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My wife's view of elite level
stage racing--from the team car and behind the
scenes
Day 1 - Are We There
Yet?
Before leaving for
Portland, we check the weather report, temps in the range of
40's to the 90's. Hmmm, this presents quite a packing
challenge, cold weather and warm weather clothes, I'm stressed
already. I pack Saturday night because our flight for
Portland leaves around noon on Sunday. As of 8 a.m. that
morning, Travis is still not packed, more stress. Of
course, the bike is packed, just nothing
else. Travis, Matt and I finally get to the
airport and take off for Portland. We leave at noon and
finally arrive in Portland at 9:50 Portland time. We
have traveled all day and are exhausted. Matt and I go
to baggage claim to get the luggage and bikes and Travis goes
to get the rental car. In our travel induced delirium,
we decide it would be easy to haul all the luggage to the
rental car instead of having Travis come pick us up. Let
me recap the luggage, 2 bikes, 5 suitcases of various sizes
and 3 backpacks and only 3 people to get all of this to the
car in one trip. Luckily Travis has the amazing ability
to turn into a pack mule in these situations and we make it to
the car in one trip. Amazing. We head over to John
and Casey's house, which is where Mike Olheiser and Sam Silvey
are staying. This is Travis's first year on Mike's team
and I had never met him before. I was finally going to
get to meet the man, the myth, the legend that is Mike
Olheiser. I was expecting him to be wearing "Superman"
tights and a cape, but I was wrong. Turns out,
"Superman" actually wears jeans and a
t-shirt.
Day 2 - Accidental
trip to Washington
Yay, we get to sleep
in today, nothing scheduled today except a ride in the late
morning (not me, the guys). While the boys go on a ride,
I decide to take the super sporty rental minivan out for a
drive and check out a mall in the area. I ask Mike for
directions on how to get to I-5. I am following Mike's
directions when I notice a sign that says "Thanks for Keeping
Oregon Clean and Come Back Soon". Hmmm....... this makes
me wonder if I am heading in the wrong direction. About
a mile later, there is another sign that say "Welcome to
Washington". Crap, I have wound up in Washington State
somehow, definitely not where I was headed. But oh well,
at least I can now say I have been to Washington. I turn
around and 45 minutes later arrive at my destination that
should've originally only taken 15 minutes to get to.
Note to self: Don't ask Olheiser for directions again.
After my adventure to Washington and shopping, we head to
dinner to Hopworks. It's a local brewery that is owned
by a cycling nut. Bicyles everywhere, frames and wheel
rims are everywhere, it's a cyclists paradise with good food
and yummy beer.
Day 3 - Never get
directions from Mike Olheiser
Today's mission is
for Matt and I to go to the race hotel and get
the team registered for the race and attend the manager's
meeting. I apparently forgot my vow yesterday to never
get directions from Mike. We get directions from Mike
and take off. We are supposed to stay on 84 and look for
the Troutdale exit that has a truck stop and a Comfort
Inn. Sounds easy enough. We leave an hour and a
half early because Mike tells us there is a gorgeous waterfall
2 exits down from the race hotel, so we decide to fit in a
little sight seeing on the way to registration. We get
on 84 and about 7 miles later, we are forced onto I-5.
Argghhh, Olheiser gives us wrong directions again.
