Archive for December, 2008

Stage 8, Macao

Posted by: Mark on December 21st, 2008 in Racing with tags , with no comments

The Final stage of the 2008 Tour of South China Sea started at the base of the Macao Tower.  Do you remember the good old days of Las Vegas?  OK, maybe not the good OLD days, but like 20 years ago when the Stratosphere was brand new and still super cool?  Well, the Macao Tower is the Stratosphere…almost identically.  Yep, they could very well have loaded that big spike onto a chopper, hauled it over the Pacific and planted that sucker in China.  Don’t be too surprised though.  Macao is rapidly becoming Las Vegas…only better.

As I said, the race started at the base of the Macao Tower and headed across a tall-ass bridge onto Coloane Island for 11 km.  This was a neutral start; kind of a final parade lap sort of thing.  The race got going for real at the base of a mountain…which was really a big hill, but we won’t split hairs.  For the first time the boys had a day with some climbing in it.  The course was 10 laps of a 6.3 km circuit around the base of the mount.  It was up and down all day with the finish coming as a 2.2 km HC climb up to the summit of the “hill” they’d been circling all day.  Since every other stage had been flat and therefore relatively uneventful, it might be nice for a change to have a break that stuck.  Or maybe not.  It had been a long week and it seemed as though everyone wanted to save some energy for the final climb. Gavi and 2 other guys tried to get a gap with 5 laps left, but the other 2 didn’t want to work.  It lasted about 2 1/2 laps before getting swallowed up again.

I will say that I never would have expected a climb of 2.2 km to create such huge time gaps.   The peloton was together as they started that final ascent.  The road climbed almost straight up for 1k, then leveled off for .2k before going straight up again to the finish.  The winner was a guy from Portugal followed closely by the youngster from Australia who would win the Under 23 Jersey.  Although this day would be a great opportunity to gain some big time on the Yellow jersey, it was not to be.  Xu Gang finished the day in third position and would hold on to win the race overall.  Alberto managed a top 10 finish, but…well…lets just say that the rest of the gang didn’t fair so well on the climb.

Alberto Blanco finished the race in 7th place overall.  Gavriel Epstein was the next highest finisher overall in 31st place followed by Brian Butts in 32nd,  Vladimir Esteves in 65th, and our very own Chad Butts in 75th.

After the race we all headed back to the hotel for some lunch and a shower.  Then it was time to pack up the bikes and get everything ready to head home.  We would be spending the night and leaving early i the morning. But that also meant that we still had some time left in Macao.  You know, the place that’s like Las Vegas only better.  The race organizers had a victory dinner in the evening where trophies were handed out and everyone clapped for the winners and blah, blah, blah.  Then Chad, Brian and I hit the casinos!  Well, Casino, actually.  We only went to one place, the Grand Lisboa.  What a phenomenal place!  The casino wasn’t nearly as large as those in LV, but from my experience, it paid out a lot heavier.  We mostly played Blackjack all night, with a bout of Roulette in between.  I won and lost and won and lost most of the evening, and eventually was down to my last 2 chips.  I threw them down on one last hand of Blackjack and won it.  So I left it all on the table…and won again.  Left it there again and so on and so on and so on and the next thing I knew I was up to $4600!  Now I’m not he sharpest tool in the shed, but I know when to quit.

After a short cab ride back to the Hotel it was time to hit the sack and call and end to this little vacation.  It’s a long way home from here.

Stage 7, Zuhai

Posted by: Mark on December 20th, 2008 in Racing with tags , with no comments

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Sitting on the bus this morning cruising to the race site I took a really cool picture of the skyline at sunrise.

Yep, that’s smog alright!

Todays race is on a Grand Prix road race course in the city of Zuhai.  The course itself is kind of a big Pi looking symbol with the top being a long straightaway to the Start/Finish.  Since this is a completely closed Car racing course it was sure to be a hard day for the guys.  Nice, wide lanes and broad sweeping corners with a perfectly smooth surface–it was going to be a fast one.  The pack would be completing 25 laps on this 4.3 km circuit.

Yep, it was definitely a fast day.  Nothing could get away.  A few breaks got up to 20 second leads, but all got reeled back in as soon as the Peloton decided to.  On the second to last lap a group of 15 or so did manage to get a large enough gap that they held on for the finish.  They only gained a couple of seconds overall and no one in that group was a threat.  Our guys did about the same as previous days.  Vladimir came in 6th this time and Alberto was right behind him.  No real change in the overall standings though.

