Bisbee-Gila swing

The Hexster cam down to Silver City for the Gila

A really good road trip with some excellent racing is in the books. Bisbee is a really cool town and the racing was good but I made sure not to go too hard so as to save the legs a bit for Gila. I was a bit worried about recovery between races but this season my recovery has been really good. The big base miles in Nov/Dec are really paying off and I didn't have a single bad day on my bike between Bisbee and Gila. 

So Bisbee seemed like kind of a big race with a good number of pro's, but of course Gila dwarfed it. At registration for Gila my dad overheard someone talking about the circus coming to town and that is exactly what it was. Who knew that so many people in Silver City are willing to stand around with pens and scream at Lance every day? 

Let's see... I got a few photos from Gila:

Starting the crit

Tried for the early break on the 2nd lap; didn't work

Now it's time to pack for the rich, sea level air of Belgium. After 3 stage races up high I am finally acclimated to altitude, so now it's time to go back down to earth!

Blizzard

Looks like it's about time for a monthly blog post. That seems like a good interval to me.

Sandy and I drove out to Park City after the Georgia Cup race in Chattanooga and we arrived to some snowy conditions. We even got to ski one last powder day and now the Canyons resort is closed for the season. Doesn't make any sense to me when this is going on right now:


Racing has been going well and I got a new TT bike. I have been training on it and working out the position and already I have seen improvements. I picked up a 10th place finish in the TT at last weekend's Tour of the Depot in Tooele, UT at over 5,000 feet above sea level. And I even blew a corner and went into the gravel. After racing at altitude I can tell exactly how it affects me. My heart rate will jump up into the 180's much more quickly than at sea level and it takes a bit longer for me to get it down. My TT watts only suffered by about 5% which was a nice surprise.

Up next is Sea Otter, Bisbee, Gila, then over to Belgium. Yeehaw!

What's going on?

I am back in Nashville training and trying to get the race season under way. The first attempt was the Greenville training series the weekend before last. It was a false start to say the least. I haven't seen weather like that for a while in the south east. Nasty.

Sandy was awesome enough to come with me to Rouge Roubaix in Louisiana. It is a really long drive. Getting down there was no problem because we split the driving over 2 days. Coming back all the way after doing the race was more challenging but Sandy killed it and got us home by bedtime. The weather was great down there and RR is pretty high on my list of awesome races. There was some negative racing but people did not seem to hold back on the gravel sections, and the race was long enough and the gravel selective enough to shatter the field. I limped in for 8th with cramps after doing too much work trying to deal with a Metro VW team that brought a bazooka to a gun fight. They had a very strong and big team and it was cool to watch their tactics as they executed well. Here is a picture of my lonely finish from first pics.net


We stayed at a plantation B&B down there. It was cool I just wish that the race didn't start so early because I had to miss the plantation style breakfast. Sandy says it was awesome. To get to the B&B you had to cross this bridge


And they had some very friendly animals


It seems that we now have 3 animals in the house. A little bird built this nest in our back porch utility room. Every time you open the kitchen door he is in there and he flies out into the yard until you leave. The problem is that if you come in from outside, then he flies into the house and bangs around all of the windows until he can find the door again


And today I did a workout that I have nicknamed "batman intervals."

World Championship Sunday

I have been planning this Super Bowl feast for the entire month of January. Notice I did traditional buffalo, peanut, and sesame ginger for a wing trifecta. I almost burned the house down but in the end they were delicious.

How did I justify this? With the end of my rest week and not many of KJ's prescribed today, I had to do it yesterday. After the shootout I cruised over to Lemmon and went up a bit, then home to complete a 4,500kj , 200km day and the only real ride of the rest week.

