Pics

Hey there, yeah, its been awhile. Sorry about
that, I have been pretty busy with a bunch of work, trying to make a few dollars. But, as I said I would, what follows are some photos of a few highlights of the past season in Europe. I took loads of other photos, but I feel this should give you an idea of the year.


The
View on the ridge looking over the chateau La Roche Guyon and the Seine river on my very first ride in France.













Amazing to think that in the first few weeks of arriving in France, what you are seeing, one of the many little farm roads here would be completely shrouded in leafy vegetation come June eliminating all sunlight on the road.












My next door neighbor. Yes, the vegetation had taken over the home, at least it looked amazingly pretty.



















A part of the gardens right down the street from my house.










Nice little ride along the Seine River.














Just a neat little farm that I rode by once or so a week. It was neat to see the fields behind him turn from gerber baby food pea green in early march to bright mustard yellow in May to a dirty brown come September.













Foix, France. I stayed just a little bit away from here and got to drive by and even race by here once. Pretty darn cool.
















Hanging out at a church on top of a mountain overlooking a large winery in Salou, Spain with the Mediterranean off in the distance.










The best 1 euro investment ever. Italian cappuccino.


























As a cyclist, lots of time is spent in cafes all over the world.



Here I am at the border crossing of Mt. Blanc trying to get from Italy to France. It was super cold up there and all 3 times that I did the trip to there, it was always stormy, even in the middle of June.


















Pisa, Italy. While staying in Lucca, Italy I had to take a spin on over and see the leaning tower.

























A real Italian pizza. Some of the freshest flavors I had ever enjoyed.




La Thuile, Italy. I just put this up because it is one of the prettiest places I have ever seen. This is at 5000 feet and is in the Aosta region. Home of some of the best ham I have ever eaten.
Chilling in the Italian Alps. That water there was coming straight out of the glacier.



















chilling at the beach in Normandy. Yes, that is a tractor in the ocean.






















At the Strasbourg cathedral in the Alsace region. I had a stage of a race start at the front door. Super cool.




















Mona Lisa. Would not be a visit to the Louvre without seeing it.






















Paris. Nuff said.






















At the Monet gardens in Giverny.

Luggage

I was quite surprised by how much stuff that I had accumulated over 6 months and change in Europe. As the date of departure for coming back home got closer and closer the realization hit that I only had a limit of 50 lbs for my suitcase, 50 lbs for my bike box and then a carry on. That is certainly a pretty darn low limit for all of this stuff. But I want to make sure that you realize that I was working my butt off to make it work. In the foreground you can even see a gram scale and a notepad. I was weighing everything, even down to individual socks to make sure that I would be within the limit. The weight was not the only thing that I was worried about as space was at a premium. Due to that, I put to use some pretty advanced packing skills. Following is a timeline of what i was able to do. Every single open space was utilized, socks stuffed into empty space, shoes stuffed and clothes rolled as tightly as possible.









































Here is the best bet, I was able to get everything within a pound or two above the limit and did not even get dinged with that at the airport. The bike, well that is another story. 250 euros later or 330 dollars later, they allowed my bike to get checked in. Oh well, I would still rate this packing job a 9 out of 10.

Looking Back

So here I sit at my dinner table enjoying a nice cup of good ol merican coffee trying to discern everything that I took in this past season. It is quite overwhelming to think about what all I got to take in and what I had the opportunity to learn. Was it a difficult year? Without a doubt. Was there times where I asked myself what the hell I was doing? You can bet on it. Did I mentally crack a few times? For sure. But did I stick it out and grow a bunch? Yep.

So here are a few highlights of the past year:

• Getting lost not 2 miles away from my house and doing laps around my village trying to find where I live. All those little one lane farm roads can get to be a bit confusing
• Eating raw horse meat, and not just once, but on multiple occasions
• Upon completion of the Paris Roubaix recon ride deciding to ride from Roubaix, France back to Izegem, Belgium with Andrew Talansky. What should have been 35 kilometers turned into 80 kilometers and even time on the Belgian freeway. We were lost out of our minds.
• Eating real Italian pasta, pizza, parmigiano reggiano, and amazing wine.
  
• I actually think I learned another language. At least I now make less mistakes in French, but still have a long ways to go.
• Hitchhiked all across Normandy.
• Was served raw eggs more than once and still can't stand them. They cook a crepe and when done cooking the crepe, crack an egg over the top and the thinking is that the heat of the cooked crepe will cook the egg on the plate. Yeah, I know.
• On my very first time to Europe, got to race in France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Switzerland.
• Got the opportunity to see the Alps, Pyrenees, and Dolomite mountain ranges.
• Was in a car during 3 different accidents in France with 3 different drivers. They sure do drive uniquely.
  
• Broke more stuff than I want to think about.
• I swam in the Mediterranean Sea
• Raced in snow, sleet, and hail on more occasions than just riding in dry, sunny weather.
• In my own little village, over the course of 7 months, switched my housing 9 different times.
• Had the opportunity to learn a lot about different countries political and economic systems in a real life setting, not just in the classroom.
  
• Grew to love America even more than I did previously.
• Won some races even if no one thought I could.
• Fell in love with Belgian Beer. I tried my best to taste as much as I could.
  
• Shopping at the street market weekly and getting to know the farmers, butchers and the cheese shop owners.
  
• But, the biggest highlight is the actual fact of living in a foreign country. Not just visiting, but living. Getting into a routine and rhythm in life.

In a few days I will get some photos up that give a little outline of the year. Thanks for reading.

Karma

Karma, you really do exist. What a beautiful thing you are.

Since I have gotten back stateside, all I have done is play on my mountain bike or cross bike in the dirt which really has been a good time. I headed out on a nice little mountain bike ride yesterday evening and I do not recall having the foothills that crowded with people out: be it hiking, biking, or running, regardless it is nice to see so many people exercising. However, just as I was finishing up my ride I came across a women's mountain bike camp and there was one woman absolutely struggling to push her bike up a hill. I promised her that if she could just get up the last little bit it would be flat for her all the way home. But, I took her bike from her and rode up the final couple hundred meters pushing her bike. She was able to hike the rest of the way and then enjoy the last part of her ride. I finished up my ride and hopped into the car to get on home as I was sufficiently famished at this point.