The only real rough spot on the day was during the feed laps. Because this was a GP course the lane was like 4 lanes wide.  this made handing off musettes a bit of a chore.  All the crews would line up along the road and try to inch out onto the course to make sure they could be seen by their riders.  Sounds fair, right?  Well, the problem was that by the time you got to the end of the row, the support crews had echeloned out onto the course far enough to cause a funnel-stye traffic jam.   The race Marshals tried to reign things in, but bless there little hearts…those little Chinese folks didn’t really stand a chance.  Nobody crashed, but there were lot of close calls.

After the race we all boarded our respective buses and headed for the last city on our tour-Macao.

Macao is another independent nation that is contained within China–Like Hong Kong.    It’s a pretty cool place, except…

Just like any other time you cross the border into another country, you have to go through customs and immigration.  Now normally this means standing in a long line, then showing your Passport and Visa and then you go ahead and cross over to the other side.  Easy enough for most of our team, but not for Vladimir.  You see, he’s Dominican.  And for whatever political reason Dominicans need a special visa to enter Macao.  He didn’t know this.  So after he went through customs, he got nabbed by an immigration Cop and disappeared for a while.  Long story short, after an hour or so he got his visa and we all finally got to go to the Hotel.

Chad, Brian, Gavi and I all went to a (chinese) restaurant that was near the Hotel.  We wanted to try a little local fare since tomorrow was the last day.  We found a seat and ordered…uhh…a bunch of food. The waitress didn’t speak english and we obviously had no Chinese skills.  the menu was kind of in English, but…well, you’ve seen Chinese menu’s in the US right?  You can imagine our confidence level as the food started to arrive.  Since most of the food over there doesn’t visually resemble anything over here, you have to just take a bite and let your taste buds decide.  It was all pretty harmless and delicious.  So far I still haven’t had anything that was too nasty.  I admittedly have stayed away from the things that looked or sounded inedible.  But there’s always tomorrow!

Stage 6, Zhongshan

Posted by: Mark on December 19th, 2008 in Racing with tags , with no comments

Yet another beautiful day in China.  If it makes you feel any better, it was a little windy today.  And I think I got a sunburn   Hehehehe.

The race organizers have developed and annoying little habit lately of making us get up earlier than originally planned to travel to the next town.  I’m usually an early riser anyway, but leaving early means we get to the race early.  The last two days we’ve arrived at the start 2 hours before race time.  1 hour is fine.  1 1/2 hours is even OK, but 2 hours early is too much time.  Especially since we had to get up at 6 am in order to get there 2 hours early.

The coolest thing that happened today,was that the local grade school let the kids out to come watch the race.  There were around 300 kids (my best guess) sitting on the curb watching the start.  Before that they wandered around the pit area and spoke all the English they knew.  Which was “Hello… how are you…I love you”  I brought a couple of Cadence cycling caps with me for just such an occasion and handed them out to the first 5 hands that I saw.  They loved it!

The course today was 5 laps on a 23 km circuit.   The action got started pretty early on.  A guy from the Portuguese team went off the front at about the 5 km point and our man Chad Butts went with him followed by one other guy… from China, I think (but I’m not sure).  None of these guys were much of a threat to challenge for the overall lead, so the Peloton let them go.  At its best, the group gained a 1 minute advantage.  It was definitely a long day for Chad.  His group was able to stay out in front for four laps before the pack decided to reel them in.  Just after the start of the 5th lap, they got caught.  And to rub a handful of salt into that wound…just after Chad rejoined the field he flatted.  We got his wheel changed, but he had to ride most of the last lap all by himself.  The one saving grace to his effort was that he won 1 intermediate sprint and took 2-2nd place finishes.  He gained some sprint points, but ended up losing like 6 minutes time to the leaders.  Oh well, that’s bike racing.  There were a lot of flats out there today.  We were lucky and only had one, but I know of at least 2 guys who had 2 flats each.  There were probably 15 punctures today.  Chads was a staple, I dunno what the others were.

On a happier note, Vladimir took 6th in the finishing sprint and Alberto came in 18th.  Overall we have 3 guys in the top 25 and we have looked very good all week.  Only two days left, but I’m sure the guys will give it all they’ve got.

Sorry to be so short the last two days (yeah, I know, I’m short every day), but it has been a very long couple of days.  I’m doing my best here, but I’ll have to expand on some of these stories after I get back.  Thanks for reading!