In the spirit of the super bowl I would like to do some Sunday afternoon quarterbacking regarding cross worlds. Specifically the elite women's race. Katie Compton should have won the race but had to settle for bronze. It appeared that she underestimated the competition, and also made a poor in race decision. On a dry, fast course, it is nearly impossible to attack and stay away for the duration of the event. Compton, as a heavy favorite, should have waited to see who was there to race. Instead, she "had a gap and thought that [she] might as well go for it." She obviously did not have the gas to go at max effort for the entire race as was evident by her struggling to stay on the wheels late in the race. And, after dangling off the back of the leaders, she let the euro's put her on the front to lead out the sprint!! That reminded me of Paris Roubaix when the leaders led out Boonen on the track. Not a good idea. Compton could have ridden a more tactical race and saved that big effort for the last few laps, and I bet she would be wearing the stripes. Still a great performance, but I bet she is disappointed.

In the men's race it was cool to see the Belgians race as a team. The dominant performance showed what they can do if they cooperate and it was impressive.

Tucson Training

Ok fine I will cave to the recent pressure for some content on this bad boy. I am here with 2 others in Tucson at our very own training camp. What makes this camp unique is that while there are 3 in the house, the training is spread over two very different disciplines. My training is for the sport of cycling, while the others are training to be better behaved dogs. My training is going well, theirs is kind of off and on.

There are some similarities. For instance, we all do a lot of this


and when we have trained really hard, even a bit of this


And of course after training in the desert we have to take showers / baths


The riding here has been excellent with tons of productive days and some good numbers on the SRM. The 6 weeks of endurance in Nashville prepared me well and I am able to do some big days and I don't feel nearly as tired afterwards. For example I hit the long shootout yesterday, followed by a trip up to the base of Lemmon. It was a 120 mile day but I don't feel destroyed today and that would usually have put me on my back for some time.

My annual muscle tension block ends today and I could not be happier. I despise those intervals. They are not fun and it is hard to measure the benefits. After this week's rest I will start up a tempo block and those are the best bang for your buck intervals that I have found. The watts should be about 25% higher (!!) this season at tempo which should spell good things once racing rolls around.

Maybe I will write an update

Buckley Fine-Rosenberg enjoying a nice day of cross at Gloucester.

I was going to wait until the day when not a single person looked at this site before updating it but that day is not on the horizon. I still get about 50 hits on Mondays and 20-30 on other days, so I guess some people are wondering what eye ham doing.

Cross season (or lack thereof) was a disappointment. It started with a crash in a training crit in SLC where I flatted my front tire just before a turn and started the turn not knowing it was flat. Sorry to the guy I took down... it hurt me too! After a few days off I went to Seattle for Star Crossed and Rad Racing. Star cross'd was a fun race at night on the velodrome. I felt ok but it took me half the race to figure out how to go around the slick turns. I got really frustrated in the Rad GP with tired legs and a few crashes so I DNF'd. Then off to Vegas for cross vegas and the usa crits final. I felt awesome for the first 20 minutes of the cross race then fell apart. I guess that was a stacked field and I shouldn't have felt so bad about getting throttled but it sure did hurt. I woke up that night with full leg cramps in each leg simultanneously and had to jump around the hotel room to get them to go away.

So after cross vegas my lungs were scorched and my legs were destroyed. I skipped the crit and decided then and there to start my off season. I was fit but not fresh, and we know that the coalescence of those two mysterious things equals form. Freshness was coming sporadically (it was there for SF but gone for Star and Rad), and I didn't see the value in training and traveling for cross without some reliably predictable form.

I thus began my off season by spending 6 hours straight at a 3/6 limit texas hold em table at the mirage, where I am pleased to say I pretty much broke even. It's funny how people try to act like the poker players on ESPN even when the maximum bet is $6 and nobody actually knows what they are doing.

After that it was back to Nashville where I promptly began playing golf almost everyday. I am consistent in my scores but horrible. I usually shoot between 48 and 51 out at Percy Warner, which is a 9 hole par 34. A few weekend trips to Chicago and Boston, some pilates and yoga and some quality time with the hounds wrapped up the off season and now I am starting to climb back on the bikes. I did some single speeding last week and went for a road ride this week, and I am planning to start my base miles in earnest on Nov. 3.

This is probably not what they had in mind when they designed this statue

And finally, I get annoyed when bike related blogs get political, but I think I will give my endorsement: vote Sarahcudda for VP!