Anyway, we get onto I-5 and go across a huge bridge that takes
us across Portland. When we get off the bridge we turn
around to get back on and this is when I discover bridge's
make Matt nervous, I see the sign to get back onto I-5 and
Matt insists on taking a different exit because he doesn't
want to get back on the bridge. We somehow get back on
84 and after a few more miles we decide we have no clue where
we are and stop and get directions. We grab a phone book
and look up the hotel's number and get directions. Turns
out, we are 20 miles away, absolutely nowhere close to the
hotel. I am now silently cursing Travis for asking me to
go on this mission. It is now 11:15 and registration
closes at noon. At 11:45 we finally get to the exit and
I miss the turn into the hotel. Normally, not a big
deal but it is a one way street, so we park at the truck stop
and run through the pouring down rain to get to the hotel in
time to get them registered. Matt gets in line to
handle registration while I go talk to the race director about
participating in the caravan. The race director is
a complete jacka** to me. Travis tells us the
manager's meeting is at noon, so I grab Matt and I
a seat because he has been in the registration line for
15 minutes now. It's now 12:15, meeting hasn't
started. Matt finally gets them registered and sits down
and tells me the meeting is actually at 1. I now start
cursing Travis out loud. Matt sits down with the race
numbers and we realize that we only have 2 sets of
numbers. Fantastic. Matt has to get back in line
and discovers they didn't give us Mike's numbers. We
finally get Mike's numbers, sit through the manager's meeting
and head back to the guys. Never made it to the
waterfall, bummer.
The prologue
begins at night and it has been raining all day.
Wet courses make me nervous. Luckily, this
was a course with one turn. The minivan is
packed so full of bike gear, that I stay behind and ride with
Dave (Mike's brother) and Casey to the prologue. We ride
in Casey's car, normally this is not noteworthy, but the
catalytic converter on her 4-Runner had been stolen that
morning, so it was a very loud ride. One lady we passed
stopped walking and covered her hands with her ears when we
passed because the car is so loud. We get to the course
and go to find the boys warming up. Travis is attempting
to warm up on a set of rollers, which is giggle inducing since
he hasn't ridden on rollers in years. Despite the uneven
pavement and clinging to the car for the first five
minutes, he manages to stay upright. Thankgoodness, he
was riding Mike's $2000 Zipp wheels.
Rock Racing is
warming up near our guys and that's when I spot the man
covered in tattoos. Seriously, tattoos cover his face, I
am fascinated and just stare. I soon realize I might
look slightly stalkerish and look away. I desperately
want to take a picture but I don't want to offend him, but if
you cover your face in green tattoos, you've got to expect
some stares. I decide to make myself the unofficial
team photographer and I try to snap pics of the guys during
the time trial. I somehow managed to get a great pic of
the ground when Travis came by. Turns out the unofficial
team photographer stinks at taking action shots. I
completely missed Sam but I did manage to get a pic of
Mike.
Day 4 - Mt. Tabor
Travis and I did a
little sight seeing on Hawthorne Street. We stopped in a
shoe store where I fell in love with some really expensive
shoes and amazingly enough Travis was the one that ended up
buying shoes. This is the same man that has not bought a
pair of shoes in over a year. It was only a pair of
flip-flops but it is still amazing. Travis had on his
"uniform" that day, his standard khaki shorts and gray shirt
with a pair of plastic shoes he purchased from Wal-Mart before
the trip, the man at the cash register pegged Travis
immediately as someone that could give a sh*t about shoes and
told him that he assumed Travis did not want to be added
to the mailing list. Travis agreed and then proceeded to
put on his new flip flops and wore them out of the store, just
like a kid with a new pair of shoes that can't wait to put
them on and wear them around town.
That night was the
crit at Mt. Tabor. Travis, Mike and Sam all rode their
bikes over to the course and I rode with Dave and Matt.
There were people everywhere, big crowd came out to the watch
the crit. The portion of the course that I saw was full
of twists and turns. Great, more things to make me even
more nervous before the crit begins. I get so nervous
before Travis races crits, I have small panic like attacks
because I am so scared of crashes. This course did
nothing to calm my fears. The race is off and on the
first pass we see Mike in the middle of the pack, Travis and
Sam near the back. This trend continues for quite a few
laps. Travis later informed us that his race strategy
was to stay near the back so that he could stop people that
were on the back from sneaking up and
pulling surprise attack on Mike. Good plan Travis
and successfully executed. After about 30 minutes, we
notice Travis is no longer with the pack. We see him
soon enough and he keeps racing for about another 15 minutes
and gets pulled out of the race. The time cut that day
was 30 minutes so Travis was safe to ride another day.