Stage 5, Guangzhou

Posted by: Mark on December 18th, 2008 in Racing with tags , with no comments

I know it’s cold and crappy in New York, and I don’t want to sound like I’m just rubbing it in, but the weather here is absolutely gorgeous!  Today was another prime example of the way it ought to be for a bike race.  Warm, but not hot.  Sunny, but not oppressive.  A gentle breeze, but not enough to make for a difficult race.  Kind of like southern California but without Paris Hilton… or any of the other grotesque obnoxiousness.

We had another 1 1/2 hour bus ride to the start of todays race.  We must be getting used to because it wasn’t too bad.  The race course today was 25 laps of a 4.3 km circuit.  The road was shaped a lot like a guitar.  The majority of the course was kind of hour glass shaped, but the last 1/4 was the “neck” of the guitar with two long parallel straightaways.  The “pit” was on the first stretch up the neck.  In the center of this “guitar” was a small man-made lake and a giant, open-air stadium for the University that was nearby.

It would turn out to be a very fast day.  I don’t know what the average speed was, but it was fast.  This made it very difficult for any beaks t get away.  Of course, there were many attempts, but nothing succeeded.  Brian was in a 3-man break that stayed away for a few laps before getting reeled back in.  They were out there during the last Intermediate Sprint which Brian came in 2nd.  Nice job, Brian!

Gavi was in a larger group that got away for a lap or two but they eventually came back to the Peloton.

There were several other pretty weak attempts, but they never had a chance.  So the finish came down to a bunch sprint again.  When the group came past me in the pit on the last lap Alberto was sitting in pretty good position towards the front of the field.  He would eventually arrive in the top 20 again.  Vladimir was our highest finisher today taking 5th place in the sprint.

Overall we are looking pretty good.  Alberto is in 5th place, 21 seconds behind the leader. With his nice finish today, Vladimir moves into the top 20.  The rest of the squad is mixed in with the Peloton at 1:40 behind the leader.

The good news is that the race itself went off without a hitch!  We must have used up all the freak events yesterday.

Stage 4, Foshan (How do you say “Cluster Fuck” in Cantonese?)

Posted by: Mark on December 17th, 2008 in Racing with tags , , with no comments

Wow!  So far everything has been pretty well organized.  This is a UCI race and the people of China as well as the organizers have been fantastic over the first three days of this race.  Day four would prove to be a very different story.  It started off on the wrong foot.  The race organizers decided at the last minute to change a few key aspects of the race…and didn’t really tell everybody.  First, the schedule of events for the day was bumped up by 30 minutes. So a lot of people had to slam down breakfast and hurry to get all their stuff packed instead of going about thing is the usual way.  Then, we had a 2 hour bus ride to the start.  Once we got there things got really interesting.  The buses parked in the parking lot and let us off about a half mile from the pit area.  So we had to walk with all of our gear over to the pit.  OK, no big deal, right?  Well first you need to know that today was a road race, not a Criterium or Circuit race.  The difference is that I didn’t go over to the support “pit” and wait for the riders to cruise past.  Instead, each team would be supplied with a car so we could follow along and hand out food, offer advice and provide mechanical support.  Sounds easy enough but it didn’t turn out that way.  The team cars were back in the parking lot where the buses dropped us off.  After we lugged all the gear over to the pit, we had to lug it all back to the team cars.  Yeah, yeah, boo-hoo.

But wait, there’s more.  The race was ready to begin but none of the team personnel were matched up with their cars.  We finally did get that part sorted out, but once we were all in the cars and ready to roll, everyone noticed that the gas tanks were empty.  Are you F***ing kidding me?  The riders just left the starting line and now all 22 cars have to drive around town on fumes looking for a gas station.  No, I’m not making this up.  OK, I’ll skip the details of trying to keep together a string of 22 vehicles being driven by people from all over the world through some crazy-ass Chinese traffic.  I hope that the phrase “Chinese Fire-Drill” will conjure up a close enough mental image.  We did get the cars fueled up…eventually.  Now we had a much more significant problem.  How do we get to the race course from where we were?

One of the really nice things about a race of this magnitude is that they close the streets to traffic while the race is going on.  So here we are, 22 cars stuck in a traffic jam that was caused by the very race we were trying to get to.  Meanwhile, the riders are getting further and further away from where we need to be.  Again, I can’t quite find the words to describe the complete chaos that ensued .  But trust me, your imagination isn’t nearly enough.   So I’ll go ahead and skip to the point in the story where we DO meet up with the race…which has stopped to wait for us.  The riders were stopped on a bridge for nearly an hour while the team cars tried to navigate through city traffic.  Once everything was all set and everything was ready to roll, the race started again.