SF Twilight

This is a cool race. I hope it was successful for the promoter and it becomes a regular event. It reminded me a lot of Athens Twilight although the crowd was probably not as big or as rowdy, but still a fast 4 corner crit under the lights with lots of people.

I had a great start and was rolling well for the first 20 minutes. I followed an attack and went super hard for 2 laps to try and bridge to the break and it took me what seemed like the next 20 minutes to recover from that. With 25 minutes remaining I focused on moving up slowly and narrowly avoided several crashes. On the last lap just before the final turn a guy went down a few wheels ahead of me and as I passed him the guy next to me endo'ed over him. It was surreal as his bike and body were sort of upside down in the air right next to my head. The last lap was pretty fast and I did a weak sprint for 30th place, not a super good result but my best in a big crit for sure.

My host family's older son Joad tore up the kids race

A big pile up in the 3/4 race

This was still on the camera as well, Zach crossing a creek on the upper winner creek trail last weekend


Now it's a quick flight to SLC to rest up for Star Crossed next weekend.

SFO

San Francisco is a wild place to ride a bike. I went for a cruise from my wonderful host family's house today down towards the SF Twilight course and let me tell you it is a jungle out there. So many people, cars, buses, trolleys and everything else. And on top of that there are some really steep hills to deal with. I didn't even get to the course because I was taking forever just to get across town. If the race goes well tonight I will write a report, but if not then I probably won't.

Clam, Fish, and the Soggy Bottom

8:00AM - Clam Gulch, AK

Two epic days and I am totally wrecked. It hurts to move. Zach and I woke up Friday at 5:00 to head down to Clam Gulch near Homer. The tides were low this weekend and perfect for catching some razor clams. We absolutely killed it and limited out in 3 hours ... that's 120 clams in the bucket by 11:00am. We then went straight to the kenai to try and catch some silvers. I caught a trout and a bunch of pinks while Zach nailed two delicious silvers. We cleaned the clams with a vengeance in Kenai before heading back to Girdwood for a clam fry / salmon bake and an early bed time.





Yesterday I woke up at 6:00 and cooked up a massive omelet in anticipation of the soggy bottom. The course tackles 3 major climbs over 100 miles of single track.


The temperatures on the way out to Hope were in the mid 30's but by the start it was 45. The course climbs immediately so I doubt anyone got cold up there. Chuck DiMarzio and I created the early selection and rode a solid tempo to the top of Resurrection pass, where he pulled away from me after I wiped out and had to ride backwards for a bit looking for my sunglasses (which I never found). After a disgusting descent to Cooper Landing Chuck was 4 minutes ahead of me. We were 4 hours and about 40 miles in. Mark Elfstrom was only a few minutes behind us and we had a good race on our hands. I ate a handful of oreos, some frosted animal crackers, a french bread pizza, a half pineapple, and a red bull before I left the turnaround and I was feeling strong.



I lifted the pace a bit to catch Chuck on the climb back to Devils Pass. I caught up with him after about 30 minutes and we rode together for a while before I pulled away on the steeper section of the climb. I got into a good rhythm and thought that I could try and put a big gap on him on this climb and hold it to the end. I did not want to go to the final descent with him because I could tell he was a better technical rider than me.

The descent from Devils pass was also muddy and damaged from horses at the top but the lower half was in great shape. I arrived at the trail head at 3:00, 7 hours and 70 miles in. I took a bit longer at this turnaround as I recalled the last time I did the soggy. That year I was putting on a light and fighting off tears and I was about the head out into a dark trail after about 9 hours of riding. I felt much better this year but was still a bit nervous about the final leg.



I didn't see Chuck for a while and I knew something had happened. Sure enough, I finally saw him with a broken seat post and a stripped crank. His race was done. I still had to hold off Mark, who was maybe 20 or 30 minutes back. He was riding a 5 inch Turner and was descending well. So I made sure to keep the pressure on up Devils Pass. That climb hurts after 7 hours but it is steady and about 60 or 90 minutes long so you just have to put your head down and grunt it out.