Onto the freeway and out of the blue, I along with the others driving around me see a motorcyclist coming at us in the other lane waving his hand as if to slow down. While I was not speeding at the time, we did not get another minute down the road until we saw some cop out with his radar gun trying to catch speeders. I would have been fine without having the nice fellow give me a heads up, but, I am grateful that people doing good things still exist in this world. Good things happen to good people.

Surprises

Sorry for the break in updates, but much has occurred. Long story short is that I ended up coming home early and am now in the good ol USA! I was set to come home on September 28th, but due to a multitude of factors, I am now back home. The best part of the whole thing is that many people knew, including my dad, but I made sure that my mother would not know. Last week she took my little brother back to college and I made sure that I would be able to surprise her when she got home.

Let me set the scene;

Saturday night: Here is what I am hoping my mom comes home to. Remember that she is thinking that I am way over in France at this time and not expecting to see this.
















I kept on having my little brother call my mom trying to figure out where she was so that I could make sure where she was and that I was going to be around. Unfortunately, I screwed up a bit with my camera, but I got this.



Needless to say, this was a great surprise and it was awesome to make my mom's day. As I sit here, I have been pretty busy getting all of my affairs taken care of since I have gotten home, but I promise that I will get another post up with some more of my past year. But, I must say that traveling all over Europe getting to race my bike was an awesome experience and allowed me the opportunity to learn a ton, but one must never forget about family in their lives. Trying to keep a big secret like this for a week was a bit difficult but to be able to have the opportunity to make my moms day made my week.

Until later.

Headlines

If there is one thing that the French are really good at has to be striking. Yes, that lovely concept of stopping work, walking around chanting nothingness with fellow coworkers, disrupting others lives and mainly being a nuisance. I want to give you a mini history lesson so that this will make a bit of sense.

1981-the age to receive retirement benefits in France is changed from 65 to 60 years of age bringing in close to 30 years of heavy liberal governing.

1981-2005-Heavy government spending on retirees, in conjunction with government spending in nearly every sector puts a heavy burden on the country as it continues to dig itself a hole.

2005-2010-Government becoming broke. Nuff said

2010-Brilliant Idea to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. There is just not enough money to support all the people retiring.

September 3, 2010 to today-Paris shuts down!!

Okay now that this is out of the way, let me tell you about it. Last Friday when I was over in Paris I could hear a ton of noise, more than normal a couple of kilometers away and being quite curious, headed off in that direction. This is what I found.

















It is the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysee at the beginning of a procession of retired military folks who are protesting the increase in the age of retirement. Brilliant, 7 o clock at night, a Friday none the less, and the most important boulevard in all of the world is shut down, resulting in this. I am sure more than one person was not happy about getting stuck in this.
















So, the past few days the news coverage has been covering the marching and protests going on all over France about the new regulations. The new regulations include the increase in retirement age, and kicking out poor Romanian Gypsies that are beggers in the big city among other things. Yeah, good for you folks, you walked around looking like fools and are not going to change a thing. Hats off to you, you could have been out spending money and sparking your economy, but no, you have better things to do.

However, this mornings news took took the cake. The SNCF or the french railways are now on strike about it and since this is a major artery for people to get around, especially to go to work, many businesses are shut down. Schools are shut down again, not a week back into classes too. Grocery stores cannot open because truck drivers are on strike and thus, no food going to stores. And even worse, say you had a trip on the airplane planned say to southern France. Good luck. The folks that work at the airport handling affairs are also on strike. But, at least they are nice and allowing international flights to commence and not screw over foreigners too much.

So you ask, what are the lessons to take away from this? Firstly, Unions suck and are the scourge of the world and need to be abolished. They do nothing but disrupt the normal operation of life and are the antithesis of a working society. The sooner they can go away, the better off the world will be.

Secondly, the French fail to see the larger picture that many of their problems are because of the State. By living in such a nanny state, depending on the government for everything, the population will ultimately fall in on itself. Should we consider that the only other European country with a younger age for receiving retirement benefits is Greece at 58 years of age and just recently had to be bailed out by the European Union from its massive downturn. Or shall we look at the fact that in a recent report, French people have been determined to take the most days of vacation in the world at over 40 days a year, more than double of us Americans.

Lastly, while walking around Paris for a few days, taking it all in and getting accosted by more than one poor Roma, my feelings towards them just continued to drop. They stop you and ask for money, not singly, but in groups. You say no, and they just continue to press you for anything. "Search your pockets, open your bag" they say. Or if you are driving and get stuck at a light, they will start cleaning your windows and then ask for money, all without the service being requested. Thankfully I got out of Paris without getting mugged, pick pocketed nor lost anything. Quite frankly, these people are a nuisance and I do not blame Sarkozy, the French President, for wanting to rid his most amazing city of Paris of these people. One of the many free feeds going on in the northern arondissements for the homeless.














As you can tell much is wrong with this country right now, but only time will tell if the people are strong enough to take a stand and fix the giant hole or just stand by idling chanting and holding a sign as they continue to sink with the ship.

The Perfect Storm

Did not see this day coming at all.

Looking back at my earlier post about my housing situation, yes I am back out on the street but for much more serious reasons. No, not on the street literally, I am staying at Lionel and Martines again. The festival here in Giverny is in full swing and all the places have been booked out and once again I am running pretty low on the food chain. But I am beginning to master the art of learning to surf the waves of craziness. Little did I know what I had in store. Yesterday started off no worries, Lionel headed on up to the French/Belgian border for some work at a race for the weekend while I took another day trip into Paris. However, I woke up this morning to some pretty grave news. For the past few weeks Martine has been heading to the hospital pretty often to see her mom and father in law (who is the one in the hospital.) His health has been steadily declining and unfortunately, early this morning, he passed away. Insult to injury, today is also the day that one of sons of Martine is getting married. As you can see, many things are just not falling into place. If this were not bad enough, one of the dogs broke off one of his nails this morning while out on a run, resulting in a shit ton of blood all over. (I am no veterinarian, and this is about as scientific as I can describe it, but I think you get the idea.) Given, the current situation, it was a no brainer for Martine to get going off to take care of things as quickly as she could. Erik certainly got himself an interesting one. My french is getting better by the day, but one thing that I do not want to have to do again is head to the veterinarian here again. It certainly reminds me of the hospitals here and is a constant reminder of why you do not want to have too many medical issues over here. The waiting room was standing room only and with only 1 vet on schedule, you were certainly going to be waiting for a bit. If you do have medical issues, try and get to Paris and not a Norman hospital. Many of the luxuries that we take for granted back home are afterthoughts here. Regardless, I am now playing nurse to the dog, giving medicine and cleaning his wound a few times.