Oh, but don’t worry, the weirdness was nowhere close to over with yet.  One of the other technical matters that changed without appropriate notice was the fact that the 4 intermediate sprints on the day had been trimmed down to 2 intermediate sprints and neither of these was in the same location as any of the original spots.  I’m trying to follow the race program to call out important race info over the radios to our riders and none of that info was accurate.  Of course, I didn’t know this yet, but I would find out when the third sprint came and went without anything happening.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any…OK, maybe you’ll believe that it gets much, much worse.  It was a hard day for the riders.  105 km and it was all on a Belt line freeway around the city of Fo Shan that was closed down for the event.  The course was 4 lanes of wide open road that was elevated and completely exposed to the elements.  It was a beautiful day, but the guys had no shade and no escape from the gentle breeze.  There wasn’t really a lot of climbing, but then again, you’ve all driven on a freeway.   You know how overpasses are and just how generally sweeping up and down and right and left the road is.  Can you imagine racing on that course?  It was hard and fast and I felt sorry for the guys today.  Especially when you consider what happened at the finish.  No, not a giant pile up that took out half of the field, something much worse than that.  Coming into the finishing stretch the race was supposed to make a right turn, go down about a quarter mile then make a U-turn and come back that quarter mile to the finish line.  The lead car…and therefore all the riders…made a wide, sweeping turn and ended up cruising under the finish banner instead of making the extra lap.  Again, chaos ensued because nobody know whether to keep going and then turn around or stop because the race was over or what!  after about 20 minutes of deliberation the officials decided to neutralize the field and give everyone the same time.  What?  After the day everyone had they decided to basically say that it didn’t count… everything stays the same as yesterday.  UUUUGGGGHHHHH!

Stage 3, Dongguan

Posted by: Mark on December 16th, 2008 in Racing with tags , with no comments

You may have noticed these entries have been getting shorter and shorter a the days go by.  Well, that’s because we have been doing a lot of traveling and other stuff that takes up a lot of time.  I have had less and less opportunity to write each day.  I’ll do my best though…

Beautiful day for a bike race.  Sunny and warm, but not hot and just a hint of a breeze.  We got the bikes loaded onto the truck for the 2 hour journey from Shenzhen to Dongguan.  It was a nice drive through the countryside that ended up in the most Post-modern looking city I’ve ever seen.  Nearly every building we saw looked like it shouldn’t be built for another 30-40 years.  They were all glass and steel and curvy and Spaceship-y.  It was really cool!

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The race started a bit trickier then the previous 2 stages.  after the opening straightaway, the circuit turned right onto a big arcing, slow curve that had 2 speed bumps in it.  Yes, I said speed-bumps. One of the guys from the Chinese National team crashed on the first one.  He was OK, and got back up right away and eventually caught back on.   This race was 30 laps of a 3.3 km course.  The were a few small breaks  early that looked like they might have a chance, but no.  At lap 18 a group of 22 managed to get a lead of 1:15.  The Race leader is on the Chinese team and they had 2 guys in the breakaway.  The rest of the team was slowing the pack down trying to let them open up.  This one almost stayed away, but…The Champion System team didn’t have anyone in the break.  Chad, Gavi, Alberto and Vladimir worked their asses off to chase that break down.  It only took 4 laps to kill off the minute-plus lead.  Great job guys!  Brian did the best he could today but he was also battling the flu.  He did a lot of work early in the race, but the last half he just tried to hang on.  A couple laps later Alberto and 10 other guys made another strong move.  This time, nobody had the energy or the will to chase it down. With 3 laps left it was obvious that the pack was content to let this break take the win.  Alberto did a great job of making the break work, but rested a a lot during the last couple of laps to get ready for the sprint.  China again had 2 guys in the break and on the last lap they sent one guy off the front to see if they could either steal the victory or at least fatigue all the others for the sprint.  Well, it worked…kind of.  the solo rider couldn’t get away from Alberto and a couple of others.  It came down to a sprint finish with the Other Chinese guy taking the win and Alberto coming in 3rd and gained 1:40 on the Peloton.  He had a great day today.  Overall he’s sitting in 4th position only 17 seconds behind the overall leader.

