Time to Berninate!!!!

Made it to the France.  Lots O’ hours on D’ Plane .  Watched some Movies, ate some horrible food.  Had to wait hours for my luggage and when I got it-  everything was soaked and a big fat thank you to the TSA-  they left me another handy note in my Toolbox and they broke a pallet keeper off, bent the shit out of the hinge AND did not replace the safety strap which is now lost-  and I am lucky that my tools were not flung all over the tarmack.  I hate the TSA they are a bunch of jackasses that thrive on the tiny bit of power they have been given.  The crap they do is ridiculous-  what is the point of empting a clear container of 200 cable ends INTO the bottom of my toolbox AND why is it neccesary to cut open a clear vinyl package that contains only hex wrenches, did I mention that it had a ziplock top?  what is with these people?  do they get off on screwing with people’s stuff? 

So.  leave for Switzerland tomorrow and Gina has no bike and no clothes.  I have no patience and NO CAMERA!!!!  I can’t believe I have no camera.  I would go buy a new one but I am in France and it would cost 1.5x’s as much as home.  I am no baller!  I am a bike mechanic.  No pics, unless I can borrow Avery’s camera or download some of her pics, anyway, pissed about that too.

Good News-  the apartment in Limoux has WIFI!!!!!  so, yeah. for that…..

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Flagstaff, Moab, and Milt’s Mother F***’n Stop and Eat.

Went to Moab UT, the Mecca of Mountain biking,  and man! we had a time,  what a time we had….

No time for love Dr. jones, I Gotta bounce -  home for less than a day-  I am off to France at 4:00 am to meet up with the team in Europe.  Flying to France, driving to Switzerland and then back to France for a month of racing and fun-  stay tuned Moab pics and stories to come…..  I ain’t got the time.

 

Anyway G2G

wandering Dave.

I am in Love-

Yup-  in love with Mabel (my new Mountain Bike)  It’s been along time since I have liked a bike this much.  The last was a 2002 Titus switchblade-  I have had many since then and they all paled in comparison to the Titus- until now.  My 2008 Specialized Epic Marathon kicks ass!  It looks good, climbs like a mountain goat on crack, has a relatively high BB height and the perfect geometry for ripping singletrack.   I haven’t liked Mountain Biking this much in a long, long time. 

I should have boxed her up for the trip today but I had to take her out again- so, I swapped out the headset for a black Chris King and threw on the sweet new Fox baggy shorts the boys down at Bike and Board hooked me up with and hit it.   The weather was fantastic at a whopping 78 degrees and the trails in KP were dry and dusty.  I Had a great ride eventhough I took a wicked header after bombing across a huge log on the log hop trail.  I ate shit majorly.  I landed on my head and left shoulder and had an immediate burning sensation in my neck, a little scary,   but short lived- everything seems ok.  Some Advil, an ice pack and a good bottle of wine seemed to do the trick.  I am now totally stoked for Moab.  It looks like we are going to be able to hit two days of the Fat Tire Festival inFruita as well.  I have already sent the email to K- Scheid and hopefully her and the Spence will be able to go for a ride.  Anyway-  I wish I had some pics for ya, but I left my battery charger in Redlands and the ole batree is ded.

Back in the BC

Returned to the Berkshires Sunday at 9am after driving the final 1400 miles in 19ish hours.  That makes 3122 miles in a short period of time- Google maps missed the mark a little.  It was nice to come home.  I have slept quite a bit since arriving.  I awoke to the ass crack of noon today-  niccceeee.  The weather is no California but, it is nice for East Coast this time of year.  I am going to ride my new Mountain Bike and start to prep for the next trip-  I am going on vacation to do a little Mountain Biking in Moab and Fruita for a week.  I can’t wait….

1756 Miles Down ????? to go

Yo.     Driving it!  Left Cali late yesterday still fealing like worm food.  My goal was to make it to Utah before needing to rest.  Mission accomplished.  I tried to sleep in the Subie-  fat chance.  There is so much stuff crammed in there that it was impossible-  I did try every possible human position (for 2 hrs)  no luck.  Motel 6-  $39.99 thank you.  When I woke up I could not believe my surroundings, it was like I was on the moon, unreal!  Driving across the salt flats to the Great Salt lake was interesting.  Along I80 there were hundreds of sayings and symbols as well as memorials made from rocks and beer bottles for nearly one hundred miles!  here are the most prevelent

1. Heart with sets of initials
2. Name_ was here
3. Peace symbol
4. Anarchy Symbol
5. Penis’
6. Pentagram

Nevada -my favorite sign- so far

“Please report shootings made from highway”

Utah- is a beatiful place- nuff said.

