Delayed
Last night about 40k to go to get to Nazareth (hotel near the Service course) we had truck problems. The wheel bearing was smoking but we did not want to stop because it would have been expensive to tow it and we could not really leave the truck full of bikes on the highway.
Since it was not to be ready till Tuesday morning, we had Monday to clean all the bikes and wheels and glue tires from the last race (Luxembourg). Only a half a days work and we get time to goof off (rare). Off to the movies while our laundry is washing (in our trucks we have washers and dryers). So, $2,500 later we got new wheel bearings, an axle (destroyed from the heat of the fried bearings) and brakes (which supposedly passed inspection in January). OUCH!
June 13th: States and now countries
In the 4 years with the Saturn team, I traveled a lot. In that time, I managed to visit 46 states. Hawaii, Alaska, Maine and New Hampshire are all that are missing from my list of states visited. So please feel free to send me a ticket to Hawaii, (Any one of you guys) to help me get closer to my goal of all 50. Ha Ha
This is my third trip to Europe I went to Germany and Italy to race my bike in 1990 (trying to be a bike racer). In 1998 I got to take a trip to Italy again to wrench for Saeco/Timex in the Giro Donna (women’s Giro) . I have managed to get to Luxembourg, Belgium, France (to get to the next race) and now on my way to Spain.
Word of the day (not every day folks)
Sortida (Spain) Sortie (France) = Exit
June 14th Small cars
Gas is so expensive here. Diesel is a bit cheaper so almost everyone has a diesel powered vehicle. Also almost everyone drives a tiny car. Take my Acura and chop it where my back seats are and that is an average size car here. Everyone wants a car with good gas mileage. I don’t see many big cars here. Mercedes 320 is considered a huge car. My Lincoln Continental would be so expensive to drive here. Since gas is more than three times the price than in the US, it would cost about 40 cents per mile to drive my old Lincoln here. OUCH that would kill. There is this silly looking car called the SMART car and it gets 60 plus miles to the gallon. It is so short. It can be parked perpendicular to the street and still be even with a car parked in the normal (parallel to the street) position.