Stage 2, Shenzhen

Posted by: Mark on December 15th, 2008 in Racing with tags , with no comments

Bright and early start to the day.  I had to get up early to get the bikes unwrapped from the previous days shipping.  I got up before breakfast to do this, because right after breakfast we had to send the bikes to the Start/Finish line which was an hour bus ride away.  After the bikes got loaded on the trucks for the haul, we all got onto our assigned buses for the trip.  I will say, that the Chinese really go all out for this event.  From our hotel to the race site we had a police escort.  I don’t mean that a cop car drove out in front of us, I mean that there were like 10 cop cars and they shut down the entire route.  Every intersection had a cop there blocking traffic.  The whole way!

This is one big-ass city.  Around 8,000,000 people! (I coulda wrote 8 million, but the numerals makes it look like more)  And Shenzhen is only a smallish sized city, by Chinese standards.  As I said, it was about an hour drive, but we never left Shenzhen.  Anyway, we eventually arrived at the race site.  Pretty weird looking area to have a race.  The roads were nice and wide and in good condition.  I guess that’s why they chose the site.  It’s in a newly developing “suburb” a mix of out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere kinda scenery combined with HUGE new apartment complexes right up to the edge of nowhere.  You know, that’s another thing I’ve noticed about this place…Stuff is either Enormous or tiny, there’s no in between.  All of the building are gigantic, but all the stuff inside of them is tiny.  I guess that’s what you gotta do when there’s 2 billion of you.  The course itself was a nice size and design.  It was 4.4 km and shaped like a big “T”.  The Start/Finish line was at the bottom end with the Top crossing a drainage canal that stuuuuuuuunk!  It smelled like it was an open air sewer, which it probably was. the “water” was black and you could only see about an inch down.  So far that has been the only really disgusting thing I’ve seen here.  It was so out of character for the area we were in, strange.

The race started without a hitch.  The team from the City of Perth, Australia attacked with a different guy each of the first 6 or 8 laps.  All of these attacks failed, but they did succeed in stringing things out quite a bit.  One attack did last long enough to earn him a win in one of the intermediate sprints, though.  Chad rode a pretty good race, so did Brian.  Both of them got into a couple of the early breaks and looked like they had a shot at staying out, but eventually got reigned back in.  Gavi felt better today.  He said his legs still aren’t quite there, but the cold he had yesterday seems to have fled.  Alberto rode pretty conservatively for the first half of the race, but spent the second half up in the front.  He finished in 5th place.  Vladimir moved around a lot, but stayed in the middle to the front all day and finished 6th.  It seemed like there was an attack that looked good almost every lap, but nothing could get more than a 10 second lead before it got pulled back.  The Chinese national team is wearing the leaders jersey and they sat on every break and wouldn’t let anything get away.  It made for a pretty fast race, but nothing had a chance of getting any real gap.

After the first 2 stages, Alberto is our highest placed rider.  He’s in 8th place sitting 21 seconds back.

Stage 1, Hong Kong

Posted by: Mark on December 14th, 2008 in Racing with tags , with no comments

Most of us still seem to be experiencing some jet lag.  We all go to bed by 10 p.m., but for some reason we wake up at around 4 am every morning.  Which kind of sucks because than we’re tired and ready for bed at like 8.  We force ourselves to stay awake hoping that we will be able to sleep longer that way.  So far that idea hasn’t worked.  We got up and had breakfast this morning and discussed a bit of strategy for the race.  breakfast consists of Hard Boiled eggs, pasta, rice, pancakes, french toast and fruit plus coffee, tea and orange juice.  the race starts at 9 am so we eat fast and then got everything ready for the start.  Thankfully the Start/Finish line isn’t far from the hotel and the “Pit” is only about a block away.  Good, ‘cuz don’t feel like lugging around my tools and spare wheels all over the place.  The buses and trucks that are here to transport the teams to the S/F and pit areas aren’t very reliable.  I waited for 30 minutes for a bus to take me to the pit area before I learned that it was a block away.

It looked like a fast course today.  A big rectangle (about 2 km) with 4 corners and 2 long straightaways.  There was a slight breeze which made for a tailwind into the finishing stretch.  The pit was opposite the S/F line on the back stretch.  The front and back stretch came up and down a river and then crossed 2 bridges in between.  it was completely flat and pretty wide open.  I could see the S/F line form the Pit, but could hear the roar of the crowd as they came thru.  Oh well. that’s what race radios are for.  The race was 36 laps with intermediate sprints on laps 8, 16 and 24.  Alberto wanted to go for the first Sprint to find out who the fast guys were and test out the course for the finish.    The race started without a hitch.  Brian and Chad did their parts to chase down some early breaks while Alberto get himself in position for the first Sprint.  The field had slowed up a bit coming out of turn #2 and Brian was already in the lead position with a small gap, so Alberto bridged up to him and went for the sprint.  he stayed out through turns 3 and 4, but got caught coming up the finishing stretch.  he held on for 4th place, but definitely went too soon.  oh well, that’s why he went for the first sprint, to size up the field and figure out the best tactic for the finish.

