on the beach (working on our sun burns) and we are just settling down for a quite night of booking more flights for the World Cup season! The guy next to us is BBQing burgers though so I think I might have to splurge off of my strict Euro-diet of chocolate biscuits and cheese/ham sandwiches and go get myself one of those for dinner. They smell very tempting.

Morning in St Georges was much the same. We took a nice leisurely bike ride through the local town and checked out some of the shops along the beachfront and downtown. Little French towns are so cool! We then took advantage of the good weather to start getting some miles under our belts. The plan was to head just South of Bordeaux and crash the French side of the border for the night somewhere on the beach again. However, the closer we got to Spain, the worse the weather was getting. We were both in full on trucker moods, so we cracked a can of Red Bull and settled into an evening of driving.

The Spanish boarder was quite the experience. I think Jill was astounded to see the border patrol officers dressed in full black uniforms with balaclavas over their faces and automatic weapons in their hands! She summed it up perfectly – “I though the US border was intimidating! These guys are freakin terrifying! Where I come from the bad guys where black balaclavas covering their faces and waves automatic rifles in the air while shouting at people to get out of their car.” We made it through no problem though. They waved us on without a question. I don’t think any of them fancied spending a few hours with us unpacking and searching Tommy. After that Spain was relatively boring really. Not what either of us expected. We avoided the normal touristy coastline and took the trucker route through the centre. There was nothing there. The odd eerie little village with crumbling buildings and a serious lack of children, but that was about it. We drove well into the night and then pulled up in a hotel parking lot to grab some shuteye before continuing on our way to the coast.

Saturday so far has been a touch more exciting. We ventured off the road a few times to check out these empty villages. So weird - but pretty cool at the same time. There was this one old church that caught both of our attention. Surrounded by crumbling houses, this church was teaming with activity – by the BIRDS. I don’t even know what kind of birds they were exactly, but they were abnormally large things. They looked kind of like storks/ herons. They had orange beaks, gray bodies and white necks. They were all nested around this church. They looked like living gargoyles from a distance. Kind of cool. We have also been awestruck by the number of wind turbines they have around here. Every hilltop is covered in them! Hundreds. Smart really since the wind is strong as anything here.

We are now just pulling up in Vigo. Just going to find somewhere scenic to spend the night camping and then we’ll see what happens tomorrow. We are a few days ahead of schedule, but we were both quite bored with the middle of Spain and ready for more hours of sunny coastline. Should be a great way to spend the last few days before the beginning of the World Cup circus

France Day 1/2

Viva la France!!! We are in Europe now. Tommy is running like a charm and is packed as full as possible and Jill and I have our trucker hats on as we slowly work our way down towards Vigo, Spain. The trip has been eventful straight off the start as we were rushing against the clock trying to pick up some shipments waiting for us at 8am in Shrewsbury and then we booked it down to Dover in time for our 2pm ferry! Quite the drive with UK traffic.

In a rush to make the ferry we didn’t worry too much about our diesel levels. Diesel is cheaper in Europe anyway, right??? BIG MISTAKE! We arrived in Dunkerque on empty and were on the look out for what was soon to become the elusive petrol station. Nothing in Dunkerque, so we hit the highway and pulled off at the next town. After chatting (I use the term loosely) with a few French locals Jill and I remembered just how poor our French is and just how difficult it is to ask for directions in a different language! We managed to find 2 stations in that town…neither of which were open our would take our card. So, off to the next town…this time with the petrol gauge below empty and both of us a bit nervous. The next town was much the same….no petrol stations anywhere! We started getting really nervous about running out so we parked Tommy up and started hiking. 30 min of hiking got us to yet another petrol station….you guessed it….closed!! Thankfully we found a few young local boys who were willing to speak slowly to us (and use lots of hand motions) to give us directions to the only other petrol station in town. We grabbed Tommy and drove there. But the adventure wasn’t over yet!! The diesel pump wouldn’t read my card!!! I asked a few locals to help me out, but all of them just pretended they didn’t hear me and jumped back in their car. After about 15 minutes of balling up the pumps a guy on a bike (lets call him Serge) took pity on us and let us use his card in exchange for cash. Serge was really helpful and I think he was as happy as the other 20 people in line for fuel to see us go.
Now I’m not sure what exactly was going on, but I am not kidding when I say that NOTHING was open. No petrol stations, no stores. Not even ALDI! I think it may have been some sort of National holiday or something? Either way, we made it out of Gravelines and back on the road. We drove for a few more hours until we found ourselves a quaint little town just North of Rouen. We set up camp as the sun was setting and had ourselves a nice meal of pasta and whatever sauce we had left (nothing was open, so no groceries for us), An early night was definitely in order and we both slept perfectly well into the morning. And what a morning it was! Sunny and about 16 degrees by 10am! We had parked ourselves right beside a wicked bike path (Green Way they call it), so we cracked out the road bikes and went for a morning spin. Such a cool path. When the leisurely ride was over we were back to work modifying one of Ellie’s late season training programs. We made use of gas bottles, bike stands, pinic benches and the van itself to get ourselves through the grueling work out. Some strange looks from locals, but we’ve been getting plenty of that anyway in this van! Seriously we have had countless people cheer, wave, shout, beep and give us thumbs up as we pass them by. The French seem to love our van! Even the police gave us a thumbs up. There is a huge graffiti scene here, not to mention an over abundant number of cyclists/cycling fans and they have all been stoked to see us pass.

We are just about at the coast now. Spending the night in La Rochelle. Tomorrow we are hoping to spend some time on the beach and grab the road bikes again to check out the local scenery.

One last note - - - I am super proud of myself for successfully getting us a new fan belt. Tommy has been screaming at us the entire trip so I thought I would try my luck with the local Iveco dealer. After a few minutes of making small circular motions with my finger and blowing at the guy we finally worked out that I needed a belt of some sort. At first he came out with a cam belt, which I almost walked away with since I was just excited to have a belt of any kind but a few more blows and circles, I got myself exactly what I needed! Thanks to all the French locals that have had to put up with our poor French. We are learning ……just slowly.

More from France/Spain when I next find internet…..