About 15 minutes later, we see Sam drop from the pack as well
and it is just Mike left to finish the crit. After the race,
we went to a local restaurant and it took forever to get out
food. Sam fell asleep with his head against the wall and
we had to wake him up when his food arrived.
Day 5 - Got
Gas?
Today was the day we
had to travel from Portland to Hood River for a circuit
race. We had one minivan, 5 passengers, 6 bikes and a
whole lot of luggage. I thought it would be impossible
for us to get everything packed into the minivan, I was
wrong. Mike somehow managed to pack everything in
the car, even if we did resemble the Clampetts moving to
Beverly Hills. We managed to get everything inside (and
on top of) the minivan and I wish I had taken a picture
of it. Poor Sam had to sit on Travis's luggage and to
save space, he wore his time trial helmet on his head.
Quite a sight. We made the beautiful drive to Mt. Hood
without any incidents and proceeded to try to find the cabin
we had rented which would be our home for the rest of the
trip. We pull up to a cabin that Mike had stayed at at a
prior race and had been told the cabin we were renting this
time was close by. We check our surroundings and only
notice two extremely dilapidated outhouse looking
structures. We get back in the van, and continue down
the road. Mike is walking and Sam is now driving the
minivan, Mike tells us to turn down a dirt road where Sam
proceeds to drive the minivan through a small snow bank and we
are forced to stop due to a larger snow bank. Mike
continues walking down the path toward the cabin to find the
key. While we are waiting and trying to figure out how
to get the minivan over the snow bank, Sam grabs a large tree
limb and attempts to shovel a path for the minivan. It's
at this moment, Mike comes back and announces it's the wrong
cabin, whoops!!! We get back in the car and realize that
our cabin was actually at our first stop, just beyond the
outhouse looking structures, we just missed it, boy do we feel
dumb. We begin unpacking and start checking out our home
for the next few days. One bedroom, one bathroom and a
loft that sleeps 5. Whew, lots of togetherness for the
next few days. At first, only having 1 bathroom
scares me but since there are 9 of us at the cabin and 7 of
them are boys, the bathroom is not an issue since the boys
take great delight in peeing outdoors.
Travis, Sam and Mike
leave to get ready for the circuit race and Matt and I hop in
the van to go to the feed zone. As soon as we get in the
car, we notice that the low fuel light is on and the fuel
gauge is on E. We stop and ask a volunteer how far to
the closest gas station and she tells us 17 miles. Oh
boy, here's to hoping we don't run out of gas. 20 miles
later, we coast into a gas station on fumes and discover that
it costs approximately $85 to fill up a minivan, wow, that's
expensive. We head back to the feed zone and I am now
wondering why I didn't change into a pair of shorts while we
were at the cabin. It is blazes hot outside, Oregon was
having a heat wave, just our luck. The first lap, Mike
and Travis are in the middle of the pack and Sam is near the
back. The 2nd lap comes by, Mike and Travis are still in
the middle but we don't see Sam. A little while later,
Sam arrives at the minivan dressed in regular clothes and
announces he is done. He is overtrained and cannot
continue. He makes up a grocery list and after the next
feed, I head into town to by some groceries so that Travis and
Mike can have food and cold drinks after the race. I
waited until after the 3rd lap to go and that's when we
noticed Travis was no longer in the pack, which was odd since
he had looked so strong earlier. I waited about 5
minutes and Matt and Sam told me to go and that they would be
there to feed Travis when he came by. I got in the car
and I saw Travis down the road, I drove past him and cheered
at him and he thought Sam and Matt were with me and I could
tell he was furious. I immediately called Matt to tell
him Travis was coming, but Sam had already seen him and had
rushed to him with water, gatorade and a Mt. Dew. Travis
was the unfortunate receipient of horrible cramping and was
really suffering in the heat. I got back from the
grocery store and there was only one more lap to go.
