Hello!

So, I'm back. I was able to get connected to the internet last night but didn't really have time to do much as it was pretty late and I had been up for like...uh...several hours. I did post the blogs about my exciting time in the airport. It was awesome. And some pictures, the pics took wayyy longer than normal to post so I might not be able to do a bunch. We'll see.

I tried to sleep a bit on the plane, it was really nice that I didn't have anyone sitting next to me but I was planning on staying up as late as I could and then sleeping and waking up on the "German" time. It kind of worked out. I woke up this morning at 5 but that might have been because of the thunderstorm we had last night.

Anyway, yesterday was the first race. I got 35th out of 75 or so starters. I was the 4th American and 11th?? U23 rider. Not bad for the first race. Of course Nino and Florian Vogel beat me by 20 minuets. But Nino got third at the Olympics last year.

I spent most of the race stuck in a big group of like 10 guys with Tad Elliot, Rob Squire, and Mitch Hoke. All the Euros wanted us to work since we had 4 guys but Tad and Rob kept trying to break it up. Eventually they did and gapped me and Mitch. We rode 8 of 9 laps after the leaders lapped us about half way around our last one.

Tad was the only one from the US that didn't get lapped, he got like 27th or something so big props to him.

The course was about 60 or 70% pavement with a short but really rooty and slick as hot butter climb. The decent was pretty fun, some cool places were you could make up so time and my big o'27 inch bars were doing the work for me.

The climb was pretty steep with some snot covered roots, I didn't get any pictures but I'm hoping to go out and some today. Oh yeah, I forgot again we are racing today too. Not really sure how long or how big the race is but there's one in the next town (Freiburg). I heard something about 10 laps and 20K so hopefully pretty short because the legs are a bit pissed at me for racing twice.

The race itself was pretty cool, there was a huge expo with tons of companies and bike and free stuff. It was like twice the size of a US race. Kevin put the race into a good perspective. In terms of prestige in wining the race and the size of fields it's like a Mountain States Cup (Mid-west race series-small fields, small purse, etc.). But in regards to who shows up to these "small" races it's more like a ProXTC race in the states (a national level race).

Anyway, there's a ton of stuff I'm missing like the food we have and the places we've eaten out at. I'll probably have to do another post tonight after the race. Whatever happens in the race, I'm stoked because I'm in Europe and above all I'm racing my bike and that's all that matters.

Peace out America...I miss you...a little bit....not much.


P.S.
Pretty funny, near the end of the race some Swiss chick was cheering me on and I'm certain that she was saying: "Time for a change, time for a change."