The descent back to Hope should have been easy but it wasn't. My fork wasn't working very well and I only had about an inch of travel. That combined with my weak upper body meant that I was hurting bad. My arms, neck, wrists and back were all screaming. I wiped out in mud holes a few times and my bike was really starting to struggle mechanically so I backed off a bit and just tried to stay smooth which was not very successful. I just wanted to get done. With a mile to go to the trailhead there is a fast rocky descent. I was going really fast and nailed my rear wheel on a rock. I felt the rim hit and sure enough the rear tire shredded against the rim. My C02 inflator was full of mud from riding in my pocket and I could not get it to work. So there was no fixing this flat. I rode the final mile of rocky trail and then the 5 miles or so of dirt road on the flat, most likely trashing my rim. I rode hard to keep my speed up always looking over my shoulder to see if Mark was going to come past me but he never did and I got the W. It took me 10 hours and 49 minutes, or 3 hours and 20 minutes faster than in 2005. Not a bad improvement, but still 95 minutes behind D-Mat's record.

After the race I was talking to this guy and I said something like "yeah it's a good thing Chuck's bike broke or else he would have smoked me." The guy says "Hey, I'm Chuck by the way." I love how you can spend hours with someone on a bike ride but still not know what they look like without their gear on!

Mike Vania and Joe Pollock finished strong in 3rd and 4th. Check out what Vania did in a face plant near the end of the ride:



Now I can barely move and I am in full on recovery mode. Like clockwork, D-Mat was knocking on my door in Girdwood at 10:00AM to make sure his record was safe for another year.

thanks to mjshea for the photos!

Trading blows

The Alaska mountain biking state championships are in full swing with the finale kicking off in 2 hours. The turnout this year is ridiculously low with only 6 expert men and something like 10 total riders. But Carey and I have still been duking it out in each stage. On the stage 1 hill climb I got him by 2 seconds, and in the super D he claimed those 2 seconds back. In short track i nipped him at the line but with no time gap we remain tied up heading into the cross country race today. I think the advantage goes to Carey because he knows the course and it has some technical single track that I will probably struggle with, but I'm hoping that the endurance I have built up this season will pay off during the 2nd half of the race. The sun is out and it is 52 degrees so it should be perfect conditions for a battle!

Post race update: I couldn't fake my mountain biking skills on this course and Carey ran away with the title. The course was awesome and Carey's smooth skills on the technical single track earned him his 2nd AK state mtb title. Nice work!

TTOA wrap-up

The TOA ended with the kincaid loop road race yesterday. Early in the race I was disappointed that most riders just wanted to do a group ride at a conversational pace while I was hoping for a real race. The mass start races in the TOA will never be meaningful unless they shorten or get rid of the TT's, or add prize money that will provoke aggressive racing in the road stages. Even though the RR was easy I still enjoyed the stage race a lot more than in years past. I finished up 5th on GC while Daniel took 3rd and Carey got the stage win, making this the team's most successful TOA in its 3 years of existence. Nice job guys!

Andy Pohl took this photo during the hill climb and I gotta say I really like it, especially since I will probably never win another hill climb race in my career

Jordan won his 4th straight TOA, and I'm thinking he should go for 20 in a row.

TTOA

I guess I wasn't thrilled with the conditions

The TOA has been pretty good this year. I got my first stage win and I believe my first win ever in a road bike race of any kind in the Clarks Road hill climb. I attacked with 2km remaining and got a gap that I barely held to the line. I buried myself during those 5 minutes but it felt good to get a win.

The crit was nasty with the car thermometer reading 48 degrees and a steady rain coming down. Turn 3 had a crosswalk that was like an ice rink and several people crashed while everyone else had some near crashes. It was great because it was a very dangerous technical turn and the penalty for over cooking it or slipping out was to go into a lane of moving traffic! Most of the field was scared and got lapped quickly, taking a small time penalty and saving their legs for the TT.