Wyoming… where do I start

• The only places to eat on I80- Mcdonalds, Arby’s, Burger King
• Fireworks retail is their primary industry
• Wind, snow and  then a metric shit ton of blowing snow/falling snow-  Seriously a blizzard!!!  a foot of snow at the pee stop on the continental divide
• Gas in Buford Wyoming-  Population 1, Elevation 9,000 something (there was a sign and the guy in the gas station was the 1 they referenced)
• 1 Rolled RV
• 1 SUV taken out by a Trailer Truck
• 3 cars in the ditch
• E85 isn’t gas-  they should make the signs a little bigger-
• The mullett is king
• Bought a bag of trail mix-  the bag exploded while opening-  everything inside the car is covered in nuts and dry fruit.  I am slowly eating it off piece by piece-  should be clean by MA
• Glad to be done with Wyoming

 

Road Kill Seen

• Rabbit
• Elk (dark huge deer???)
• medium sized thing ?????

 

Coldest Temp:

• East Bangabush Wyoming 21F

 

Hottest Temp:

• Davis California 81F

 

The Numbers According to the GPS unit:

• Distance Travelled 1756.3 miles of 2998
• Average speed 74.2
• Max Speed 96.7 (downhill-  the subie could never get there without gravity)
• Stop times (minus sleep-) 32 minutes (maybe I should look into NASCAR pitting?)

 

Gonna try and bang out the rest in one shot tomorrow-  you got my cell. 

 

Get outta dodge day-

Today is the day that I set sail.   According to Google maps 2,998 miles.  Sweeeeeeeeeetttt!!!!!  After talking to other mechanics the fastest travel time I heard was 38 hours.  That seems fast.  I Don’t think I will be rocking it that quick.  Redlands has put it’s voodoo curse on me and I feel like hammered shit.  I won’t go into details-  basic flu like symptoms with lots of funky colored stuff coming out of me…….  Awesome!

Anyway  I will update along the way-  if I stop long enough. 

I wish I had a trucker stache and a cowboy hat for this……….  it might inspire great things or simply get me chased by the Pohleeece. 

East bound and down, loaded up and truckin’

D.

 

 

Redlands Classic….. The lesser known side

The following is a look inside bike racing from… um, the inside.

My rear view to Redlands

My View during the Beaumont stage riding jump

Alex- Borrowing bandwidth and about to get a wet butt despite a warning

 Show and tell-  Bike racer style

Team Tibco’s mechanic had a true redneck moment when there spare wheel fell off the team van due to a broken hanger on the way to the feed zone on the sunset loop.  One of Tibco’s riders, who was no longer racing ,went down the road to get it-  120lb girl, 70lb wheel , 1/2 mile sort of uphill, hmmmmm.  Luckily she and the wheel were picked up by some local in a pickup truck.

Aaron’s team mechanic John became “de feed Mu-cheen” complete with cellphone speaker provided Duran  Duran music during the Sunset Circuit Race.  The race did not allow caravan support so the mechanics all helped out in the feed zone.  I waited like a Cyclocross mech with a bike prepped for Alex on each lap just in case…  D. all about d’ binness.

The scariest words a mechanic can hear-  Dave, do yo think I can put the top on???? 

Tan lines? what tan lines?

Alex autographing jerseys before the podium ceremony

Right on. I mean, really, how else you gonna show off all that stuff.

So there you have a little look behind the Redlands classic.  More to come soon.

Rubie Rocks Redlands!!!!!!

Holy Cow.  A quick update for the faithful.  The Internets in Redlands were scarce… as was my time.  Webcor killed it.  I will keep this brief since I drove girls to the Airport at 4am after staying out until 2am with Mooch, J. Powers, Johnny “el gato” Sundt and Ben Day-  then I got to clean a host house, pack a car with ungodly amounts of stuff and drive from below LA to the Bay Area-  luckily no coffee was needed because the pallet full of iink insulation that blew off a truck in Pasedena at 70mph+  right in front of me jacked me with enough adrenaline, from the evasive maneuvers required to avoid getting killed, to keep me going for the first 5 hours of the drive….. and come to think of it I think I left my camera battery charger in Redlands.  Shit!

How serious were we?  the girls warming up before the 100+k stage 3-  tool for this stage…..the Hammer

The Facts.

• Alex Wrubleski won Redlands overall by a mere second after being down 25 after the prolouge
• Webcor worked as an uber team and were calculated tacticians and did what needed to be done-  mile by mile.

 

 

 

The Jerseys Won-  6 total (all by Alex)

• Redlands overall
• Redlands Queen of the Mountains
• Redlands Sprinter (of which i was presented by Alex as a token for the behind the scenes work-  thanks Alex
• Prestige series Leader (Redlands is the first in the series)
• Presitge Series Young Rider
• Prestige Series Sprint or Qom (I don’t remember)

 

 

The daily- post race- to do list.

So many stories….  so little energy.  Stay tuned good stuff is coming.  The very long days have just caught up with me.  If you stop moving, you just shut off-

God save the Queen,

D.