Hello Reader Palz,
First off, Im extremely jealous of all who travel with Elite Status cards...unreal luxury!Today I bring you a two part update regarding my European World Cup Extravaganza. I last left you part way to Rome. From there I met Scott Kelly (Team Mechanic) and we started our Northbound Journey to Dalby, England. Accompanying us was two 70 pound hockey bags full of tools and bike junk, my bike and a luggage bag each. Game on!
Ill give you guys the short version. We ended up taking about 14 different trains from Rome to Brussels. Most trains were oversold as everyone in Europe was resorting to traveling by train. We were always the last ones on the trains as the only place to put out huge bags way at the doorway of the train and to do this we had to be the last ones on. Because we were always the last ones on the train we always got screwed out of seats and spend the majority of 2 days in hallways and stair wells. Only one of our trains broke down and we only missed one connection.
Once we reached Brussels we got a textular message from Mr Kabush that he was flying into Paris as that was the only way he was going to make it to Dalby for sure in time. So our journey made a small detour to Paris to pick up A Team bike rider and transport the valuable cargo to Dalby forrest. On the plus side we got to take the Chunnel under the English Channel as we were now transformed Cinderella style into a first class shuttle van. Unfortunately I spent most of the drive sleeping as I missed roughly 3 complete nights and was suffering from jet lag pretty bad. Missed out on some quality time with the current king of mountain biking in North America. Once we found Team Maxxis’s Sweet Pad and dropped A Team off we made our way to a pair of slick cabins in the country side just outside of Pickering, England.
Dalby:
First day involved a nice grocery run...unreal store, food and town!!! Then it was preride time. I caught up with A Team at the course and dialed in the track nicely. The Dalby course was SO good! It was real mountain biking and every section was something to look forward to. Then it was time to suite up as I was going to be the lone Canadian representative in the Dalby Dash Street Sprints. This was unreal!!! 4 cross style, 2 minute race through the streets and backyards around the Pickering bar district. There were thousands of people out to watch and some of the top racers in the world on the start line. Fontana,Fumic, Shurter, Frishy, Bart, Hermida, etc. I was far too pumped up and crashed in the first pavement downhill corner and was eliminated :( I slept and watched movies for the next two days...
Game Day:
Warmup felt awful...started 131st of 180 or so riders. After the first corner and after dodging two crashes I was second last. As the race went on I started to pass guys and every lap I seemed to get faster and faster as I shed some traveling fatigue. Just as I was about to get the turbo’s warmed up they pulled me...apparently I just missed the 80 % time cut by less than a minute.
Quote of the day: (Sauser just blew 3 spokes in his wheel and rolled into the pits looking for his staff...this is all in a girlie swiss voice btw)
Susi - “Wher ar you?”
Mechnaic - “SUSI!! Wer ova heera!!!”
You’ll have to ask about it ok.
From There we ate pizza and sat in hot tubes. The next morning we drove to Manchester, caught a flight to Buussles and then drove the rest of the way to Houfilize.
Part Two coming to Wildcat Productions shortly...
CC
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