Loudspeaker Car

Parade

Today they had a parade from the hotel to Scarborough and back with all the racers. They led the parade with a beat old car that had loudspeakers on top, blaring information about the race and talking up the local racers and international talent. We were somehow stuck in front getting blasted by the loudspeakers. This shot is looking backwards from the front of the parade.

It really is an international field with racers from sweden, germany, holland, guadalupe, guyana, jamaica, barbados, canada, scotland, and a bunch of others too. Its going to be some seriously serious racing.

Technical meeting

Dammit

Well, it was only a matter of time. Flatted the tubie and spent the better part of the day fixing it. Hoping I can ride it tomorrow in the TT. I was lucky in two ways. 1st, it wasn't during a race, and 2nd I was less than a mile from the house.

Dinner time

Colombian Lisban Quintero and his understudy Daniel dialing in some serious BBQ for dinner. Yes.

Gettin famous

Doing an interview for the local news. We didn't know we were doing this so none of us had our team jerseys and I was in my Fred special shorts, gnarly plaid and a bright red hat. Way to represent for the US!

Welcoming committee

This guy is as long as my middle finger. He did not like getting his photo taken and expressed his distaste by flying at my face. I may or may not have started jumping around and swatting at myself like I was deranged. My teammates are now pretty sure I'm out of my mind.

On the ferry the guys were having a great laugh about how funny our accent is. We told them it goes both ways and they finally understood why I still have no idea what's going on half the time.

And to all you haters who thought I would blow chunks for sure: I didn't even come close to yaking. Booyah!

I have officially arrived in paradise

For at least a few days we're crashing at an insane pad on top of a hill with almost 360 degree views. Its got a huge deck with a pool overlooking the sea. I think I'm in love. They're gonna have a hard time getting me to leave...

3 down 1 up

The boys catching a few winks on the ferry.

Seasickness

When we showed up to the boat it smelled exactly like the fishing boat I worked on in Alaska. I always thought it was the fish smell that made me sick, but apparently its just the fuel or something. So I was about ready to throw up on dry land. Now we're really moving and we still have two hours to go. Let's just say I might be getting a little closer to my climbing weight soon :-0----¤ (that's my vomiting emoticon)

Oh boy

Daniele is a brave man. He just crushed this big, beautiful breakfast sandwich while we were still in the bay. Now we're in the open sea and we are rockin and rollin! If we see that sandwich again I bet it doesn't look have as nice...

Tobago Bound

Shit... After a 4:15 wakeup call we stubled bleary-eyed to the car, somehow made it down that 25% driveway and headed down to catch the ferry. We boarded as the sun rose and now were steady cruisin. ETA is 9am.

oh yeah

By the way, that photo is of the driveway to the house we're staying at. Rand Miller, eat your heart out. This road blows doors off of that gentle grade to your apartment. Okay, so it may not be a "road", but its some manner of paved surface thats gotta be well over 25%. They have to put blocks under their tires every time they park, and most cars can only get up in reverse. Insane.

I'm chillin out right now, enjoying the hospitality of the Family Alexander. They have two boys racing on the team with me, and both Joshua and Adam are decorated international cyclists, besides being super cool. I hear there are some serious European teams coming to Tobago, with ex Gerolsteiner riders and so forth, but I know these guys are strong as hell and I'm hoping we can give them a run for their money. Feeling a bit sick right now, despite sleeping for almost ten hours last night. We're gonna just chill this morning/afternoon and then take a little spinny sometime around 3. Tomorrow its off to Tobago by ferry and then the racing starts Thursday.

