Ahh……the politics of staging a finish

Tour de Georgia – Stage 7
Atlanta Circuit race

Today’s transfer was mega easy. And parking was a breeze to say the
least. The parking lot was huge. Easily enough for all the teams to stay
here. The hotel had hoses set out for everyone and our soigneur scouted
the limited power sources and saved parking at that spot for me. Few
teams would really need power anymore. I think only I would really need
power. In my obsessive compulsive nature I wanted to do laundry for the
last time. I was to park the truck on the East coast and fly home
and thus able to have the truck waiting for me when I return for US Pro
in nearby Greenville, SC. And with the desire to travel light I wanted
to fly with just a carry on bag and leave my big suitcase in the truck.
It would later be a key move for me.

Last year I left a bunch of equipment with a friend and drove the truck
back home immediately after the Tour of Georgia. Later in the season, I
flew to US Pro/Greenville and my friend brought the equipment that I
gave him. Since I only had two riders last year it was an easy thing to
do and I only had to fly home with a few bike bags. But this year I
might have as many as 6 riders at US Pro. Most likely I will have 5
though as someone may do the Vuelta which is scheduled at the same time.
For 5 riders it would be too much equipment to leave with my friend and
too much to fly home with. So leaving the truck on the East coast made
the most sense and I will drive it home after that.

The only ODD thing I was wondering was, why were we not at this hotel
for two days straight? Instead of last nights hotel and transferring
here to the airport hotel? With the teams flying home after the race,
this hotel made good sense. Shuttles to the airport were plentiful and
the 10 minute transfer to the airport meant easy scheduling of
departures. A no brainier. But I guess part of the bidding process for
start (and more so) Finish cities is that the city which is bidding must
provide hotels for the race organization as well as the teams. So
yesterdays hotel was sort of part of the bid package even though the
transfer (distance) from yesterdays hotel to today’s was only about 25
miles. We could have easily had transferred from yesterdays finish to
today’s hotel after the stage. And again we would have been able to stay
in this hotel for two days in a row. How sweet would that be? VERY in my
book!!!! But the politics (process of biding) meant that we would do
the short hotel transfer even though it sounds logical.