The next 24 laps went by pretty fast.  Lots of break attempts but nothing successful until lap 25.  A group of 4(2 from HSBC, 1 from China and 1 from ?) got a 30 sec. lead and held it for the rest of the race.  Brian and Alberto were two of the most aggressive at bringing them back, but the teams involved were happy to let those 4 sort it out for the win.  the lead never got below 20 sec. before jumping back up to 30 sec. at the finish.  The guy from China took the win while HSBC and ? finished off the podium spots.  Alberto was the highest placer for us at 10th, followed by Brian at 14th and Vladimir came in 21st. Chad and Gavi finished with the pack and got the same time.

After the race we all headed back to the hotel to pack everything up.  We had to check out of the hotel and pack all the bikes into a big container for shipping to Shenzhen, China.  Packing up was easy, getting from Hong Kong to China was not so much.  It was about an hour bus ride to the border where we all had to get off the bus, collect all of our luggage and other gear and proceed on foot through customs.  We had to carry all this crap for at least 1 km while standing in a huge line.  Customs wasn’t too bad.  None of us got pulled aside and strip-searched or anything like that.  After we all cleared customs we got back onto the bus and drove the rest of the way in to Shenzhen.

China is very different form Hong Kong.   For one thing, In HK most of the signage was written in both Cantonese  and English so it was pretty easy to get around and figure out what was going on.  Not here!  Bye, Bye English.  Some of the people we’ve met so far speak some Engrish, but not many, and there are no english “sub-titles”.  This should be interesting.  I can foresee a lot of pointing and gesturing over the next week or so, followed by lots of blank stares.

The bikes that we packed onto the truck earlier in the day arrived safely at the Guest House where we will be staying.  It’s just a hotel, but the rooms are smaller and the beds are hard as a rock.  Should be good for my back though, right?

Chad, Brian, Andrew and I went off to get some Chinese money and wander around until Dinner was served.  That gave us about 30 minutes.  Just enough time to get some cash and then get lost.  Not entirely, but we did have to stop and look around and ask each other… OK, the hotel is over that way, right?  I think it’s an understatement to say that there are a shit-load of people in this city.  It’s like trying to walk around Times Square on New Years Eve!  We did eventually make it back to the Hotel and had dinner with the rest of the team.  It has been a long day it’s time to get some sleep. See you tomorrow.

Recovery/Acclimation Day

Posted by: Mark on December 13th, 2008 in Racing with tags , , with no comments

Delightful news!  A good nights sleep works wonders, if you didn’t already know that.  I woke up around 7 am to a phone call from Gavi saying that he and everyone else was downstairs eating breakfast.  So I got up, put my pants on and headed to get some grub.  We were all pleasantly surprised to find out that Andrew made it in last night.  He took a different flight than the rest of us, but he did arrive safely while we were all fast asleep.  After breakfast we split up.  The riders all went for a training ride up the bike path to an industrial park where they could do some hard, fast loops to open the legs up after the flight.  Andrew and I went with Louis, the owner of Champion Systems, on a little field trip. Louis had to stop by his office for a few things so Andrew and I wandered around the streets near his office killing time until he was done.  We found an open air market end wandered around looking at all the freakish looking fish and other animalia hanging from hooks.  Some were dried, some were fresh, some were still alive.  Most of the fruits and vegetable looked good.  Most of it I could identify; apples, oranges, carrots, the usual suspects.  But there was this thing that looked like a Giant cucumber.  When I say giant i mean like 8 inches in diameter and 2 feet long.  Then there was the Dragon Fruit.   I don’t really even know how to describe it.  Google it and maybe they’ll have a picture.  The guy said it tasted kind of like a Kiwi.  I don’t know if he meant the fruit of the bird.

