I'm in Providence
Day One in Providence . . . .
The airport - Had to take the 5:30am shuttle from the hotel which we almost missed because I was moving so slowly. Once I got some chai things were going much better. Our plane had the Rad Racing team on it but amazingly all the bikes made it (well, ours did).
Lunch - We headed to Narragansett to the Crazy Burger Cafe which is an amazing place. The food was excellent and the town is right on a bay of the ocean.
Pre-riding - That didn't happen. Got to the venue. Got the bikes out and started putting them back together. We were building up my bike and it seemed that the derailleur hanger was bent. It seemed totally off. Then we abandoned building my bike and started putting together Dave's back. All was going well with that until the seat post binder bolt broke. We decided to abandon the bike building and check into the hotel.
Hotel - Took our zillions of things into the hotel. It seemed weird to actually not have to hide that we were taking bikes up the elevator and into the room. The place is supposed to be some kind of luxury hotel and it is nice. However, the rooms aren't all decked out with fancy appointments but they are roomy.
Bikes - Decided to head to a cool local bike shop and see if they could solve our bike problems. The list of cool local places suggested The Hub and so we walked there as it was only 1 mile away and traffic looked to be at a stand still. It was the coolest bike shop. It was funny though as they had the lights down low and they were watching a surf movie so it didn't look totally open. Anyway, they totally set us up. They took a look at my derailleur hanger and said it was fine. They also trued my back wheel which had taken a little beating on the way here and then oiled my chain as they thought it felt a little tacky. They didn't have the exact part that Dave needed but they came up with two possible ways to fix his problem. Then they said we owed nothing so we bought them some beer.
Hanging
out - You learn a lot about people when you're crammed into a hotel room. Did you know that some racers have a detailed eating plan . . . no I did not say training plan. You can talk about possible tire combinations for a very long time. The serious racers drink water on Thursday night and the slackers are already hitting the alcohol. You can guess who is who but we have Dave Bell, Chris Strout, Jim Holmes, Kurt Refsnider and myself.
Hey, we've got 5 cross racers, 7 bikes, wheels, tires and race clothes galore in our hotel room. Good times here!
More later!
The airport - Had to take the 5:30am shuttle from the hotel which we almost missed because I was moving so slowly. Once I got some chai things were going much better. Our plane had the Rad Racing team on it but amazingly all the bikes made it (well, ours did).
Lunch - We headed to Narragansett to the Crazy Burger Cafe which is an amazing place. The food was excellent and the town is right on a bay of the ocean.
Pre-riding - That didn't happen. Got to the venue. Got the bikes out and started putting them back together. We were building up my bike and it seemed that the derailleur hanger was bent. It seemed totally off. Then we abandoned building my bike and started putting together Dave's back. All was going well with that until the seat post binder bolt broke. We decided to abandon the bike building and check into the hotel.
Hotel - Took our zillions of things into the hotel. It seemed weird to actually not have to hide that we were taking bikes up the elevator and into the room. The place is supposed to be some kind of luxury hotel and it is nice. However, the rooms aren't all decked out with fancy appointments but they are roomy.
Bikes - Decided to head to a cool local bike shop and see if they could solve our bike problems. The list of cool local places suggested The Hub and so we walked there as it was only 1 mile away and traffic looked to be at a stand still. It was the coolest bike shop. It was funny though as they had the lights down low and they were watching a surf movie so it didn't look totally open. Anyway, they totally set us up. They took a look at my derailleur hanger and said it was fine. They also trued my back wheel which had taken a little beating on the way here and then oiled my chain as they thought it felt a little tacky. They didn't have the exact part that Dave needed but they came up with two possible ways to fix his problem. Then they said we owed nothing so we bought them some beer.
Hanging
out - You learn a lot about people when you're crammed into a hotel room. Did you know that some racers have a detailed eating plan . . . no I did not say training plan. You can talk about possible tire combinations for a very long time. The serious racers drink water on Thursday night and the slackers are already hitting the alcohol. You can guess who is who but we have Dave Bell, Chris Strout, Jim Holmes, Kurt Refsnider and myself.Hey, we've got 5 cross racers, 7 bikes, wheels, tires and race clothes galore in our hotel room. Good times here!
More later!
posted by MadCross at 9:00 PM
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