Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Road Trip to Cali

First race of 2008.

The Plan.
Road trip. Me and Marty Lazarski (the polish wonder child) get a rental car and drive it to Fontana for Norba #1. Once there we stay at the Landis (Floyds cousins) house of Ken, Irma, and Steve in razzle dazzle of Ranchococamuga about 20min from the race venue. We eat a boat load of Burritos and race our bikes. On the drive down we take our sweet time and try to save the legs, on the drive home we drink coffee and coke and try to do it as fast as possible.

Tuesday- No rental company's in Canada will let us drive a car in the USA. So we rented the car from bellingham Washington and my dad droped us and our stuff off and we got the car. We got a 4 door chevy cobalt and packed it to the brim with bikes, wheels, gear, and anything else you need to live for a week. We drove for like 10hrs to a place called Yreka, Cali. We dove straight to the supper wall mart and set up our tent in the back of the parking lot with a bunch $300,000 glorified camper vans. Food for the day was Chipotle burrito in Seattle and a California dreaming safeway sandwich in Medford OR.
Wednesday – Good morning wall mart! It was sort of cold at night maybe 3c, but nothing a -12c sleeping bag cant handle. We wanted to ride but the weather was kind of cold and wet so we just started driving. I heard some good things about Redding so we pulled over and rode for a couple hours. Redding is good, just so you know. Then we killed some more Safeway sandwiches and drove to the Landis'. We got in at like 10pm.

Thursday – hum the legs don't feel so hot. So we eat some food and go to the ghetto/Fontana bike race course, you know what ever you want to call it. Rode a lap, got a burrito across the road and went back to the house where we had a nap, watched one of the 10million satellite channels. Ken made us some spicy Spaghetti. At night we went to this massive outlet mall and Marty got some shoes and Steve made fun of Martys lufa that he left in the shower.

Friday – Pre race day. So my Dad's big thing right now is to find “deals” on what ever over the internet. He found this camper that is a “real steal” like 20min from Fontana. This camper is nice, so its like high class red neck style, I am sure you can get some sweet gun racks for the back and you can still pull your trailer with your dirty quads. The camper fits in the back of a full sized pick up truck. So after riding the course and chowing down on Burritos we checked out this camper. My old man might drive down in a couple weeks and pick it up. We tried to fit it in the trunk of the coblat but it was kind of tight. Then it was back to the pad for some Carbo loading.
Saturday – The big race. I really had no idea what to expect. I have trained quite different this winter as compared to any other winter of my life. I am never really that strong in March, but whatever time to giver. So they stuck me on the second row cause I got UCI points from last year. GO! I had a great start and was in the top 5 guys going into the singletrack. I rode in the top 3 guys for a long time then went to the front on lap 2 for a while then kind of went backwards starting the 4th lap. And by the end of the race I had blown hard and ended up finishing 7th. I really went for it and paid for my efforts. So whatever, my fitness is way better then any other year at this time and will only get better from here on in. The real story is post race at the Baja fresh. I went to the counter and asked for the biggest burrito known to man and they made it happen.

Sunday – Short track and driving and more driving. Worst call up ever! So cause short track is not UCI and cause I did zero NORBAs last year and cause I did not pre register I got called up almost last. I think there was 2 guys that got called up after me, and one of them was Marty. So the gun went off and the dust started flying and I started to play Ketchup. I ate a ton of dust and passed a ton of guys and finished 17th. What can you do? Not much else to say. Quote of the race has to go to Quebec super start Matt Toulouse and his thick dust filled beard.
Ricky “wow Matt your beard is really dusty”
Matt “yeah its a dirty Sanchez, oh its more like a dirty Tremblay”
OK time to kill some driving. After the short track it was back to the Landis house for a lasagna feast and a quick shower. We started driving at 5pm. I killed a tank of gas, Marty slept. Marty then killed a tank of gas and I slept. Then we did some 2hr sleep/drive intervals and then I finished off the drive. 18Hrs worth! We averaged 116km per hour. We drank coffee, coke, ate m&m's, trader joe's peanut butter filled pretzels, and we had Safeway sandwiches and coffee for breakfast. My stomach still hurts, “uh I don't feel so good” We were like a bunch of hard men, no messing around! Some quotes from the drive from Marty.
1:05am - “holy cow! 430miles to Portland”
1:06am - “we should see how fast this thing goes”
3:19am - “oh man its 319”
anyhow its great to be back home in Chilliwack, for a little while. Next up is the battle in Seattle on Sunday, then I am off to euro land for the World cups.



Big thanks to the Landis family for taking Marty and I in for the week. Also thanks to Maxxis tires for helping me out with a bunch of new rubber for the year. And my other sponsors Ricky Federau's savings account, Wentings bike shop, and Pinkbike.com.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

you guys look like Kramer and Nueman transporting cans for the money. Just don't sleep with any farmers daughters.

Ray

Jon said...

I don't know what it is about America, But I too am on the Burrito Grande program.