Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Oh Wow! You've gotta be kidding me.


Oh hey there gang!

So I last left off with some preparation before my adventurous bike trip. Next on the preparation schedule was to make an appearance at the first annual Trade and Booze, which silently turned into a just booze. Seemed like good times were had by all. Then the next evening it was the Revo Christmas Party. Any sort of Revo event is something to be a part of as there isn’t a more diverse or entertaining crowd in existence. The evening’s events took place in an abandoned pool club which left us plenty of space to fun activities. Up first was the open bar and wicked good eats provided and prepared in house by our own Al Aronik. Next it was a 2x Hotrock (kids bike) bmx/rumble in the jungle style bike race. It involved 2 laps around some random obstacles with a stair drop, wooden gap jump and a quarter pipe turn around all built by Travis himself. The rules were no rules and there were many drunken shenanigans. We used a heat elimination system (not an air conditioner) for some Troy Lee prizes. In the final round it came down to myself and Jeff (probably because the bikes fit us the best) and he won because he’s dirty. Then it was a Secret Santa and the best one i’ve ever been a part of. Rules were under $10 and bought on the infamous Stony Plain Road. Prizes included a 30 year old pogo stick, a 70’s style full TV dinner set, a chair with skies attached, a pack of Bacon, a 1980’s school desk in mint condish and oh so much more. The preparation continues with a trip to Costco for some bulk quantity ride food and some secret heat training intervals prescribed by R2H himself. After my last container of Butter Tarts were eaten I was ready to hit the road.

So here is where the shat starts to hit the fan (this site is rated PG13 BTW). So im checking in at the Champion City International and im told my flight to Minneapolis was canceled because they were not able to land planes the evening before. Apparently it was -52 at the airport the night before and Boeing says planes don’t land proper in those temps. Ummm ok so about 20 min later I was able to get on with a different airline and change all my connections to be able to catch my main flight from Atlanta-San Jose, CR at 6:45 that evening. So after almost missing 2 connections and guaranteeing myself I wouldn’t see my bags in the end I made it to Atlanta with time to spare. We boarded the plain and then proceeded to wait another hour on the plain for the airline to find out bags or something (its raining like a MF BTW). After a real sketchy landing and not knowing if anyone felt like waiting an extra hour to pick me up I immigrated Costa Rica, luggage in tow. BONUS! Waited outside while being tormented by cabbies for 30 min and then decided that no one was coming for me. Luckily I had Cory Wally’s 8 digit sketch tele number but with no cell coverage I set out to make a local friend that would lend me there phone. Eventually I got ahold of Cory and eventually he was able to tell me the name of the hotel the team was staying at. Found a cab and navigated through an episode of Costa Rica’s Worst Drivers to The Ambassador Hotel. Paid the man what I now know is a normally 2 days pay and was extremely relieved to be done traveling. Randomly found the room numbers of my teammates and settled into a hostile quality room (not too shabby). I found out that the race organization said they would pick me up but I guess they forgot to pick everyone up last night (a good sign of things to come). My roommate for now is Marc Dufour our team manager/maybe rider for the race. Oh and when I opened my clothing bag up in the hotel everything was soaked. And not just a little wet or damp but ring it out and fill a glass soaked. All my vitamins and sun screen also spilled so that was a lovely gooey surprise.

Costa Day 1:

Day before the race. They are supplying all the teams with 3 meals a day at the hotel which is super handy and its actually not bad food. Built my sweet new ride. Got the Tour de Quebec clothing. Went for a easy team spin around the city and to the local bike shop. We are at the base of an active Volcano and i’ve never seen so much change in elevation in my life. Its SO pretty here and the roads are nicely paved, narrow, twisty and HILLY. SO great for road riding. The bike shop we went to was awesome. They had $9000 XX equipped carbon MTB’s and high end everything everywhere. I have never seen a shop with so much selection of high end product in stock. A bonus is that with the exchange the price of most stuff is what cost would be in Canada. Kinda weird. The people here are so nice and friendly. Whats cool is all the locals know of and are excited for this race. Its there biggest bike race of the year and it seems like a big deal. So Im pretty excited to see what tomorrow brings. 10km Team Time Trial to kick start the legs.

Later Gator’s

CC

5 comments:

  1. Jay Cherney8:10 PM

    your gonna have to post up some pics bra

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous2:26 PM

    Well you made it alive and that was the hard part, now the easy part... WINNING...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pics will be up shortly. The internet is super slow and it takes forever to load. HAHA the top 2 teams here are super strong, focused and doped to there tits. Winning will be tough.

    ReplyDelete
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