Wow, what a way to start off the US racing season! Ten days touring California, loosing personal affects, driving way too much and dealing with crazed Lance fans. Though I am beat, I want to do it again.

This year yours truly was working the expo with Trek and thus part of the traveling circus entertaining the crowds at each finish line. Each day began with a two hour setup, followed with a full day at the booth and finished with a two hour tear down before driving a hundred plus miles to the next town. Somewhere in there we had to eat and try to get some sleep while attempting to keep up with projects back at the office. Yep, a full schedule at full tilt.

Interested in hitting the road with the race circuit? Let’s run down some of the …

My last day in China.

Ed Note: I added some photos and a video to yesterday’s report.

Most of the riders loaded into the bus this morning with a few sticking around for later flights. Tara and I weren’t flying home till 8pm tonight so we had one last day to spend in China. We said our good byes finished breakfast and hit the Good Luck Beijing desk (the promoter) for some help with the taxi. They walked us out the door and found us a taxi that would take us to the Wall, wait for us and then take us back.

The drive began with some back roads before hitting the highway and about an hour later we started to see mountains. Once in the mountains the buildings began to look more traditional Chinese (based on pictures and books read in …

DR takes it and the sky is blue.

That’s right, blue sky today. There was a breeze (read windy) and we could see the sky. Not only that we could see businesses behind the track and hills behind the amusement park that is beside our venue. We didn’t even know they existed and both are closer than two miles. Yohan, one of the UCI guys that has been here for weeks, said it was only his third day under the blue. Crazy…

Today was race day. The staff and male riders hit the bus first so they could run their practice before the women arrived. This is when I noticed the drop in humidity. Okay, it was still humid and I was still sweating, but only sweating when working. The previous days I would sweat sitting down.The women arrived an hour later …

We lost one today on our way to top three…

Bubba Harris crashed just after the first jump on the 3rd straight and busted his ankle. I don’t know the extent of the damage; however, I do know he is currently at the Olympic hospital and is most likely still in surgery now. More below…

I was up late last night running errands for Mike. Namely I was printing out today’s schedule and sliding copies under the doors of our riders. I then stayed up too late watching the Empire of the Sun. Never saw it before, liked it, cried. I think I hit the pillow for sleep around 1:30ish, way too late. To make matters worse today was an earlier day. Thankfully I had woken up a couple minutes before Romero’s call at 6:30am to chat about Jill’s SRM.

The first bus …

I have never been this wet before. Okay, maybe at the beach, in the pool or in the shower. No, I think there is less water in a shower. It’s like my whole body just decided to perspire from every pore at the same time and it forgot to stop. Small rivers are forming on my arms and legs and I am having trouble seeing past the waterfalls over my eyes.

Yes, today was hot and muggy. I knew it was going to be bad when I looked out the window at breakfast and noticed our semi-blue sky had disappeared again. Maybe today will be like the day at Tienaman Square where you could look directly at the sun and not damage your eyes. I told the riders to treat it like elevation training, less oxygen…

Today was practice day at …

Ugh and Holy Crap!

The day started off early as I woke at 5am with a gnarly stomach cramp. I tried to force it out, if you know what I mean, but had no luck. I also tried going back to sleep and had little luck there. Due to my crampy stomach I ate the smallest breakfast of the trip so far. I also drank a half gallon of water, popped two aspirin and have been trying very hard to catch mini naps.

The goal for the first half of the day was picking up our credentials and taking off at 10am for the track. That didn’t work as planned. Our group had registered with the UCI and it turns out the promoter wanted additional information for the credentials. This meant collecting everyone’s passports which took more than an hour. Then …

A quieter day, or not.

Some of the riders beat me to breakfast this morning. Maybe that was due to my staying up till midnight last night. Krystal and Amanda are still afraid of the majority of food at the buffet. They don’t seem to be vegetable eaters though Amanda swears that potatoes count.

Most of the riders took off for a ride and later told us stories of people trying to steal their road markers (water bottles) and a couple people almost jumping into them by mistake. Turns out one woman wasn’t paying attention and the riders came up on both sides of her. She saw one of them on her left and freaked out. Her reaction was to turn right and start running which happened to be where another rider was perched. He dropped a foot and planted a quick …

Today began with many sleepy people at breakfast. Turns out most of us were up around 2am with some not able to get back to sleep. Once breakfast was done some of the riders took off for a ride. Mike K and I took the rest to a gym down the street for a workout. Thankfully we found some help at the hotel in the form of Peter. He walked down the street and assisted us with finding the gym and setting up an account.

Supposedly the gym was only one block away, which it was, but we never would have found it on our own. We had to walk around a building, take an elevator to the 16th floor, walk down four sets of hallways and then up a secret set of stairs. Once we located the gym Mike, …

Jet lag can be a killer for those who don’t fight it. We’re already starting to see the battle won and lost and the trip just began.

I am working with the US National Team in Beijing, China at the Olympic qualifier and UCI BMX Supercross event. Mike King is running the program, I am wrenching and the riders are Jill Kinter, Krystal Hime, Mike Day, Randy Stumpfhauser, Kim Hayashi, Amanda Geving, Kyle Bennett and Donny Robinson. Donny has been here since the 1st participating in an Olympic media tour. The rest of us, including about ten other US riders, arrived yesterday.

Things for me got off to a rocky start. The lady behind the United counter was in a bad mood and I received the brunt of it. First there was the excess baggage fee of $110 bucks. That caught me …

The inaugural San Francisco Grand Prix, the latest stage of the BMC Software Grand Prix Series, occurred this weekend amongst throngs of spectators. This was the first time that a major cycling event had occurred in San Francisco since the late eighties when the Coors Classic attacked Fisherman’s Wharf.

The day began as usual with riders signing in, teams lining up their cars, riders begging for more air and team managers and sponsors preparing their VIP’s for rides later in the day. The difference here was that hundreds of people were milling about the the start line area. Okay, we were stationed on the Embarcadero which is always full of tourists, but these people were all chatting about how they hoped to get a chance to see Lance Armstrong. Not the usual San Francisco tourist discussion.

As riders began to line up …