As it stands, it is 9 o clock at night and I was able to get myself a little bit of a ride in today, but made sure I wasn't too far away at any time. I have yet to hear from Lionel or Martine yet this evening and am planning on a stressful few days. Forgive me if I am enjoying a few of these on the night. Only some of Belgium's finest, I believe that I have earned them.














When I set out on coming over here little did I know that one of the things that I would be preparing for was a funeral. While much of my life is centered around a bicycle, when you step back and look at the bigger picture of life, it is extremely important to remember where family and friends stand too. That is quite possibly one of the largest lessons that I can take away on the season, and while I am not a part of this family, it is still tough to see people close to me going through a tough time.

Tools of the Trade

Done, capoot, finit. Yes folks, my season is over. I would have truly preferred to end my season on a high note, or at least not have a mechanical that would have allowed me to actually race my last weekend of racing. But, that is life and sometimes it doesn't work out like you thought it would. I have certainly learned a lot about racing this year, much more than I had ever learned in just 1 season alone. One of the things that really stands out to me however is the amount of wear and tear on my equipment there was this season. It was certainly more than I have ever had in years past. Here she is:

3 broken wheels

4 chains

5 sets of cables

4 derailleur hangers

2 sets of shifters

4 sets of tires

God knows how many tubes-way too many

2 rear derailleurs

2 broken shoes

3 completely ruined/shredded sets of kits

1 broken pair of sunglasses

2 ruined cassettes

Man, when did this get to be so expensive? While it is a bit of a bummer to look at this list and see how much stuff got ruined, I can say that what I learned along the way is impossible to put a price tag on as I continue to try to make a living out of this. Quite possibly the biggest thing that I have learned is that no matter how hard you work, or how much you want something-there are no certainties in this sport. Looking at where I want to go and what I need to do, there are thousands of people just like me trying to do the exact same thing. This just gives me even more motivation to do everything right this winter to get ready for next year.

But, I have a few things to do before that comes about. Excuse me, but I have a little bit more of sightseeing to do. I still have a few more cheese platters, oysters, mussels, and baguettes to eat and an unlimited supply of new wines that need to be tasted. Heading off to Paris in just a bit. I will let you know how it all went, but until then-ching.

Such is Life

"Man, thats a bummer." That is pretty much what I am saying to myself after the weekend. If you remember from around a month back, I had some bike issues. Well, my local bike shop did what they could do to get me going, we all knew it was not a permanent fix, but one to get me by. It certainly got me by for 4 weeks, but it did not make it through the weekend. Long story short, I raced for two days on a singlespeed back essentially. My shifter is busted and well, that makes shifting a bit difficult. I was either spinning my legs a hundred miles an hour or barely moving them. I finished both days, but nothing special.

On to more pressing issues. I got myself moved back into my place today, lets see if I truly get to rest there for more than a few days. The Giverny festival starts this weekend and I have an odd feeling something might just pop up.

And in even greater news, now that the end of August has arrived, so has nice weather. Today, I have had myself a day in the sun and actually got to wear a short sleeve shirt out on the town today. This is much better than wearing a jacket like I was last week or racing in leg warmers.

I leave you with a neat image that I took last night while out on my evening walk with the dogs. I headed up into the forest above my village and this is what greeted me as I was coming home. A clear sky as the clouds are receding and the rain with it.

Blunt Crayons

Got a good one for ya folks. Once again, the fun just keeps on rolling. Had myself a nice little ride this a.m. as I am getting ready to go race tomorrow. Nothing special, just a bike ride. But, mid ride I realized that I was out of bed and would need myself a baguette for lunch. I must say, when I return to America, the fact that I am not going to be able to run down to the boulangerie and grab myself a baguette or two is going to be pretty tough to swallow. There is just nothing that compares to a hot, fresh baguette and a bottle of nutella. It is a match made in heaven and can make the time go by so quickly. Sorry, where was I, I had to wipe the drool off the table there. Anyways, I pedaled on into town to go grab that baguette and before I knew it, BAM, someone is on the ground. No, I did not wreck but, I nailed and I mean nailed some dude walking across the street. This guy just walked out into the middle of the road from behind a car without even looking and I had myself about 2 seconds to do something. That something was realize that damn, this guy is going to get hit. My options were either drill him or well, that was the only option. Thankfully, I did not go down and had not a scratch on me, but when I actually composed myself to see if he was alright, all he kept saying was "why are you riding in the road?" What? Can you believe that, this guy walked out into the middle of the road where there was no crosswalk or anything without looking and got hit. When I asked him what would have happened had there been a car coming instead of a bike and he got hit then? He said that would not happen because he would hear a car coming and would not step out into the road. Had he been in a crosswalk I would have been paying attention for him, but given the situation, the last thing one expects is a idiot to step out in front of you. Fortunately, he was not injured and the people walking by that got to see it were treated to a bit of a funny moment for their Saturday morning. At least a few other people were heckling him at the same time for making such a retarded move. There is a reason there are crosswalks and everyone stops at them for pedestrians. At first I generally felt bad about hitting the guy even though he was at fault, but given how he acted I no longer feel bad for him at all. More than likely he has been hit a few times previously is my guess.

The whole time I was just chuckling to myself as a friend of mine, who will go unnamed nailed an old Belgian women earlier this year. At the time of that accident, myself and the other USA guys could not stop laughing when hearing about the details of his accident. This just goes to point out that across the board no matter what country you are in, you will encounter people that are not the sharpest crayons in the box.

But, back to the whole reason that I was in town, and if you were wondering, the baguette was quite amazing and made a wonderful sandwich. I would have taken a photo of it, but it was just too good to let it sit there idle, even for a few moments.

I was wrong

I lied folks. I am going to be the first one to admit it. I know that a few weeks back I said that nothing would surprise me anymore. Well, I got one upped and well, I am downright shocked. I headed out for a nice couple hour ride this morning, nothing too special other than a few flats. Damn, those sure are happening a lot lately. But the kicker is what I came home to.

