Louis finished his meeting and we hopped back into his Porsche Cayenne and headed for a bike shop that he likes.  I needed to get s few supplies and besides, How many chances will I get to visit a bike shop in Hong Kong?  The shop was called Flying Ball Bicycles.  After talking to a few other people around I found out that Flying Ball is THE bike shop in HK.  I don’t mean that it’s the only shop, they are all over the place.  But if you are looking for high-zoot Road and MTB race equipment, then this is definitely the store for you.  It reminded me of a lot of shops in new York.  Not much square footage, but tons of stuff packed in everywhere.  only the stuff in this place was the same kind of high-tech, high-priced primo equipment that we sell at Cadence.  They had a Storck built up with an assortment of parts–Sram Red, Caletrava cranks, Lew wheels, etc. this thing weighed 12 lb.’s, was totally rideable and sod for $180,000 HK.  Which is about $24,000 US.  Sweeeeeeeet!  I need to buy some liquid-type supplies because all my chain lubes and degreasers and stuff got confiscated when my bags went thru customs.  Apparently they are contraband because they are skin irritants.  whatever…So I bought some Pedro’s Road Rage, some Park Chainbrite and a bad-ass Top Tube protector (for my singlespeed).  I also needed to borrow their compressed air.  Chad is running Tubeless tires on his Ksyriums.  Normally they hold air just fine, but if you let all of the air out then they lose the seal and you need a quick burst of air to reset the bead.  You can’t do this with a floor pump.  I’m glad Louis knew this place, otherwise I would have had to switch his tires to a standard setup.  Not the end of the world, but He (and I, too) was looking forward to some real world testing of the Tubeless system in race conditions.  I will be sure to write a special report on their effectiveness later on.

The boys finished their ride and we all met up again around noon and headed out for lunch.  we walked a few blocks to the Sha Tin New Town Plaza.  This term is a euphemism for …Mall.  Except for all the short people walking around this was your typical US Mall, complete with Popcorn and Cookie stores.  There was, of course, a Starbucks and even a Shakey’s Pizza and since we are in the middle of December, a huge Christmas Tree in the center of the Mall.  I didn’t see a Santa Clause taking down lists from good little boys and girls, but christmas if definitely a big deal here in Hong Kong. There are Lights and Christmas decorations everywhere.  We had lunch at this huuuuuge Dim Sum place on the top level of the “Plaza”.  Maxim, I think it was called.  Most of have already adopted to eating strategy of…take a bite first, then ask what it is.  So far everything I’ve eaten has been really good.  But if I’d known what some of these things were first, I never would have tried them.  I’ve never been much of a fish man.  I can eat sushi sometimes, if I’m at a nice, reputable restaurant.  I just can’t do grocery store sushi, I’m sorry.  And I know how dumb this sounds, but I don’t like fish that tastes…fishy.  You know what I mean.  So far I’ve eaten a  lot of stuff that I would never order in New York.  We finished lunch and split up again.  Gavi wasn’t feeling too well, and Alberto and Vladimir wanted to take a nap, so they headed back to the Hotel.  Chad, Brian, Andrew and I took a train and then a ferry out to Hong Kong Island Center.  This is the “Downtown” part if Hong Kong.  It’s like going to 5th Avenue in New York.  We wandered around for a while, did a little shopping and headed back just in time to get another good nights sleep.

Flight from New York to Hong Kong

Posted by: Mark on December 12th, 2008 in Racing with tags , , with no comments

I love how a city of 12 million people can be so desolate at 4 am.  I hopped into the Crown Vic. this morning (I called a car service the night before) and headed to JFK to arrive by 4:30.   30 minutes from Lower Manhattan to JFK.  Try that at rush hour!  2 1/2 hours early should be plenty of time to make my do flight, right?  Right.  I assumed that there would be a hiccup or two along the way and was not disappointed to find out that it was going to cost me an extra $350 to check my nice big box full of tools, repair stand, pump, wash bucket, etc.  Ok, I was prepared for an extra charge, but $350?  Just in case you’ve never had the pleasure, the kindly folks who are employed by the airline to man the baggage check-in counter at 5 am are generally not impressed by a not-so-sob story coming from a short, fat, balding, almost 40 year old dimwit.  But alas, this one was.  I didn’t get her name.  She wasn’t wearing a name tag and I wasn’t about to ask any questions that weren’t absolutely necessary.  However, she let me in on a little secret…if I took out the heaviest thing in the box and checked that by itself, then I would have to pay for the extra bag, but not the overweight box.  So instead of $350, it only cost me $125.  Sweet!  Now I had enough cash leftover for an egg and cheese croissant from the food court.