I should say that everyone I talk to, and I mean EVERYONE, has horror stories about Tobago, especially the last stage. It seems like every story about Tobago starts out, "Now I don't want to scare you, but...". It sounds like there are extended climbs above 20%, hair-raising descents with sheer cliff drops, a local population that doesn't believe in road closure, and a hot hot sun. "Is like ah fokin muhgnifyin glass buhrnin ahn ant!" My plan right now is to give it everything I've got in the first few stages, which aren't supposed to be as bad, try to do some work early on stage 5 and then just enjoy the rest of the ride at my own pace. The course pretty much circumnavigates the island and its supposed to pass by and through some of the most beautiful jungle and whitesand beaches in the Caribbean. People said they've seen racers try to hang on and blow so badly they had to start walking their bikes. These are ex-pros, mind you. So unless I lose 30lbs or have a fortuitous accident involving radiation and super-human powers, I think the plan will be to just ride my own race and try not to die. Of course, if my team can really put something together, well then I guess I'll have to forgo that leisurely plan and do whatever I can to help them

I just changed my ticket from Monday morning to Wednesday, so even if I'm bleeding out of my eyes trying to climb on Sunday I should still have some time to see the sights before I leave.

And that's that

I keep waiting for computer access so I can write up good race reports, but computers aren't just popping up here on the island. I figure its better to keep you abreast of the happenings than to wait to write some incredible opus that might never come. So without further ado:

Stage 2: 36 mi road race. Started flatish, then went into some power climbs and descents that scared me almost to death. Well, first they nearly just killed me outright. Imagine the worst paved road you've ever seen, then picture it ten times worse, then take that and drop some bombs on it and scatter some sand around and you have the race course. And these guys were FLYING down the descents. I actually climbed with the leaders and got gapped on the downhills. Crazy. After the climbing there was maybe ten miles through towns with cars and dogs and people all over the course. I stayed with the front group and when someone attacked with a k to go I hopped on the first person to respond and ripped around with 300 meters to go to take a very satisfying stage win. Downhill tailwind sprints tend to favor the heaviest man in cycling :) It was a good win, plus the 10 second time bonus jumped me to 3rd place. An untimely puncture took erik out, and even though Daniele sacrificed his wheel, and erik chased like a madman, he still lost 26 seconds. Bummer.

Stage 4: 100k lollipop (shaped, Andy) course almost all rolling with a pretty good headwind for the last few miles. I had gotten a rubdown the night before and the legs actually felt pretty good. I spent most of the race marking the two guys ahead of me, when I should have been attacking my balls off. Its hard to put yourself out there when the other guys have 9 people each to support them. Oh well. I left it too late, giving a solid effort into the hedwind as the skies broke open, but I saw the whole field chasing and gave up. That's just stupid inexperience and a lack of radios. Sounded like the chasers were getting tired & I might have been able to stick it. Hindsight... Daniele attacked on the last roller and got a good gap with two others. When two trek went to chase I jumped accross to them and then went over the top, hoping to get ten seconds on the field and move up to 2nd place. I stayed away for 4th, but not by 10 seconds. Damn! BUT, Daniele played those boys like a fiddle and crushed them to take the stage win!

All in all a good trip to Trinidad. I got three 4ths and two wins, and came out 3rd in the GC, which is my best GC finish ever. As a team, we won 3 of the 5 races we entered(note that I'm not counting that one lap cluster#*@¤ as a race) Hopefully Exustar is impressed and I can go do some more international racing soon.

A quick note about the director, Roger. Maybe its because I've never been on a team with a director before, but he strikes me as one of the most knowledgeable and competent directors anywhere. He knew exactly how to play each race and I think we owe a great deal of our success to his wisdom. To do what we did with just 3 guys against strong teams of ten is impressive. Roger was awesome and I hope I get to ride for him again.

We finished racing, hit up the awards ceremony and then the team I'll be riding with at Tobago picked me up and whisked me off to Maracas beach. I raced against these guys this week and they're really cool. They're from Team Foundation and one of the guys, actually the guy who took second on the GC, is a Colombian national who's been living and racing in NY for 6 years. We chilled out on the beach, scoped the sites, swam and then topped it all off with some world famous bake & shark and stags (the manly beer of Trinidad)

Tomorrow we ride and chill before heading to Tobago Tuesday morning. But before riding and chilling comes clubbing. So I'm actually putting on pants in this hot island nation and stepping out with the rest of the team to see if we can't go get in a little trouble.

Stage two: HCTT

Okay, so this photo has nothing to do with bicycling or my trip, but blog posts are just so much cooler when the include pictures. That happens to be my good buddy Peter snagging some bagel bites and ranch during my wonderful last night in ketchum before I left for this trip.