Yes, that is my stuff put outside of my place. I have kept to a 20 minute rule in that I never unpack, I just take out the essentials and then keep everything in its place. What you see is that. Whatever is in little bags is my essentials that were out. Apparently, this next week is a big music festival here in Giverny and the people that own the place where I am staying can make big bucks by renting everything out. Thus, they took my stuff out and put some new higher paying folk in. Yep, you got it. I got the boot. A little bit of heads up would be nice, but that just seems to be too easy. Fortunately, I know someone in town, my director, and will be staying with him for a unspecified amount of time.

To put it frankly, I am feeling like these little guys right now.














I truly feel like that rod that got shafted into me a few weeks back is still in there and I am just along for the ride. I am twisting and twisting around just like these little chickens and someone is just watching to see at what point I am really going to go from raw to done, to really done, to fried. Stay tuned as we venture along this ride. I have no idea at what point it is going to take to get to that fried state, but from here on out, the choices are pretty limitless.

What happened to logic?

Gotta say, Erik is really starting to get tired of stupid french logic that he does not know where to even start. Shall we begin?

Yesterday was set to be a shit show of shit shows. I headed off to do a night time crit (remember that it is dark at night) on cobblestones. Thankfully only half of the course was cobbled, but the other half of the race was on a road under construction. Once I got to the course, I saw nothing in the way of lights on the course, nor did I see the organizers making any attempt to get rid of the cars that were parked on the course. Upon further inquiring I was told to be aware and just swerve around the cars. Nice. Thankfully it was a full moon last night and we had some light from that and some light from all the cafes and bar lining the course, but nothing else in the way of lights. Certainly made it interesting.

For the racing I was pretty content in the fact that I knew most of everyone there and knew that I was stronger than most of them. Schweet. Given what had happened the day before with cars, it was pretty funny to hear people at the start saying "hey, there is no cars to use today." However, this only added fuel to the fire from the emotions of the day before. This is where french logic or lack of really starts to kill me. In the race no matter what I did, there was a plethora of racers that would just follow me, not work, just sit on my wheel. Be it in a breakaway-no working. Be it pulling a break back-no working. Apparently orders are to not work with the American I have been told. We let 2 guys go up the road and with 10 teams in the race, that leaves 8 to pull it back. Nope. The french have this love affair with arriving at the finish solo and not working. Whatever I did on the day, nothing would work. Riders would just try and attack by themselves, flame out come back and try again, again and again. Had they worked with me, they could have had a shot at the win. The worst part is that they probably do not see that at all. And so the day went, lots of yelling, hand gesturing and general mayhem pouring over from the day before. Back stateside this is called negative racing and well, here its just called normal.

My frustration levels are pretty darn high with these people and my reserves that I have to tap into to deal with them are quickly dwindling. But, I was happy to see that the guy who won is a good mate of mine over here and I had no issues with that. The 2 eventually lapped the field and I helped him out a bit in the finale. Next weekend, he and his director said the favor will be paid back. Unfortunately, I got my ass chewed out after the race for this. Apparently, the French can make deals, but I am not allowed to. If I couldn't win on the night, I wanted to at least secure some help in some upcoming races.

Oh and those cars on course. Some people are going to be quite surprised to find some dents in their cars as people traveling at high rates of speed on bikes leave quite a mark when nailing a car dead on. But, I guess that the bright spot might be that it did not rain heavily on us or the night would have been even crazier. Alright, bring on this weekend and some climbs so I can do my thing. And so go another unique race over here.

Busy

Sorry folks, I have been a bit busy lately. Like I had mentioned previously, I was going to be racing on Sunday, Monday and today, Tuesday. I finally have a free couple of minutes to let you know how the past 2 days have gone. This was Sunday. Victory.
















The day was pretty straightforward. There was 1 climb on the circuit for every 8 km's. My plan was just to be at the front all day and I eventually made the break of the day which you can see. Not trusting the others in the breakaway, I eventually attacked by myself with 10 km's to go and just barely got caught after the line. All that matters though is that I won and I am quite pleased with that. But one has to remember to not the highs get you too high nor the inverse of lows get you too low.

On to Monday, and with that little bit of advice in the back of my mind, I set off to do what I could do. Unfortunately, the day was pancake flat and super windy-not my forte. Thankfully though I found the breakaway once again and spent the last half of the race stressed out of my mind. I should have known that the day was going to be hectic when at the start line, we had not yet even began racing yet and everyone was arguing with each other. The minute that the breakaway was established it was game on. Dudes were punching each other, pulling on pockets and general mayhem. I was doing my best to stay as quiet as possible thinking of the win, but I was not immune. I have to say there was one guy just super obnoxious and the center of the ruckus. This dude was super strong, but had caused a few wrecks. With one lap to go, 8 km's again, we had another wreck in our breakaway, cutting it down to 11 guys. We looked back and "knew" that the guys who went down were not going to be getting back to us on their own and we were dialed. Once again, the final 8 kilometers is always full of stress with everyone thinking of the possibility of a win. I was set and with 200 meters to go in the sprint, was passing the guy that was the idiot all day. Without any disregard, before I knew it, he was pushing me farther and farther into the barriers to not let me pass him that he actually wrecked himself out in the corner and forced me to stop. Because of this, I ended up second and not the first that I was in at the time. Damn. But, the best part is that the guy who won, was in the wreck with 8 km's to go. Do the math on that one folks. Everyone in the race cried foul about someone using the cars to get back into the race but the officials would have none of it. This is where the day got real interesting with people yelling, punching, and even more mayhem. The winner is Irish and well, his dad is not doing anything to help the Irish cause. I cannot imagine a time where I had someone straight up get into my face and start yelling at me like that. I was talking with some of the other teams as the directors were speaking with the officials, when the winners' dad came up all raged out and had to be held back. If there is an upside to this, in that 20 minutes, the new words and phrases that I learned are endless. At that moment, there were 2 protests going on but nothing came of them and I ended up second. But, on the plus side, the guy who was trying to wreck me ended up last in break and every team but his team and the winners team congratulated me after the race and told me that I was the real winner. At least a bit of respect is coming. To lose a race in a clean race is one thing, but to lose a race to dirty racing is a whole nother ball game. But, second place is not what I came here for and I am even hungrier now for a win tonight.