Mike came by in the pack and about 20 minutes later we saw
Travis. He was really suffering now but determined to
finish the race. We had been told in the manager's
meeting that time cut would be 20% of the winner's time and
Travis was determined he would finish in the time cut and live
to ride the race tomorrow. Sam offered to illegally
motor pace him up the mountain since there were
no officials around, but Travis would have none of it, he said
he wanted to suffer in silence and finish on his own. We
drove back to the cabin, which also happened to be the
finish line. Sam began cooking dinner and I waited
for Travis to cross the line. Travis arrived
looking worse than I had ever seen him after a race.
He finished within the 20% time cut and we thought he
would race tomorrow. A few hours later, he double
checked with the officials about his time and discovered he
had been cut. The officials decided to make the
time cut 15% instead so that meant Travis was out of th
race. Heartbreaking.
Later that night,
Sam attempts to chop wood for the first time ever
and almost accidentally takes off a toe. Luckily, he had
on leather shoes and they saved the toe. We played
poker and I beat Travis, Sam and Matt. It was
a humiliating defeat. This is also the night
that we discover that one of the guys staying with us snores
like a freight train, it is so loud it shakes the house.
Day 6 - Time trial,
nothing exciting or interesting to report.
Just lots of deer roaming aroud the
cabin.
Day 7 - Caravan
This was my first
time ever riding in a team caravan. Travis kept telling
me about how cool it would be and how I would see all of the
attacks. When we get to the staging area, we
discover our team has been left off the caravan list
because they thought all our riders were out of the
race. Apparently they forgot about Mike that was in 14th
place. Due to the oversight, we got to be lucky #13 in
the caravan. The race starts and the caravan gets lined
up, I start checking out the sights when I realize I have an
excellent view of the back of Travis's head and nothing
else. We are so far back in the caravan, I can't really
see much from the backseat. The race officials told us
earlier that the comm radio would be on channel 215. We
had one radio tuned to Mike, the other one to the comm
station. After about 20 miles, we have heard nothing out
of the comm radio so I grab a spare radio and start checking
channels. Sure enough, I find the comm station on an
entirely different channel than the one they gave us.
There is now obviously a sinister plot devised by the race
officials to thwart us in our plans of helping Mike out
during the road race. After about 35 miles, Travis needs
a bathroom break so all the boys hop out and go in the great
outdoors. I am now jealous, I have to go to the bathroom
also but can't go outdoors so I must ride the next 60
something miles without a bathroom break. Not
fair. I will never, ever drive in a caravan, I would be
so scared of hitting riders as they either get dropped or come
back for a feed. It's mass chaos of cars and bikes
everywhere, not for scaredy-cat drivers like myself. As
we get closer and closer to the finish, riders are getting
dropped left and right. At one point, Freddy Rodriguez
(apparently he's a big name in cycling, I have no idea who he
is) starts drafting behind the minivan and Travis gets scared
that he might finally get mentioned on cyclingnews.com as the
guy that accidentally hit Freddy Rodriguez during a
race. After more attempts by race officials to block us
from helping Mike out, the race is over and Mike has crossed
the finish line at Mt. Hood Meadows. Mike's girlfriend
Nicole, had arrived at Mt. Hood and was waiting for him at the
finish line. A picture of them after Mike crossed the
finish line was published on
cyclingnews.com.
After the race, we
head over the Timberline Lodge, where the exterior shots of
"The Shining" were filmed. Sam and Mike got into a
snowball fight and Mike thinks he has twisted his ankle a
little. Oops, no more snowball fights for
Mike.
Day 8 - Full
Sail
The last day, was a
crit around Full Sail brewery. After the crit, we sat in
the sun and enjoyed some victory beers. Sam had a crush
on the waitress left his number for her on the back of the
receipt. Needless to say, he was very upset this morning
when he checked his messages and realized she never
called.
The race is over and
I have now successfully traveled on my first stage race.
It was interesting to say the least. Lots of stories
that would take way too long to explain in a post.
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