Anyway, stage two was a mother. 700 Meters just straight up san fernando hill. Okay, not straight up, but for those of you from the norcal scene picture a tt up bohlman. They said it was only 700 meters, but when you're bleeding from the eyes and it feels like your legs are on fire 700 meters seems like 100 miles. I went out too hard and totally blew towards the top. The climb actually stair-steeped in 3 sections making it really hard to judge. I hit the last section way overgeared and felt like I was riding through sand as I slogged my way up the last 100 meters.

I thought I had really blown it. In typical Ryan fashion I got really down on myself, but when the dust settled I had actually done a pretty siolid ride. 1:59. Not too shabby considering the course record had been 1:52. Some jerk decided to run a 1:49 though, and two other guys got me landing me in 4th for the stage and 5th overall. Turns out there were time bonuses for the first stage. Oh yeah, for the second stage too, and the same guy won both, putting me 30 seconds out after his 10 seconds on each stage. Yeah, time bonuses go 3 deep. Just missed 'em each time.

Slack-diggity had a solid ride as well, less than 2 seconds back from me, slotting him into 8th place overall.

We all rode home so tired we could barely see and and showered, ate and climbed back into bed as fast as we could to try and sleep a few winks before we had to be at the circuit race for a 1:00pm start.

Brutal!

In other news there is a Trini concotion called Bake and Shark. Bake is like a deep-fried dough/bread thingy, and shark is deep-fried shark, and Bake & Shark is one of the most delicious (and probably most fattening) foods I have ever tasted. We went out one night in p of s to eat the vendor food in Savanah park and it was awesome! On top of all the fried goodies we hit up no fewer than 3 juice stands and sampled all manner of exotic fruit concoctions. Erik ventured so far as to try Seamoss, a type of seaweed blended with god knows, which we were later told was greatly beneficial to a man's virility. The actual words were: "it'ol make yuh prick like dis!(Indicating clenched fist and forearm). I drink it when I wona hav bebies." Hilarious.

Whoa boy...

3 races in about 16 hours is a tall order!

The Tour of San Fernando kicked off with a nighttime crit, for which they shut down a section of divided highway and ran a banana shaped 1.2 mile course. It was quite a scene, as everything seems to be here, with people crowding the start finish and people blaring on and on over the loudspeaker. With a u-turn at each end of the course and long straights it was basically slam the brakes, sprint out of the turns and then jam it at high speeds until we were braking at the other end. We're only 3 guys against teams of ten or more, so we just wanted to sit pretty, stay fresh and snag an opportunity to get Erik some extra time by sticking him in a break.

Things were going pretty well until Daniele broke his chain. Bummer! He managed to grab a bike from a guy we knew from Port of Spain and then jump back in. Unfortunately big Mike apparently has gorilla feet and Daniele was flopping around in those shoes like a dick in a shirtsleeve. He still managed ride like a frigging animal. With a few laps to go Erik managed to slot himself into a good looking break with another gc conteder and the CRUSHED IT. These guys would have stayed away and nabbed a gap on the field, but for some crazy reason they announced primes with 3 AND 2 laps to go. Ridiculous! We wneded up catching them with a few hundred meters to go and Erick held on for 8th.

Meanwhile I was trying to set up for the field sprint. Coming into the last u-turn Trek had a big train lined up and Daniele and I were next to each other behind the trek guy who had won the one lap sprint at Newsday. I asked him if he wanted the wheel (he's a great track rider) not realizing he was on a borrowed bike. The guy heard us say that and instead of ripping through the turn and giving us a ride to the sprint he took the worst line possible, coming to an almost complete stop and letting a gap open to the rest of the train. I'm an idiot, and instead of just taking the wide line and blazing around him I let him jam me up. He sprinted HARD out of the turn, but I stayed with him and tried to go for it from way too far back for way too long, but I managed to pass a number of guys and pip one more at the line to finish 4th.

Pretty sad style, but not a bad finish.