On to tonight, I am off to go do a night time criterium. I am pretty excited to get out there and race. Even better yet, I just found out it is on cobbles. huh. this might be interesting.

Not settled

Sorry folks for the tardiness, I have had myself a busy past few days. As you are aware, I had the opportunity to be a house sitter for the past 2 weeks which was great, but I am back at my place now, wait a second, I am not. Why the confusion Erik? Well, funny story guys. So when I went back to go to my place across the village I found out that the people who own the house had rented it out for the next 4 months and that I was going to be going elsewhere. Bam! This has been my fifth different rental residence in Giverny in only 6 months, do the math on that one. The longest that I have rested in 1 place has been 4.5 weeks. So onto the new place. I do not have any photos yet, but I promise they are coming. From what I can tell you it is in the Medieval quarter of Giverny according the the local tourist pamphlet. The building is around 400 years old and I am living in the attic. Bitching. While it may sound bad, it really isn't too bad. Its a bit unique and one just needs to watch their head when walking around. I have a toilet in the closet which is pretty classic, at least it is not a outhouse like one of the places I have been this year had. I did not have to use it, but the fact that it was there was still great. But, it is pretty fun crawling up and down a set of stairs/ladder to get to my room as need be. I am not bummed at all about it though as this is just another aspect of the experience of racing and living over here. This all only serves to make me a better person and grow over time. On that note, if you have a free ten minutes check out this article, it will certainly be worth your time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=general&src=me


Not to let that be my only moving fun, my director and his girlfriend got home on Monday and to my surprise, there was also a large UHaul. Apparently, the parents of Martine, Lionel's girlfriend, sold their vacation house in the southern part of France and since they were down in the South, they loaded everything up to bring North. Given this information, Erik became co porter to help with moving furniture and boxes of just about everything. Thankfully, Lionel had his brother from a few villages over to help out too because this little guy just is not that strong. But hey, I can say come the next day I certainly found some new muscles and could barely walk.

On to more pressing matters, I have found out that starting Sunday, I am going to have 3 days of racing. I will have to drive a bit to get to all of them, but I have 3 more chances to do what I came to Europe for-Race my bike as fast as I can.

And folks, I hit a pretty sad point the other day. Please look at my bottle of good ol' U.S. peanut butter.














Thank god I have a second jar waiting for me in the fridge.

Sour Taste

Where do I begin? Check out this little video, this is what the past 2 weeks have been like for me at home? Where did the warm summer go?








It has been pretty crazy, in July it was upper 20's here and I was even able to bust out a pair of shorts on a few occasions. Now, it has not broken 16 degrees, around 60 degrees and I have essentially put away any short sleeved shirts. Craziness. Everyone is saying how bizarre it is and that September will get better, I hope. It is certainly not fun having lots of stuff wet all the time.

But, on to more important things, what I came to Europe to do, race my bike. Oh yeah, fun times for sure. Headed off to a race today with my teammate. I was pretty darn excited to get to a new area today and I got to pretty much race on the coastline of Normandy. Given all the rain lately, it really felt like I was on the Oregon coast. The only thing that I am missing was some salt water taffy and tillamook ice cream. Yummy. But, back to the racing. I knew that it was going to be super important to be attentive all day long given the fact that it was wet and people would not be all that excited. Thankfully that attentiveness got me into the breakaway in all of about 4 kilometers and bam, things are setting up to be a good day. Little did I know that I was settling in for 3 hours off the front of the race. At times with the wind, it was pretty damn disappointing to look down and see that I was barely going 20 kilometers an hour as hard as we could go into a headwind, man oh man. But, the 7 of us were at least moving and even though we were working pretty poorly together, we were still distancing the field.

Let me give you some background right now. I am racing in the amateur division right now and there is another level above me. I have quite a bit of motivation in my races because I have spoken to a few of the teams above me and they all say that I need 3 more wins to move up to them, well all be damned, I am going to work my tail off to get there.

Back to the race and things are looking pretty. I am at 20 kilometers to the finish and thinking about what I need to do to win this thing when boy, this just got really hard, whats up. I look down and uh oh, I am a bit squishy in that there front wheel. Well damn, I pull off super quick hoping to get a wheel change, remember my director is still on vacation. But, a few guys in the break with me have flatted today and got back into the race, no worries. First car passes me and I look at them but nothing, second car passes and nothing. So goes the process until there are no more cars to look at.

It is at this moment that I realize, no one is going to stop for me and I have just watched my chance of winning this thing ride away from me. I can taste my breakfast as the gut wrenching realization sets in. None of the other teams' cars stopped to help me and I had to wait until the rest of the field caught up to me for help. To try to explain the thoughts that ran through my head in that minute will never be possible. All I can say is that the one minute felt like days. Little did I know, that one teammate had quit the race already after a flat and another had flatted but got back in. With the rain, flats were common today if you haven't noticed. Eventually I rolled in with the rest of the field to finish the day pretty bummed.

So I sit here now at home, I did everything right today, just luck was not on my side. There was nothing I would have done differently. I had a plan, executed it to best that I could, but there isn't anything that can be done about flats. Onto the next race now.

On My Toes

Boy was yesterday a wild ride. Somehow I ended up at a race that I wasn't even planning on being in. Let alone, 300 kilometers away. Lets set the scene, its a good one.

Erik is deep asleep thinking of dry weather (its been raining non stop for last week) and just generally out of it. 7 a.m. rolls around and Erik is awoken to the sound of the phone, who could be calling me at this god awful hour he thinks. Stumbling down the stairs he answers the phone and is surprised to hear the sound of his director. Basically conversation goes like this. Lionel-"Erik, the race that I told you that you were not going to do, now you are. There is a ride that will be picking you up in around an hour, try and get ready." Erik-"oh my god, um, thanks, gotta go." Well, crap, thank god, I did laundry the day before, but my bike is set up for training, not racing. First thing first, stuff some food and lots of coffee down and get bike ready. An hour of running around and I am sorta ready. Did I eat a ton-no, but I will get some bars down in the car.