I gave it several digs and with 2 to go I got away but got caught in the 2nd to last turn and had to settle for 3rd.

overshot it... again

While I was happy that they shortened the TT from 20 miles to 10, I also had a bad stomach all day after the crit and I wasn't able to eat enough between races. I had no energy at the TT and was racing through a pretty decent bonk. I cured that quickly on the way home with a DQP with cheese combo from McDondalds. I was 50 seconds behind my PR for the course and lost 2 places on GC, but Speedway still has a rider on the podium and 2 in the top 5. Today is the road race and I will be looking to move into 4th.

Thanks to Andy Pohl and Andy Romang for the sweet photos!

2 down 1 to go

I don't know if I have ever seen a better Pterodactyl impression than Sandy's last night at the TT.



2 of the 3 time trials in my season are over. I got 4th last night 32 seconds down. 4 seconds faster than last year with a few less watts and bad pacing. I must have a better position on this bike.

Hiding out

A view from the mid-mountain trail

Cascade came at the end of a few stressful weeks with a lot of travel and not much riding. So I used Cascade and the two weeks following to try and regain the form I had when I left Belgium. I spent two weeks in Utah with the family doing some mountain biking, road riding and a local road race. I had a great time and Park City is a great place to train… especially when the casa sits atop a 5 mile, 2,000 foot climb at 8500’ above sea level.

At the Chalk Creek Classic road race on my last weekend in PC I started to feel some good fitness again. I was getting some decent numbers on the SRM at altitude which was encouraging. I went back to Nashville and hit up the NC.com training crit before heading over to North Carolina for the Presbyterian Invitational and Hanes Park Classic.

Presbyterian was hard, and I only did the first 25 minutes of the 2 hour race. It is amazing how much harder a race can be when there is big money on the line. So many riders say they don’t do it for the money but they sure don’t go any slower with a big check up for grabs! I started in the back and was suffering hard trying to move up. At about 15 minutes in there was a wreck about 20 wheels in front of me… I got through it fine and thought I could get back on but in retrospect I should have taken a lap. I chased hard for 3 laps but the relentless primes – anywhere from $250 to $1000 – kept the pace in the pack high and spelled the end of my race. I was kicking myself all night for not taking that lap and for starting in the back…luckily that wasn’t the only race of the weekend.

Sunday was Hanes Park and it is an awesome race. The course is really cool… turns and rollers but nothing too technical so it is a bit easier to cruise regardless of your position in the peloton and it is easier to move around the bunch. I followed a first lap flyer by Jon Hamblen and pinned it for the first 5 minutes before looking back and seeing everyone on my wheel. I slid back to the back to recover and hung out until 45 minutes into the race when the feed zone opened up. I took two fresh bottles and started moving up slowly. With 10 to go I decided it was time to go all the way up front and see what was going down. I weaseled my way into the top 30 with 3 to go and the pace was starting to feel pretty hard. A Toshiba guy dropped his chain in front of me and I slammed the brakes on an uphill, thus losing my position and any real shot at a good result. I hung on for dear life and tried to pick my way through all of the pro’s that had done their job and were sitting up… eventually rolling in somewhere in the top half of the 130 starters. I feel like I could have done a lot more with the day but was a bit too comfortable just cruising. Next year Hanes Park will be a target for me for sure.

Within 10 minutes of the finish my bike was boxed up and in the rental car and Sandy was driving us back to Raleigh for a flight to Nashville. We slept in Nashville Sunday night and hopped on a flight to Anchorage on Monday, arriving here to 55 degrees and cloudy skies. I have to say it feels better than 95 and humid!

And now it is time for the Tour of Anchorage. I love racing at home but I think the TOA organizers could use some help in choosing the stages... the stage 3 time trial is unfortunately the only stage that really matters because it is 20 miles long. The race would be much more fun and interesting if it had only a 5 or 10 mile TT, it would keep the race close and force more lively road stages instead of negative racing. The TOA has more TT miles than Cascade, Gila, Georgia, California, Missouri, and Utah. Come on guys, the TOA should not have more TTing than every major American stage race. It also neutralized the crit because nobody wants to race hard with the TT only a few hours after the crit. Well I am not a good time trialist but I did borrow a sweet TT rig from Greg Johnson and got my position dialed last night in the garage.

If anyone has any input on the TT position leave it in the comments.