Post-race was a bit of a disaster. The race had been delayed to accommodate riders stuck in traffic due to an accident coming from p of s and a crash in the masters race. The race started more than an hour late and we had a 7 am start time for the hill clim tt the next morning(that's 3am california time). We had to go back to one house to drop our gear and shower and then get a ride to a second house to eat and sleep. We didn't get to bed until well after midnight, and I haven't felt so wrecked in a long, long time...

Lime'in

Limin: verb: to chill.

That's the boys on the porch at our host housing. 3 stages down. One to go.

Trophy shot

Here ya go. A photo! Hooray! Sorry I didn't get all artistic on ya. Just how it is...

update

so the shift key on this computer is really hard to hit, so i'm just not going to bother. i'm sorry for the spotty updates. i was planning to do a bunch of them from the phone, but it doesn't seem to be working. oh well

life on the island is sweet. its really really hot and super humid, but there's ac most everywhere so its not too bad. we were in a hotel for the first two nights as the newsday cycling classic was up in port of spain. best part of the trip so far is the accent. i can't get over how cool people sound here. we were spinning around and little kids would be like: hey biker mon, skillful bika. lemme teach yuh how ride dat ting. amazing. people have been really nice too. i think we"re surviving on the good graces of the promoters and such and we got a nice guy named isham to drive us all over, take us to lunch and then up to the old fort that overlooks all of port of spain and a good part of the island.

second best thing about trinidad is the driving. in a word: insane. you drive on the wrong side of hte road to start with, which has almost killed me a number of times while out spinning. people also dont really follow the traffic laws, they swerve like lunatics and you can just stop in the middle of the road and park whenever you feel like it. its actually somewhat comforting to ride here, because you never take anything for granted. back in the states you never really know if a car is going to follow the letter of the law and yield and all that. here its like a big crit that everyone is always in, and you ride under the assumption that anyone could do anything at any time.

so we had the first race yesterday, and i had no idea what to expect. we'd seen some other foreigners from scotland and the netherlands and also rumors of really strong caribbean riders, like pan-am junior champs and all that. the course went counter-clockwise around king james the 5th park, so if you weren't as lazy as i am you could probably find it on google maps. decent pavement minus the 8 inch deep open rain gutters on the finishing straight.

it turns out hte first race was a one lap sprint. no, not a timed sprint, or a team pursuit, just a suicidal mass start one lap crit. we rolled to the line and got all three of us up front, and then they told us it was the junior race and to go away. so we went to spin a lap and when we came back it turned out they had been lying and we all got stuck in the second row. so our race was pretty much over. lame. daniele made a good effort to get up to the front, but it was a lost cause. turns out track is pretty big down here, and the guys who took off were pretty much gone by the time i turned the first corner. my goal was to keep my skin, so my race was a big success.

so we found some shade to lounge in until the real crit a few hours later. in the meantime that had some other categories as well as a 5k run that must have had a few hundred people. before the run they got everyone into the park and led them in an aerobic workout. some guy, dressed head to toe in spandex, was in the back of a HUGE monster truck with a wireless mic shouting out the moves while reggae remixs of pop songs played full blast. really a site to see!

it was finally time for our race. the team plan was to just take it easy, follow anything that had the three big teams in it and basically save the legs for the stage race. roger, who's directing, said these guys are strong as hell, but not used to stage racing, so that if we could just lay low for the first two days of racing we'd be fresh and ready to crush it during the road races. we all got callups to the line as honored foreign guests. i guess i should mention that the race was a fundraiser for homeless children, and also had a total carnival atmosphere with music blaring, vendor booths and tons of people and kids running around.

right, so callups, then the official comes down and says that she wants to see a clean race, no intentional braking to let teammates get a gap, no pulling other riders and no switching (chopping). great. always a good sing when the official has to specailly mention those things. anyway, after that somewhat frightening intro we were off. the first few laps were pretty fast, with people attacking hard, but nothing really working. i saw the scotish guy that we had riden with get switched in the first few laps and hit the deck hard. great.