8 a.m rolls around and alas, my ride shows up and it is a competitor that I know that was visiting some family in the area. I should have expected a unique day when I saw a laptop, numerous maps and general chaos in the car, but hey he is French right, he will know the way. Upon arriving, I am told that he has little idea of where we are going and I need to drive after the first hour so that he can navigate, since after the first hour it is all new territory for him.


What was supposed to be a 3-3:30 hour drive turned into a 4:30 hour drive with a few wrong turns along the way. It was certainly a trip, Alexis nose deep in maps, Erik driving blindly and having absolutely no idea of where he was. Thankfully we got to the race with about an hour to spare and all was well. When I went to get my numbers, I am told that I am not on the start list and that I needed to register earlier in the week. Not knowing that I was even racing that was not possible, but fortunately they ended up giving me numbers, they would not turn down Euros.

Remember how I said that it has been raining for the last week, well mix in heavy rain and these friendly guys and you have a pretty crazy day.













Honest to god, there was a cattle auction going on in town and so naturally the road was covered in cow dung and wet-nice and slick. I was feeling super motivated for the day though and even got myself a decent start position in the first 1/3 of the 160 man field-all was good. Not a minute into the race all that can be heard is the sound of carbon sliding across the road and the moment that sound is heard, the race just goes faster. And so goes the day, a crash happens and whoever is at the front hits it even harder. I was fortunate to make it over an hour before getting caught in a wreck. It was more a matter of luck on the day as many riders much better than I even got caught out. I was fine, but my bike needed some love and there was no love out there for me, there is not much I can do with a bent derailleur. Another DNF on the day and by the end there were only about 25 guys who got to finish the day. I was pretty bummed to have a mechanical happen from a wreck, but such is life. The guy who came to race with me only lasted about 20 minutes before being caught up in the mess.

I am now only a half of the way through the day, as we now need to get back to my hometown, good times. Well, once again, I was driver, he was navigator and he found a "short cut." Ha! Once again, we got ourselves lost and instead of going home the same way, we tacked on another hour onto the drive. We ended up driving by the same beach that I spent my vacation back in June though which was pretty neat. I got home last night around 11 o clock and well, a bit tired from the long day. But, there was one good thing about the drive home last night. I was starving, dinner was going to be a long way off and so I did what I had to do.

































And yes, it was the first burger I have had since America. A big mac here though is like a quarter pounder back home-so disappointing. But it still goes down amazing and I am not one bit guilty about it at all.

And now today, well, I spent the morning getting the bike all squared away. Unfortunately, my local bike shop is on vacation for the next 10 days and totally closed. The whole vacation thing still baffles me here. But, hoping for some more luck to come my way in the next little bit. Sorry for the long post, just another day of living and racing in France. Its always an adventure.

Shafted

Once again, I have been taken, and I most certainly do not like that feeling.

I had myself a fun little race today, about an hour away in a different department than I am living in. We tried our best to make sure that we arrived to the race at a decent hour to give us ample time to get ready and we accomplished that goal. I got my numbers, albeit with a bit of Anti Armstrong rhetoric given the latest accusations against him, I am certainly getting tired of the doping thing. Thankfully I got in a bit of recon on the course and had some idea of how the day was going to go down, but boy was I wrong. Knowing that the course was a little circuit on pretty much a one lane farm road, being at the front was going to be important all day long. I got myself to the start line well ahead of most everyone minus the one racer that I am worried about trying to beat, but at this point Erik is feeling pretty darn good about himself. By now other racers are starting to line up with me and enter Mr. Anti Lance man again, same guy that if you remember earlier in the year did not allow me to start a race because I was not French. He tells me that I cannot start on the front and I must start at the back. I know that this is not right, but no amount of arguing will help. Before I know it I am starting at the back with many other "non" french riders. HUH? It was hands down the weirdest and longest call up I have ever experienced for a race, all riders essentially were put into their place without much order other than personal preference. But hey, at least the other guy I am worried about is somewhat near the back with me, he is from a different department than which the race is being run in also. Thankfully, we are buds and tell each other we need to move up as quick as can be.

As we start the race we do our best to get to front, but take into account a one lane road and 100 guys, it takes a minute or two. Not five minutes into the race we make it on up there to only find that a group is already up the road. Damn!! We take off in pursuit, but for some reason cannot find anyone to help us out, not even our own teammates! After awhile it us just the 2 of us, 30 seconds behind the front group neither making time, nor losing it. As the day went on, we would have people catch up to us, but no amount of pleading for assistance helps. All we get is how much? In terms of how much will you pay me to help, since I am getting paid x amount to not work. Yep, I cannot even pay off teammates to help out, let alone competitors. Given the fact that they have entered into an agreement with someone else and are still looking for more just tells me that they cannot be trusted at all.

Long story short, my friend and I could not close the gap and came in with some other folks. Is it a coincidence that the guy that put select folks in the back also helps with certain races and many of the riders at the front were very talkative with him before and after the race and that many riders in the field were being paid to not work? I think not. What can I do about it, not a damn thing. Am I disappointed? You bet I am. I will just keep doing my best and hopefully it will pay off, there is nothing that one little American kid can do over here to change the system. At least others got the shaft too right-Japanese, American, Polish, and even certain frenchmen from different regions.

Walking the Walk

So far, housesitting has been absolutely great. It must sound weird that I am enjoying having things to do each day, be it taking care of the yard, making sure that all the flowers in the garden get watered or just every day menial tasks. Why is this good you might wonder. Well, frankly, much of this past year over here I have been swimming in my thoughts where much of the time, the success of my day is based on whether or not my training was successful. Something that I have come to find is that with life there are always good days and not so good days, and my legs also adhere to the same principle. Thus, having the chance to do some other stuff has been great.

Though, you had to know one of these were coming right? Well, all year long, I have been on my directors schedule or his girlfriends schedule on getting into town. My little village neither has a bakery or grocery store thus I have to go into "the city" all 20,000 people of it. Bummer part, being that they have been gone all week and will be gone for just under 2 more weeks. Unfortunately, I am certainly missing a few key things in life that I have come to really appreciate.

The first is a car. With this wonderful invention, it is quite easy to get to where I need to be. I neither have one of these over here nor will I use someone elses. So I go onto the second best invention.

While I have my bike, it is quite nice and I would feel pretty horrible just leaving her outside of some store while I am in shopping for an hour or so. The best way to fix this would be to lock it up, but alas, I have no lock, my second key thing.