Cross season is approaching and pre-reg is already opening for some races... CrossVegas was the first to take my money.

Like a walnut

cracked and shelled. The pace of the circuit race today was brutal. I got shelled on the first lap and realized that I never even had a chance. I think over half the field may have DNF'd today.

Now it is time for some hot wings.

Cascade stages 3, 4, 5

Crit photo by Casey D. Hill

It seems that I am barely hanging on here at Cascade. The TT was not supposed to have a time cut, but apparently the pro team managers decided that they wanted to thin out the field for the criterium. So nobody told us amateurs, but there was a 25% cut put in place. I happened to see JJ Tower and Josh Yeaton from Anchorage in the parking lot and asked if I could borrow a TT bike, mostly because I wanted to try and beat Sean and Casey (which I didn't).

So I hopped on Josh's bike complete with a Zipp disc and 808 and strapped on JJ's LG TT helmet. Josh is a bit shorter than me so the position was super aggressive. The climb out to the turnaround was really painful on my lower back / butt and I know I did not go fast. A few guys passed me. The after the turn around I did my best to lay down the watts. I felt like I was flying and only Horner came past me on the return, he was smoking. I was going so fast my eyes were watering and I couldn't see. Turns out I made the cut by 15 seconds. If it hadn't been for the generosity of the Alaska crew I would have not made the cut.

I'm not sure what to make of the implementation of a time cut for the TT. Not only did they not tell those without team managers about it, but they also did not eliminate a significant number of riders. So the crit had essentially the same size field, but a few unlucky guys like Sam Silvey and Jon Baker got screwed. I have no idea what that accomplished.

So on to the crit. I had never done an NRC crit before last night. It was cool. Downtown Bend was packed with thousands of spectators. The course was pretty fun with only a few sketchy sections. I was feeling good early and trying to move up 2 riders per lap. I saw a Slipstream rider crash early on in a corner but avoided him and kept rolling.

25 minutes in a Cal Giant Strawberry guy went down ahead of me. I hit his bike and flipped, banging my knee pretty good and flatting my front wheel. I rolled to the neutral service and got a change and was pushed back in about 20 places further forward than I had been. Not bad, but my knee was killing me. I kept rolling through the 30 minute mark which was the time cut so I was safe the start for Saturday.

At about 45 minutes in there was a big pile up near the front that I weaved through and for a while I was in a group of about 50 until they pushed everyone else back in and I was in the back again. It got pretty hard as Toyota started to move forward and with 35 minutes to go I let myself drop to the back and slide off the back to get pulled. My knee was killing me. It was fun to watch the rest of the race and I even saw Botero go sliding through a corner on his butt... I hope those Rock Racing kits have a thick chamois!

Saturday was the toughest stage thus far. It began with a 15 mile climb that was mostly a shallow grade but kicked up a few times. It was hard. I lasted 20 minutes before sliding into the caravan. On the descent I joined a group of 5 and we rotated hard for 2 solid hours, nobody saying a word to each other. With 20km of climbing left we fell apart and went to the finish alone. I suffered back up to Bachelor, making the cut by about 20 seconds.

Today is the final stage, a tough circuit race right here by Sean's house.

Cascade stage 1 and 2

The first 2 stages of Cascade are in the books. This is a really cool race and I am enjoying my first NRC experience. I have always enjoyed following domestic racing more than European racing and so it is a bit surreal to be in the field with a lot of the domestic heavy hitters on the NRC circuit. I will say that they know how to go fast. On the first stage the winner's average speed was darn near 30mph, by far the fastest road race I have done. I was about 15 minutes down after being dropped at the KOM around mile 50.

Today's stage felt easier but the power meter said it was just a bit harder. The finish climb of 10km was tough but I limited my losses to 9 minutes and change and even moved up a few spots on GC.

Big thanks to the Passage family... they are great hosts. Here are a few photos from stage 1

Deported

Here I am back in Nashy. I left here Monday and spent 50 something hours between 3 airports. It sucked.

So the best part was when I got back to Philadelphia, I was supposed to have 3 hours to make my Southwest flight to Nashville. I asked the flight attendant when I could have my passport back and he told me that when I deplaned in Philly the gate agent would give it to me. Ok.

