Bend Day One

All went super smooth today, flights were on time, if not a little early despite some weather in SFO. Picked up my car, derbied direct to the hotel, staff was kind enough to check me in early so I had a place to assemble my bike and pick out my costume for the day.


The TT course for seeding tomorrows start line position was very easy to find and I arrived with about 45 minutes to spare. 15 of those were used up by pinning on the piles of numbers required to race ( hint: use transponders ). The course must have been a bit higher elevation than town because there is still a decent coating of snow on the ground. I managed to warm up for about 20 minutes until it was time to blindly dive into the track. Holy sketch-fest, super deep icy frozen downhill ruts, monster deep puddles that you just have to trust that there is not some ginormous rock lurking beneath the surface. I felt kinda fast on the straights but was probably a bit too conservative everywhere else. I kept it upright but the long steep run-up took the wind out of sails to say the least. All this happened in less than 8 minutes ! As I write this, results have yet to be posted.


After a cool down and putting on warm dry clothes, I made out to the track and loved what I saw. The track is very muddy, but the black liquidy variety, not the gooey, clay stuff we have in CO. It looks far more rideable than last years treacherous packed ice sheets with a bit of grassy sections. They've also lengthened it considerably which will help with the field sizes. While I was there I watched Methusela(Ned Overend) win his umpteenth National Title. sweet.

I've got to go dry out my gear and find some newspaper to stuff in my shoes...More tomorrow
Shotty