So, what is Erik left to do to get the ten kilometers to the grocery store. He has two pretty awesome legs to get there right. I can make the trek there in just under 2 hours and get as much as my backpack can fit and make the trek back home, normally that is just a bit over though. Little walks are nice, but I am not a huge fan of these undertakings. It is amazing how 4 hours walking and 4 hours riding can be so different. One is an eternity and one I look forward to all the time. Thankfully though once I have had someone stop and ask if I wanted a ride, that generosity was certainly appreciated. Lets now hope that I can keep on with that luck for a bit.

Solo

Gotta say, really enjoying being alone right now. After a few weeks (4 actually) of living with others, being back by myself is great. It is so much more relaxing and easier to keep everything clean and functioning. No more of the game, where did this or that go? you just know. But for every good thing in life, there has to be something out there keeping it in balance right? Well, let me highlight my train ride back to France the other day.

Get to train station at 2 o clock to get ticket-okey dokey no problems, get TGV ticket from Lille to Paris, women at counter makes note of "long travel day with suitcase and bike huh" (remember this comment she makes). Ticket is for a departure time of 3. Sweet.

2:45 comes and I get on said train, slight problem, there is no bike rack so I sit in the cargo area with my bike. One of the train conductors said no problem.

2:55 Huh, more important train conductor sees said person sitting in cargo area with bike and kicks him off the train. "This is not acceptable, you cannot sit here, you must wait for a later train with bike racks" important man says. Erik then gets to watch the 2 conductors argue over it and eventually the boss wins the argument and the American (me) really loses out, even though there was ample space for me. And remember, the ticket women knew I had a bike and still put me on this train too.

Thankfully, the first conductor takes me to back office and pulls some strings to get me onto the next train an hour later there is a specific bike room, but only catch is that I have 20 minutes to make my connection train in Paris. That is from Paris Nord to Paris St Lazare. He thinks it is possible, but cannot promise anything. I am set to get into Paris at 5:30 with next train leaving at 5:50

4 o clock and I am leaving Lille heading for Paris, schweet.

5:30 comes and goes and I am still on the train trying to get to Paris. We do not eventually get in until 5:45, and my conductor flat out says I will not make my connection and gives me a sheet basically saying "accidents happen, put ticket holder on another train"

What I did not think about though was trying to get from one train station to the other at rush hour in downtown Paris on a Monday night with luggage and a bike. Time from entering Subway to finally exiting-1 hour 15 minutes.

I am now time wise at the time that had I followed my original schedule, would be sitting at home relaxing with a cold beer, but no, I am stuck in a line trying to get a new ticket.

7 o clock and I finally get a ticket to Vernon on a commuter train with a cargo room. I get to stay there with my bike and finally I get into Vernon at 8 o clock, original arrival time-5:40. AWESOME!!

But, alas, all is not done. I still have 6.7 kilometers to go from train station to home. Remember, this is France and July or August are holiday months too. My director is on holiday in southern France, many teammates are gone and unavailable. Where does this leave Erik. Well, he has a suitcase with wheels, a bike, only 1 backpack, and a decent road to get home. Off he goes rolling down the road on his bike with said suitcase rolling next to him. It is not fast, nor is it efficient, but it gets the job done and gives passing motorists something to laugh at. All I am thinking is that there has to be a market for ceramic bearings in suitcase wheels and I need a pair.

But, getting home felt so nice and now I am getting to house sit for my director for 2 weeks. And guess what, that cold beer tasted even better given the circumstances.

HELP!!!!!!!!

Can anyone help me with this problem? The french can offer no solutions and I am without a bike!!!!!!!!!!!

Blah

Yep, blah, that is about what my body was last week. I went up to that race hoping to have a decent ride and never once during the week did I feel ok. That was hands down the hardest and fastest race of my life and well, I came out of it even more tired and trying to comprehend what happened. It is pretty cool though to be racing some of the best pros in the world, even if I am just trying to hold on and finish.

But, I did get the opportunity to visit a new amazing part of France that I had heard about yet never visited. The Alsace region is quite popular for its white wines and boy was it neat to be able to have our hotel nestled in the heart of the vineyards. It would have been even nicer to be able to sample the wines there, but I will have to wait until this week to undertake that task.

Never in my life have I been a part of a race where we had daily team presentations in such picturesque areas nor had the amount of people cheering us on. It is quite amazing that no matter how far back you are they still cheer for you. Way up high in the mountains were tons of hikers and folks cheering on the climbs and it is pretty darn easy to hear the American tourists out there cheering their hearts out. Here are a few select images from last week that should give you an idea of the week that we had. Once heavily dropped on Sunday, I even had my camera with me to get some neat photos. You cannot forget the dance ensemble serenading us to Billy Ray Cyrus's "Achy Breaky Heart" either. CLASSIC

One stroke at a Time

OUCH. That pretty much sums up the race that I am in right now. It is the tour of Alsace and it has 25 teams in which none of them are fluff, well I am feeling like fluff but that is my own issue. The biggest and baddest team here just missed out on riding the Tour de France this year and certainly know what they are doing. Think of them as a big bully and us as little babies with lots of candy. They are going to get a lot of my candy this week, I would say I have lost a lot so far. I know that these hard races will be good for me down the road but they are most certainly not the easiest things to do. I find myself in the state of mind where moving around my tiny french hotel room to go take a shower as a large task where I need to meter out my efforts. I am 3 stages into this race with 3 more to go and well, close to 500 km's to go. I guess that means lots of food and sleep too.

In other news, I have found an amazing part of France to be in. I am located in the Alsace wine region and my hotel is nestled in the mountains in the heart of vineyards. To say where I am is pretty is a large understatement. I have also found what is quite possibly the prettiest city that I have ever been in the world and that would be Strasbourg, France. Internet is really slow right now with everyone on it, so I cannot get any photos up, but trust me, it is amazing. You shall see tomorrow. Alright, off to bed to try and make some legs appear in the morning.

Record button

That was a weekend that is going to give me lots of lessons to take home. Nothing too special happened, the plan was 2 days 2 races and that certainly happened. What was not planned was making some big mistakes on Saturday and watching a race win roll away. Nowadays it seems that with every mistake made, I then go on to make some different mistake down the road. Maybe I will quit making them and everything will click. Instead of a rewind button, I just have the record button to learn from.

