Circuito Getxo

Its been a while since the last post, so here's a quick recap. I had my first race in a month in Portugal, Joaquim Agostinho. It went really well. I had a good day on the mountain stage, and I felt some form coming around after some great training leading up to it. I caught a small cold, but luckily it went just as fast as it came. Then to the Basque Country for a one-day race, back to Girona for 4 days, and back to the Basque Country for another one-day race.

We just did our 2nd one-day race in the Basque Country today. The first one was about 50k inland and was on a circuit with some hard, but short climbs. Today was right on the water in the port of Getxo. The race organizers may have found the flattest roads in the Basque Country for this race. However, it was still a great course, with a typically enthusiastic Basque crowd cheering everybody on. We lost our sprinter to a crash on the last lap, but the team is riding great and we're all looking forward to the Tour of Portugal, starting on Sunday. 12 days (1 rest day) seems like it would make a hard enough race, but 3 mountain top finishes, a 40k TT, and the notoriously all-out Portugese style of racing will make this a... um... wow, i have no idea. Time to find out. I hear the hotels are nice.

Tomorrow, we're flying from San Sabastian to Madrid to Sevilla, then driving into Portugal. It'll be a long travel day, but we have it easy. The team staff are driving the fleet of cars all the way there.

With so many big name riders coming out with positive tests and/or admissions right now, will they avoid having to face the spotlight and public shaming that others had to go through? I mean, you can barely count the number of Pro Tour positives in the last month on one hand. Seems like they're getting off easy to me.

Making it feel like home

Picked up some essentials that I've been sorely missing for the last month. A 12 euro toaster and a big cereal bowl. An easy day today left me with some time to burn. One of best things about Girona is that there are hundreds of every kind of imaginable shop within walking distance, but trying to find a particular item can be a frustrating experience. Feeling like an adventure, I stretched my definition of walking distance, and made my way across town to the Hipercor/El Corte Ingles. I've noticed this place before when we're driving to the airport and thought it was a mall. Nope, its one store. Well in the same way as a super Wal-Mart is one store. The street level entrance takes you into the middle level, which feels like a normal Target back in the states. Pretty much everything from clothes to electronics, kitchen appliances, hardware, etc. This is where I picked up the sweet toaster and cereal bowl. I hope it lasts more than a week. If you take the escalator down one level, you'll walk into a grocery store, er, I mean supermarket. Maybe I've forgotten what its like back in the states, but I was in awe wandering around this place. The olive oil section is bigger than most grocery stores in town. There were aisles just for cheese. On to the final upper level. It was some sort of cross between Macy's and Nordstrom's. I was hungry and lugging around my toaster, so I didn't spend much time to check it out. After a good 30 minute walk back up to the apartment I was finally able to enjoy a nice turkey and cheese sandwich on TOASTED bread. Now I can't wait until tomorrow morning when I can have a bowl of oatmeal without spilling milk all over the table.

Tunnels...

are not for bikes. Should have known, I know. So it was 6 hours into the ride and, I'll admit, I wasn't thinking about much else besides getting to the next town and grabbing a Coke and Snickers before taking the b-line back home. I had gone through this tunnel by Olot several times the other way (downhill) and it seemed nice enough. It was lighted, had new pavement, and a nice 3 foot wide shoulder. It would save a few minutes over the route that goes through a town and around the tunnel. However just as I was about to enter it from the opposite direction, a guy jumped out from the maintenance building, running straight at me. Huh? He got to the road a little a head of me and we did a little back-and-forth trying to guess which way the other one was going. I managed to fake him out as he made a last ditch effort to try and grab my jersey. So I just dodged some guy in the middle of the highway. Great. I was pretty sure what that was about and I was heading into a 1k tunnel on a bike. Sure enough he got in his maintenance truck, chased me down with his lights flashing and pulled me over. I felt bad enough at this point, but as he jumped out and started yelling in Catalan, I realized I wasn't talking my way out of this. I couldn't even apologize. I just let him yell for a minute, turned around, rode back to the 'alternate bike route' around the tunnel and back home. So much for shaving those 5 minutes from the ride.

Some pictures

I mapped some of my pictures from rides in the area using Panaramio. I just had pictures from Vallter 2000, Mare de Deu del Mont, Tossa de Mar, St. Hilari, and Sant Marti Sacalm (At the top of Amer climb). If you zoom in, you can see more photos for each location. Check it out.

Also added my photo albums in the links section.



Full version of map

Here it is

My first blog post. I always thought there were enough blogs out there to cover anything and everything. What could I possibly add? Well in the past few weeks, I've realized that I have some time to burn and I'd like another way to share pictures, thoughts, and events with friends, family, and anybody else who cares. So here it goes. Please share any comments or feedback!