i was covering moves from the big three teams and found myself in a break of 7 with 2 foundation riders, one trek, one heatwave and two other guys. we had a decent gap, but people were skipping pulls and the foundation guys were taking turns attacking. i nabbed a four hundred dollar prime (trinidad dollars, damn) by a good margin so i felt good about my odds in the group. then the wheels totally came off and the two foundation guys were up the road together. roger yelled at me to get my ass up there and so i did. the race was only 30 laps of a 1.2 mile course and we had two big teams unrepresented and 15 laps to go. they attacked me once, and i yelled at them to just work together and they could have 2 guys on the podium. so we settled in. roger was great, giving me advice every lap and always yelling that they were chasing hard and that we needed to keep working. we rolled super steady until the very last lap, with me taking long pulls on the tailwind and getting them to hammer into the headwind finishing straight.

on the last lap the bigger guy, joshua, sat on my wheel and wouldn't pull through so i yelled at the other guy to lead it out, which he amazingly did. he drove it up to speed, took us through the last corner and all the way to about 150 before he looked back and started to sprint. i hit it with everything i had, with both calves cramping, but somehow managed to pull ahead of lisbon, stay ahead of joshua and take the win. insane.

something like this cheering crowds, people snapping photgraphs, podium interviews and my first ever trophy in cycling. awesome. just awesome. my boys were back there in the pack shutting everything down and letting the other teams just blow themselves up chasing. they rode an awesome race and i owe a lot to them.

all in all a really fantastic way to start the trip. i'm only hoping we're not totally marked and that we can keep up the good streak.

after the race we ate sandwiches back at the hotel, and then hopped in a car with elijah greene and his nephew to get a ride down to san fernando. craziest car ride i've ever been on. we three were crammed into the back of his subaru something or other while he did 100mph in a 50 zone on the freeway, dodging in and out of traffic, riding no more than 2 feet off the back of other cars and occasionally racing other drivers, all this while frequently looking back to talk with us and make sure we heard him over the blaring reggae. and yes, we went FLYING past at least one cop with his lights on. amazing.

its now pissing rain and we're just crossing our fingers that it lets up a bit before the 7:30 crit that officially starts the tour of san fernando. tomorrow at 7 am is a 1k uphill tt that looks to average like 18%. god help me.

i'll see if i can't get the phone working to send more timely updates and hopefully a few pics.

much love.

And away we go...

We've made it past security, the bikes are checked and we're just about to get on our first flight. Erik is snackin on a tasty Mickey-D's hasbrown and I'm trying to keep my eyes open after a late night of packing. Big ups to Dev for getting up way too early to drive us to the airport.

I'll be away from the phone for the next two weeks, but I should have internet access. Next stop Houston and then its just a short 5hrs to Trinidad. The super nice lady at check in hooked up the exit row seats on both flights so I am ready to go!

Back on the... road?

I totally thought my season was over. On coaches orders I had just spent a week doing as little as possible and getting ready to head back to Idaho for some real R&R. I had actually packed everything up and was en route back to Ketchum when I got a call from a friend saying a composite team was looking for riders at some racing in the Caribbean. I told him was full of it, and it wasn't funny to joke at other peoples expense. But on the off chance that this wasn't too good to be true I called the number he gave me and, long story short, I'm leaving tomorrow morning for two weeks on Trinidad & Tobago. I can't really believe it either.

The plan is to do one crit and two stage races and spend as much time on the beach as possible. It turns out two expats are organizing a team to compete in their home race and I'll be riding with two pursuiters from the Canadian national team and Erik Slack, a buddy from Bobs Bicycles in Boise. Apparently we're going to be staying with the brother of one of the team directors for the first stretch of racing, then chilling on Trinidad for a few days before heading over to Tobago for the second stage race. I was a bit worried about how my legs would feel after a long season and a week on my ass, but Judd said that if I got in a few hard rides this past week I might actually be on some decent form. So the fingers are crossed. I'd really like to have a good ride to please the director. I mean, if they're going to take care of me for two weeks I should produce something.

So I'd attach a picture to this post, but it would just be my big smiling face. I drove over to Denver and spent the day trying to glue up wheels and get ready for the big trip. I'm absolutely beside myself that this opportunity fell into my lap and I hope it'll be half as much fun as I think it will be. I don't know what the internet situation is going to be like down there, but I'll do my best to update this thing on a regular basis and let you know how things are going.

So stoked!