Sunday, was a joke. I just did not have legs. A breakaway went, and someone rode me straight off of their wheel getting across to it. That was one of the more humbling experiences and I eventually pulled out. Nuff said, not a good day. But today, Monday is another day and tomorrow is the start of yet another stage race. I am hoping some things start to turn around.

Today is the day that I will be parting ways with the other Americans over here and while it was great to have them around, I can certainly tell that in 3 short weeks, my French is certainly dropping a bit. Here in about 2 hours I am hopping on the train to head up to meet my teammates in Belgium before we head to the Alsace region of France(German border.) I certainly have a long day of travel ahead of me, but nothing compared to the guys' 10 hour plane rides tomorrow. Sorry, that I have such a boring post, with more time I will get some more french anecdotes up and some amazing candid images of typical Normandy folk up here. Needless to say, walking around and checking out the locals will certainly lift your spirits and give you a bit of a moral boost. No promises on Internet this week, but will try my best.

Also to give you a different perspective on life over here check out the blog

http://dylanbikes.blogspot.com/

Go back 3 weeks or so and check out his experiences, you will get a kick.

Taking off again

The time for my American mates is coming to a close unfortunately. I have really enjoyed having some English speakers around for the past 2 and a half weeks as it continues to keep me sane having a bit of a feeling of home around. They will be taking off next Monday to head on back to good ol America the land of some amazing things. Mexican food, burger joints and milkshakes will all be there for their consumption, it is only a few weeks away know for me to be able to partake in such glorious tastes. But, away from the dreaming and back to reality, I just found out that I am also going to be taking off on Monday. Next week I am going to be heading back up to Belgium to meet up with some of the USA guys to go and do another stage race in the Alsace region of France. That would be right by Germany. But, before then I have got myself another few races this weekend and have some intentions of doing something good in them, we shall see.

Getting back to normal daily life here, my ants have finally gone away thank god. I just now have a nasty bleach smell that will not go away in my room, maybe another week and it will I hope. It has certainly been interesting as we have now employed daily spider checks of beds and attire before putting clothes on as the other day I felt something wiggling in my bibs to only find out that I had a big spider in them. I do not think I have been that scared in awhile. I guess that these are just the things that you deal with when living in a home that is some 300 years old. It is quite funny though to walk our yard and take in our house. The ground and walls all have white powder (ant killer) everywhere and if you did not know what it was, it would certainly look a bit suspect. Thankfully, all the local pets are alive and doing fine. Well, sorry but I have to get back to my Tour de France coverage. Today is a pretty important day in the mountains and I can't wait to watch the fireworks. Until later.

Working on it

Apologies for being away for awhile, it has been a hectic last few days. I got the chance to race on Saturday and Sunday and it was a great weekend for the team. Sunday morning a teammate of mine pulled off his first win in over 4 years which was awesome. Nothing special for me, I just rolled around for a few hours in the group and did not do anything worth calling home about. But, it was the first time that I have had the chance to ride with the other US riders that have come over and that was certainly fun. On a side note, one of the riders, Marcel did not really get to race too much, mid race on Sunday his shifter just fell apart and it fell off of his bike. Somehow he was left to ride the race in 1 gear. Unfortunately for him, most everything is closed on Sunday and Monday in France and having a race on Monday meant that his bike was not going to be fixed. He was certainly frustrated to not be racing since he came here to do that, but we got his bike into the shop and he will be all set for the upcoming weekend.

On to Monday and once again, we had ourselves a good day. Did we win, No. Am I bummed about that you bet I am. We had both myself and Dylan in the race and we were both in positions to do well all day, but we just made some mistakes along the way. Did the race provide opportunities to learn from our mistakes, you bet that it did. But, Dylan Jones pulled off a third place finish on the day which is great and I rolled in for a sixth place finish. I am really happy for Dylan and we even pulled off the top team placing on the day as an added little bonus. That mean a nice trophy for our director and a few euros for the riders-SWEET!!! Losing a race is never fun, no matter how it happens, but it is much easier to lose a race to people that are just plain faster than you. But to lose a race by making critical errors is quite difficult to swallow. Every day I am reminded that I have much to learn in this sport and I just hope to continue working on it. Now we have a few days easy before a big weekend of racing coming up.

Bastille Day

Not the day I was looking for. I have been having the opportunity to enjoy nice, clear sunny days every day here in Normandy now for close to 2 weeks. That horrible spring time weather has departed, folks are taking vacations to the beach and summer is in the air. What a splendid time. Yesterday I awoke to dark, ominous layer of clouds hanging over France. Not an hour later, she decided to open up on race day, but of course. As the time got closer to my departure for the race, the sound of thunder could be heard and lightning seen, but still I prepared. Upon arriving at the race my vision was limited to 50 meters because of the heavy rain. On any other day, motivation for the field would be low, but not on this day, the day of days in France. Every single Frenchman wants to win and every non Frenchman wants to beat them. It was not to be for the latter.

With the heavy rain, wrecks abounded quite frequently and not an hour into the day, we got to experience a stretch of cobblestones in the rain as we raced through of the of umpteenth towns we went through. Like I have said numerous times, common sense is quite limited and especially on this day, every riders sense of risk taking hits a new level. On that cobblestone stretch, I went down with around 40 other guys. Trying to brake on the wet pave reminded me of trying to ice skate, no matter what I did, the wheels would just slide out and compound that to a whole peloton of riders and you have a cluster of a time. Thankfully I came out ok, just sore, but not missing my teeth from trying to eat a cobble or any number of other injuries. That one dude was messed up, he looked like he came out of some horror film. Later when all was settled, the rest of the race who did not wreck were close to ten minutes up and we who had wrecked were pretty much out of the running. Thankfully, the race was neutralized and we got back to them to have a second start which was pretty unique, I have experienced 2 races now in one season where I had to have 2 starts in a day and never once in my life before had I had to do that.

But, it was not my day as more and more wrecks kept happening as the other riders common sense in the rain was turned off. I ultimately pulled the plug, cut my losses thankful that I neither broke any equipment or bones on the day, something many others could not say.

The highlight of the day I must say was seeing the flyover in Vernon from the French Air Force.
I am convinced that this is the whole of the French Air Force too. But, regardless it was cool to see.