So, this isn’t a direct flight from JFK to Hong Kong.  We had to stop in San Francisco first.  I’ve never been San Francisco, but that’s another story.  It goes without saying (I would hope) that the trip from New York to China is a long one. But man, 6 hours just to get to California?  Oh well, it is what it is.  I read the “Hemispheres” Magazine that United is so kind as to supply, flipped thru the Emergency procedure pamphlet, dozed off a few times and generally did all I could to kill off the time.  YES, brought a book with me and YES, I had my computer and YES, I had my iPhone.  But the flight from SF to HK is over 14 hours and I didn’t want to use all my good time wasters while I was still over US soil.  As far as I could tell, San Francisco is nice.  It looked pretty cool as we flew in and the 1/2 hour we spent in the airport was painless.  But that’s about all I have for ya on that.  Maybe I’ll make it back someday and form a different opinion.

A Boeing 747 is a big-ass plane.  I know they’ve been around since the 70′s and I’ve flown in them several times.  But it’s still a freakin’ huge piece of machinery!  We all boarded the plane Ok.  At least I think we did.  I’m sitting on the plane right now as I write and none of us knows where Andrew Kozak is.  Chad, Brian, Gavi, Vladimir and Alberto are all accounted for, but we don’t know where Andrew is.  The last we saw him was before we boarded the plane.  The rest of us had our seat assignments, but he did not.  We boarded and haven’t seen him since.  I hope he didn’t get left standing at the window, tears rolling down his face, screaming “Nooooooo, Don’t leave meeeeeeee”.  I’ll let you know how it turned out when we get there.  Now as you recall I said we “Boarded” the plane on time.  I didn’t say the flight left on time.  For some reason this big-ass 747 was overweight.  Yeah, yeah, go ahead, make your jokes about the fat, bald guy.  But seriously, the plane was overweight, so they had to…uhhh…syphon off some fuel to get the weight down.  I had the mental image of ole’ Billy Bob with his bib overalls suckin’ on the end of a garden hose trying to swipe some gasohol outa the neighbors Ford pickup.  But no, they actually have a real machine that does that for him.  I can’t quite quantify the disturbed feeling I had at contemplating a big plane traveling a long way with less fuel than the powers that be originally thought was necessary.  We’ll just have to wait like 10 more hours to find out if this is a problem…or if I’m just paranoid.  But then again, you probably would have heard about it on the news before you read it here.  So everything must have turned out fine.  We only fell behind schedule by about an hour, no big deal.  Hey, if you can do 14 hours in a giant sardine can, 15 aint no different.

I think I remember a Seinfeld episode once where Elaine admitted that she likes airline food.  Hey, I’m with ya sister!  The Chicken Teriyaki with rice, Peas and Carrots, Salad, Roll and Brownie for dessert wasn’t bad.  Of course, I should probably admit that I was starving.  A warmed up old shoe with mud-gravy woulda tasted like a T-bone steak.

The good news is that the in-flight entertainment consists of the movies…Mama Mia, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Journey To the Center of The Earth, and some Euro-flick about wine tasting.  Guess I’ll grab my book now. The Story of B, by Daniel Quinn…if you must know.

…17 hours later…

Well, I was wrong.  15 is a lot different then 14.  Actually, although I’ve heard people talk about Jet Lag, I hadn’t actually experienced it myself…until now.  We left New York at 7 a.m. on Wednesday and arrived in Hong Kong at 8 p.m. on Thursday.  We finally did land in Hong Kong only an hour later than the original expected time.  I sure hope someone is there to meet us.  It’s shocking how exhausted one can get just sitting there  in one place all day.  Everyone was able to pick up there bags and bikes and everything just fine.  Except for one minor failure.  Vladimir carried his front wheel onto the plane with him ‘cus it wouldn’t fit in his bag.  Unfortunately, he didn’t remember this until the plane had already left Hong Kong on it’s way to Singapore (or someplace else).  Luckily it was his spare so he’ll still be able to race.   After reclaiming our bags we all headed thru customs.  Vladimir got stopped by the Cops and carried away in handcuffs, but they eventually let him go.  Thankfully the race representative was still there waiting for us to arrive.  So we all piled into 2 minivans and headed into Hong Kong.   The drive was pretty uneventful.  I’m sure I would have much more to say about it if I weren’t so exhausted right now.  We crossed over a really cool looking bridge and into a couple of tunnels that are burrowed right through a mountain that separates Hong Kong.  Lots of neon lights and tall buildings.  Pretty much like I expected.  We all eventually made it to the Hotel and got checked into our rooms just fine.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you more about this place.  Its pretty cool, too.  Dinner and a shower would follow and by the time I’m done writing this it will be around 1 a.m.  My brain is fried and the computer screen is starting to get all wavy.  I better just shut up and get some good sleep.  See you in the morning.