Vince Gee

Is it a Spanish race/camp?

With the mud slides interrupting the traffic just south of Santa Barbara, the logistics of last nights motor coach from LAX had to be rewritten. The new plan was to fly the riders here but with last nights last minute decision there were not enough spaces for all of them on one plane. So, they all flew into Santa Barbara this morning and were then shuttled here by about 12:00 or so.
A quick lunch for them and then to the daily training ride. It was scheduled to be an easy 2.5 hours. Easy for them but that would be a long ride for a mortal like myself. But they needed to ride since traveling all over the world (on Sunday) to get here and sitting through a team presentation most of Monday afternoon.
Since we started the training at 2:30 that meant a 5:00 finish. With all the raining that has gone on down here the roads are littered with debris. And the debris is have us fixing a few flats the riders were so generous to add to our platter or work. I’m being silly. Flats are not really that big of a deal to fix. But with a 28 rider group, flats will be tough to totally avoid.
We normally don’t wash bikes daily here. Usually every few days or so. But with the multiple mud slides all around us the bikes are filthy. So day one and we are washing bikes. The days building bikes in the rain got Julien a bit nervous so we got a power washer to help with cleaning the bikes faster. Julien and Juan were on wash detail while Chris, Geoff and I were to dry them, lube them and put them away. We would deal with the flats in the morning.
I’s late now and a quick shower and off to dinner right away. It seems like we are in Spain for a race/camp. Races in Spain always start and finish late. Making for a late night each and every night/time. No matter how fast you are, in Spain it will be a late night.

CClinton

Owner of Promechanics.com and long time professional race mechanic.