Transylvania, before the TT

bed, day one

Everyone is arriving. And to my lasting joy, Weirs beard is making a comeback. Some of the best things Ive heard so far:

1. "Dude, thats Sue fucking Haywood"
2. "Mike, is anything on your bike broken" me: "no" Response (disappointed) "Oh... youre funny when your bike breaks"
3. "The entire country smells like cumin"
4. "Wait, JB is here? ...Fuuuuk"

Camp Rimjorb is once again the most awesome of all possible cabins. Proof:

There are huge butterflies. I thought they were birds at first.


Its hot here. Especially coming from No-Spring-For-You New England. This should make for an interesting time trial, as it combines the two things I least love:
excessive heat and interminable climbing (and, well... time trialling).

Everyone here has been super friendly - from the staff (who seem to remember EVERYONE by name) to all the racers. Most of our lodge is filled with repeat offenders, but all the new folks at our lodge are great: there is a husband/ wife pair from Nova Scotia (one of which seems to be some sort of geophysicist, prepare for perhaps nerdier-than-last-time update material), THE ADAM SNYDER, his teammate... WTB_INTERN, and Selene Yeagers Espresso Machine.

Some drama:

Ross Schnell lost his bike somewhere. More specifically, the airlines lost his bike. He was seriously going to go to Wal-Mart and buy a Huffy. Which would be like finding a '78 Pinto, slapping some Nascar stickers on it and giving it to Dale Jr. As hilarious (and kind of awesome) as that would be there was an emergency bike racer Salvation Army set up and he was able to borrow enough gear to race.

The course looks brutal. There is a climb in the middle of the course that will have me seeing (and possibly even believing in) god by the end, and about a third of it seems to be under water.

I love this race.