So we were an hour late leaving Brussels. 2 hours to make the flight to BNA.

So I get off the plane in Philly and ask some US Airways guy where my passport is. He tells me the agent took it to the checkpoint and I should go there to get it. I go there. I ask a border patrol office where it might be. He says they should have already given it to me. greeeeeat.

He makes some calls, looks around, asks a bunch of people questions. After 30 minutes he has me processed as a lost passport case and I go in the office to wait. Wonderful, maybe they will send me back to Belgium.

As I am waiting I hear the woman behind the desk talking on the phone. She is confused. When the conversation ends she turns to the agent next to her and says "Hey, do you know what the TSA is?" She got a blank stare in return. "He was telling me to call the TSA and ask them?"

"I have no idea" came the response. They were both stumped.

I wanted to cry. The border patrol agents do not know what the TSA is. I am now sure that I will miss my flight to Nashville that boards in less than an hour. I still need to get my bag and bike box, clear customs, change terminals and check in at Southwest, then get through security again. And these people don't even know what the TSA is.

The woman calls my name. I go up to the counter and she says "So, where is your passport?"

"That's what I want to know," I respond, a bit irritated. This raised her eyebrows and her colleague turned to me.
"Come on man, that is not a response," he says. Apparently they have only been told that I have lost my passport, not that US Airways lost it for me.
"I'm serious. Ok, here's what happened. I was turned away in Belgium..."
"Why do I always get a story?" the woman interrupts, turning to her colleague and rolling her eyes.
"US Airways lost his passport," a third officer chimes in from behind me, "seriously." The woman rolls her eyes again and mumbles something about US Airways.

Her colleague concurs. "That's US Airways for ya."

She begins processing me without a passport, asking my social security number and my parents names and birthdays. Another officer walks up to the opposite end of the counter with some papers and a passport. I know it is mine by the stickers on the back.

"Is that mine?" I ask.
"Mr. Hyde?"
"Yes." He hands it over to the woman behind the desk.
"They put it in with the cargo papers," the officer says, chuckling. This provoked more comments about US Airways. She stamped my passport and I ran out of there to get my bags. I threw them on a cart and cleared customs in a flash, guaranteeing that I did not buy a bike in Europe. Luckily the guy believed me.

I made it to Southwest check in about 20 minutes before our scheduled departure. Luckily, just like last week, the evening flight to Nashville was delayed. Good old Southwest. I relaxed, checked in and found some fresh cut pineapple at one of the magazine stands. Made it back to Nashy in time for a sashimi dinner at PM with Sandy and some friends.

Not so fast...

Wow. I find myself in an interesting and stupid situation. I am currently detained in the Brussels Airport in what I would call a hostel except that I am not allowed to leave. Apparently I needed a Visa to stay in Belgium for over 90 days, and since I was here from March through mid-June I was in violation. Bernard has been hosting riders for almost 20 years and never had a visa problem, and one of my team mates had been in Belgium for nearly the exact same dates this spring and walked right through security. I guess Belgian customs and immigration is kind of hit or miss, but when they hit it sucks. So today when I tried to walk through the passport checkpoint I was instead escorted to a disgusting waiting room in the customs office. In there with me was a guy from Senegal, a guy from Turkey, and a Syrian.

I waited and waited to see if the Belgian minster of whatever was going to let me slide or if I would have to go home. 4 hours after landing I was told that I would in fact not be allowed to enter Belgium and that I was not to return to Belgium for "some time." There are no flights available today so I have to stay here until noon tomorrow when US Airways will take me back to Philadelphia free of charge. While I was waiting they brought out a plate for me with a stack of white bread, a slice of cheese, a juice box of milk, and some jelly. I left it for the other detainees.

This place does have Internet access (obviously) that costs an arm and a leg and a nice view of the runway, and the guards/chaperones/whatever you want to call them are chain smoking in the main room.

Well that sure does throw a wrench into my season plans! I guess I'm racing in good old Amurrica for the rest of the summer.