T&T 2010 II: Setting The Tone in Trinidad.

Faith, aunt Sue, thanks for being so patient. I hope it was worth the wait :)

It's a long way from Denver to Trinidad.
When you factor in the 5 hour layover in Miami, the hour we sat on the tarmac there, and the ridiculously slow speed of Trinidadian customs Phil and I were pretty much traveling all day. In fact, we didn't get to our hotel until 1:30am and then we had to go out and grab some doubles on the street so we didn't starve. But let me back up.

As soon as you step out of the airport there are two things that hit you. The first is the heat. Well, its really the heat combined with a crippling humidity. If you want to know what it feels like just find the nearest sauna and walk in with all your clothes on. You sweat immediately and continually. The second thing is the noise. Trinidad is LOUD. It seems like every car on the road, and every house or restaurant you pass is blaring island beats at full volume. Its kind of like the whole island has a soundtrack. If you want a tiny taste just open up this link in a new window and let it play at full volume while you read the rest of this post. It's not just the music, either. Drivers on the island speak a foreign language composed exclusively of horn honks. I couldn't perfectly translate it, but I'm pretty sure its acceptable to honk for any of the following reasons: being cut off, cutting someone off, offering greetings, yielding to another driver, alerting a pedestrian, alerting any living organism in the road, warning others while ripping through stop signs or around blind corners, having hands. Trinidadians drive like absolute lunatics at breakneck speeds, which is ironic because nothing ever happens on time.

Punctuality does not rank very high on the list of island concerns, and anyone overly concerned with it would quickly become pretty frustrated. In fact, the whole trip, from start to finish, was pretty much a big junk show. If you don't now how to go with the flow, you have no business in Trinidad. Luckily, my teammates and I are pretty easygoing fellows and so we were able to deal with small annoyances like, say, never having any clue as to whats going on. But, like I said, we rolled with it, and after a while you just learn to expect it.
But we were still a little green that first day when we were rounded up sans breakfast to go do a media appearance. I say rounded up because while the riders stayed downtown in one hotel everyone who might have had some idea of what was happening was at a different hotel. We didn't know which one, we didn't know their phone number, and we didn't really know where we were supposed to go, or when. No matter, we made it and gave some interviews for tv and the newspapers at Mikes Bikes, the local bike shop and big sponsor of the Newsday Cycling Classic. Mike is the proud owner of that shop and a big supporter of cycling on the island. It was fun to play celebrity for a bit and chat it up with the guys at the shop. We got a crash course in understanding Trini women, complete with illustrations courtesy of a shady publication that was something in between a travel guide and a Playboy. "Look 'ere! Dis gurl like a lobsta! All de meat is in de tail!" Good times, indeed. And we even got an appearance fee.
We spent the rest of the day eating roti, getting a tour of Port of Spain and hanging out. Here's what Port of Spain looks like from Fort George: Trinidad is very diverse racially. People have ancestors from Africa, India and East Asia and there is oodles of intermarriage. Perhaps because of this diversity there is a really inspiring racial harmony. In my experience, people in Trinidad just don't seem to care what color your skin is or what you look like, and its really refreshing. It also means the cuisine is incredibly varied and very delicious, but I've talked about that already.

The next day was raceday. We got all packed up and headed to the staff hotel in the hills to hang out and eat before the late afternoon crit. We ate a big breakfast and then did what cyclists do in their free time: lounge around and play on computers. We were just kicking it, minding our own business, when all of a sudden the skies just opened up. We had previewed the course and although there were two sketchy corners on it we figured everything would be alright as long as the course was dry. So much for that.

The race for the day was the Newsday Republic Day Cycling Classic. Republic Day = Independence Day. The course was a short little crit around King George V Park with two tight turns over rough pavement and one long sweeper into the final straight. The pavement was better than TT standard, which translates to rideable, but full of wheel-eating potholes and nasty, exposed 10 inch deep gutters for runoff along 3/4 of the course. We managed to navigate our way from the hotel to the race with enough time to ride a few laps of the slick, sketchy course and get some feardrenlin pumping. We all got called up to the line for being international superstars and then, boom, we were off. Our goal was to make the race hard and fast with an eye to snapping off a favorable break and we manage to do that. Before too long it was (S)Perv solo OTF laying it down maple leaf style. That gave the rest of us an easy ride with nothing to do but mark a few moves and try to stay safe through the corners. The other guys were awesome, but I went one and one. Some dipstick tried to attack through the tightest turn of the course which happened to also have bad pavement and be off camber. He clipped his pedal and I was going to fast to avoid him. I managed to scrub a lot of speed, so while I still hit the deck it was a relatively minor crash with a pop to the hip and a little scrape on the elbow my only injuries. Luckily the bike was fine and after a free lap I was back in it.Some guy warming up crash corner for me

As the laps started to wind down Jamie began to feel the airplane legs (he had only gotten in the night before the race.) We did everything we could to slow the field, but it was looking grim for D. J Sparls. The group finally nailed him back with a lap and a half to go and it was PANDEMONIUM. A quick note about Caribbean cyclists: they are just as aggressive as other racers I know (maybe more so even), but their bike handling is a step or two down the ladder, and this makes for a very physical and unsettling race experience. With a lap to go it was no different. Short Man had done a massive pull to get me to the front and I was right up next to the Trek leadout, but stuck in the wind. Charging down the back straight I was overcome by that unique rush that comes in the last seconds of a race that quiets the mind's cries for self-preservation and sets the body on fire. I used my size to take the spot I wanted at the back of the Trek team and waited until they burned their final man before opening the floodgates and pouring out everything I had in a mad charge to the line.It turns out it was enough for the win, making it two in a row at Newsday. Doin' the double! Boom! The guys on the team were awesome, which is especially cool considering we were an ad hoc collection of riders who had mostly never raced together. We raced for each other and it got us the win. And that made for one happy group of guys. We all slogged back up the hill, haggard but happy, where we cleaned up, packed and prepared to head down to San Fernando for the second set of Trini races. In case you were thinking that everything started rolling smoothly after a leadoff win, think again. After breakfast we didn't have another bite of food until we finally got to San Fernando around 9pm. I think I was gnawing on my own arm during the drive down. Roti never tasted so good.