Back to the internet after a few days without and it looks like FlickR(photo hosting site through which I can update this thing through my blackberry) is once again having some trouble. A couple of my reports from earlier in the week are going up right now, but a bit jumbled. So it goes.

We just wrapped up the 5th stage down here and with two, shorter, days to go it feels like the season is finally coming to a close. This has been a WAY harder race than we’d all expected, but with great organization, quality courses and a solid field it will be sending us all into the off season in a great place. Thus far (I probably shouldn’t even think this…but…) none of us have been sick and we’ve even pulled a few knucklehead moves when the street tacos just looked too tempting not to try.

As illustrated by the first shot of the moto-cop marshalled training ride they really have been doing it right down here and from what people are saying there is desire to grow the race substantially in years to come. With a decent crew of international teams plus mexican teams that are SUPER focused for this (their Tour) the racing has been ON every day. I think a lot of people thought that it’d be OK to show up a bit sub-par and we’ve been suffering because of it. It’s certainly pleased the organization and with the effort and resources that they’ve devoted to making this a quality event it’s nice to see. Hotels have, save one night, been completely doable; food has been solid (though until recently we had very litte real mexican action - lots of weird “international” fare) and there have been very few people struck with GI issues; roads have been great, and damn hard, with better marshalling than just about any race I’ve ever seen; and some of the little touches are pretty cool, for example: each stage has a red line painted right down the middle of the road that leads you from the finish line to the hotels, and then in the morning when you turn out of the hotel there is a gray line leading you to the start. Normally there is a moto cop waiting at the hotel entrance for each little group of cyclists that follows/leads/clears the way for us to get safely to/from the race. Pretty cool.

The crowds have been great, with little groups of kids running around at the start asking for autographs, puzzled looking indian tribes standing by the side of the road in traditional garb mid-race, and finish areas in town lined completely for the last K+. The organization must have given away 100,000 T shirts because every, EVERY, child under 10 I’ve seen, and lots older as well, has been in a race T and all have big grins plastered across their faces.

The countryside has been incredible. In the typical american way most of us had heard little to none about the copper canyon area here in Chihuahua and it blew us all away. The past 4 days have all been 7000+ feet above sea level and have a feel much like that of the high mountain desert hills of new mexico and arizona. The Copper Canyon area is Mexico’s Grand, and in one of the stages we dropped from the plateau above down into the river valley and then back up the other side. Ouch, very ouch, but at least we had something cool to look at while suffering. Creel, the town where we hung over the rest day and had 2 nights to explore, is a little tourist spot that seems on the verge of a boom. As illustrated by the rows of tourist oriented “craft” shops in town and gringo friendly restaurants, along with the crews of moto-tourists rolling through on massive dakar style rigs it’s a popular spot for visitors. The mountain biking is apparently pretty crazy and with the terrain we’ve seen from the roads it’s not hard to imagine why.

As for the racing, as I’ve hinted, it’s been tough. We’ve been having some fun and racing without any pressure or real care, but any time you’re in a race there’s always the urge to give it a grunt and we’ve got both Timmy and Lucas pretty close in the hunt for the overall going into the last 2 daye. Steve pulled out a nice 2nd on the 2nd stage and we’ve got the Team GC pretty much locked up and are hunting for both Mountain and Sprint jerseys as well. The last 2 stages are pretty chill and it’ll be tough to make much happen but we’ll give it a go and with nothing to lose it should be entertaining to say the least. ay ay ay ay ay!!!!!!