A solid block of travel complete, with our luggage(and a 3k surcharge for it!) trailing well behind us, today we enjoyed a relaxing one just outside of Marseille. After dialing in another set of new bikes we headed out for a nice cruise, guided by Dan, who lived just down the road for a couple of years while racing as an amateur for VC la Pomme. Alex Howes, one of the young guys on the team last year, is now here in the area and while he’s currently off at a training camp it’s fun to get a feel for where he’s hangin. We have another 2 days to get fully adjusted now before starting up on Sunday. Now that i’m finally sitting in a mini euro hotel room it feels like the season is fully upon us…. Figure racing will make that even more so.
It’s been good to see some of the staff that we haven’t been with for the past 2 months, and they brought up some pretty sick new toys as well. Pictures of the new bus coming shortly. A bit more styly than the camper of the past few years, although she’s still around for the times when we’re running a double program(most of the time).
Unfortunately we also just heard that big Maggie Backstedt crashed in quatar and snapped his collarbone, putting his early season in danger, and lots of fingers are crossed for a quick heal-up there. Send some good juju his way if you’re that kind of person…
And send some juju for a jump in food quality as well. I’m constantly amazed that in a country with such general pride for it’s cuisine, and such amazing food on the top end, how absolutely shit most of what people mow into is in reality. While there is occasionally one saving grace in each “feed” sometimes even that is hard to find. Looking forward to heading south into Spain where even the simple fare is attended to with a skotche more TLC…

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