Oceanside Pre RAAM

Arrived into the San Diego area early with a couple of work commitments but also a chance to acclimatise. Tuesday evening, drove up to Oceanside to see what was there. A beach, a peer, a marina and I suspect lots of other stuff I missed (maybe not!). From there I pottered up to Time Station 1 – Lake Henshaw. A pleasant drive in the early evening and therapeutic as, now I can visualise at least the first few miles of the course. A long shallow climb, followed by a long steep climb, a bit of down then a steeper climb with a false flat (shallow climb) to finish it off. Now I know why they gave me the first leg to ride at the team meeting I missed! Wednesday and a quick blast down ‘historic’ route 101, Thursday and a quick blast up the first leg to ‘visualise’ the start. All interspersed with official photos, general bits of getting organised.

It is great to be in the US. I love the contrasts. Woken up by the radio alarm with people arguing about the bible interpretation of Johns Gospel, I don’t think you get this kind of debate in the UK on a Sunday. In the afternoon on the way to Oceanside picked up an advert for a medical clinic treating “PE” and “ED” clearly as premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction are acronyms here they are either common ailments or just used regularly in everyday conversation. I suspect advertising standards in the UK would declare this topic unsavoury.

Surprisingly three people today have asked my views on the World Cup. It only got a small section in the paper (4 pages of Baseball and 2 of basketball) but there seems to be at least some passing interest. One of the people physically attended the last two world cups. I am not sure I know anyone in Europe that did that.

After few fairly sleepless nights of jetlag and stress I am feeling calmer and better adjusted to the time difference. Seems to have been a fairly frenetic rush from first thing in the morning till last thing at night, photos (see www.raceacrossamerica.org for the official team shots, briefings, checks, rides, and messing around with phones, setting up the endomondo tracking and a list of other stuff. Everything now seems ready. Looking forward to the ride tomorrow up to Time Station 1 and then into the night from Time Station 3.

Not sure when the next update will be – maybe at the end of Day 1....