ATOC Day 6 & 7

It's been hard to find time to keep up with all that's happening during this week ... the last few days I've been up pretty early with the start crew, putting up course signs, measuring out 200m markings, putting up the feathers you see at the sprints and KOMs ... this is NOT easy work, kids!

It's well worth it, though - once we finish our respective jobs up front, we get to grab lunch, talk with the crowd, take pics and eventually see the finish come through the 1k blimp that we put up. Even though they blow by in a half-second, it's still pretty damn cool to see Andy, Chris, Jens (so sad he had to abandon), Levi and all the others who do, at the highest level possible, the thing we all love to do.

The sheer logistics it takes to put on a race like this is unbelievable. The stats from an early-race meeting included: 1,000 vehicles rented to outfit our caravan and workers. The caravan is over a mile long to include lead vehicles, motos, vip rides, team cars, police, ambulances ... and that doesn't include the 5 cars we've utilized to set up and take down signs as the race rolls through. Over 70 hotels will have hosted various members of the race organization. Two start cities even had hotels DONATE all the rooms to the race. These people absolutely love being a host city for the TOC.

Relatively speaking, after the drama of starting this year's TOC the last couple of stages have been logistically uneventful. Hiccups along the way happen but nothing major. It's kind of like organized chaos, only without real organization but everything just seems to get done in the end. Frustrating at times but very rewarding when we can help a fan or a random visitor understand the race or get to the best spot to watch.

More when I have a moment to update.

ATOC update day 4 & 5

Trying to hit  highlights - its late and our morning starts early tomorrow...

- Squaw Valley = super cute but super snow-y ... too slick for stage 2 start. Start time delayed, race shortened to cut out Donners Pass and start place moved to Nevada City.

- Plenty of time to walk the quaint little tourist attraction of a town. They were so excited to have us there (last year they were the start city for an ATOC stage).

- FINALLY started a stage - I was in the back of the caravan collecting the course signs and markers along the route. Holy fast-pace: if we lose the end of the caravan by taking too long to pull down signs, the road closure ends and we're stuck navigating through the crowds and/or regular road traffic.

- I have never received so much applause and approval for taking down signs. Seriously, I was cracking up the whole time.

- Hanging out with Bob Roll in the hotel laundry/business center. Very funny guy, even remembered meeting me and the girls in PA a few years back. Offered to give me his rider-list but remembered he left it in the car.

- Up super early today for our first full stage. Out with the early crew to put up course signs and markers. No applause or approval for this job.

- AMAZING scenery on this stage. I mentioned out loud that at times it was like driving into a post card. First time to CA; this wasn't what I pictured, it's even better!

- if you ever have the experience of riding through one of those inflatable arches, please thank those operating it. Its not as easy as it looks, kids.

- Met Phil and Paul and yes, have pictures. Phil didn't want to introduce me to Paul because he wanted a pic with me all by himself (he's a smooth one, that Phil)

- Because I was on the early crew, we had time for a late lunch and hot-out-of-the-oven cinnamon rolls from Lollipop Cafe in Modesto. Worth getting up early for.

- Because I was on the early crew, we had time to watch the circuits downtown... those boys were flying! So sad that Jens got taken out. Super pumped to see Andy.

- Live streaming of the race on my cell rocks.

More tomorrow, complete with some pics. 

ATOC Day 2 & 3

Wow. What a couple of days. The time difference was phenomenal on Saturday, allowing me to sleep in until 11am (EST) to make our 8am (PST) meeting time. The weather was still good, but things were cooling down and there was a lot of chatter about that 4-letter "s" word (snow) but we decided that denial was our best option so we started prepping for the first stage.

From ATOC

We made our game plan over a good breakfast and quickly went down to this "beach" area to sort signs and start loading trucks for distribution on the course. The views were awesome but we didn't really take into account the wind - so we quickly relocated to a much less scenic but more efficient parking lot. Oh, the glamour of bike racing.

From ATOC

From ATOC

Finally, we drove the entire course, setting out course arrows, marking sprint and KOM lines and generally exploring the course. The view from Tahoe City:

From ATOC

There's a phenomenal coffee shop very near the sprint line so we all know I was a happy kid!

After an "all hands" meeting at 9pm (? that late the day before the first stage?) we made it a pretty early night with the start team's impending 5am wakeup call. Then came Stage 1.

Holy cluster. Thats the only way to put it. Here's the nutshell version: we woke up to this outside our hotel balcony:

From ATOC

The call was supposed to be made by 9am whether we'd go off as planned. We knew by 730 am that the start would be postponed until 1:15pm. The weather was a complete mess at the start so we were sure the mountain and descent would be treacherous. We start pulling course signs to adjust for the shortened course. Then we hear they're eliminating the neutral laps so we have to adjust signs again. With nothing else to do, we sit in the hotel lobby (with everyone else) and ... wait.

From ATOC

Finally we're in the caravan just waiting for the start. There's the National Anthem and the call ups. The snow and sun have been alternating for the past several hours and at this point the snow was winning. We see the moto's start to roll out, then I see some riders. Ok! Ready - we're gonna finally get this party started!

From ATOC

But the caravan didn't move. We start seeing riders pop out of the parking lot of the hotel and I briefly wondered who screwed up and missed the start of the race. Then the call came over race radio about how we were going to disperse the caravan, where the motos should meet, which roads would remain closed until things got back under control. The race was off.

Now we have to go retrieve all the signs that we put out (for reuse in the next stage). We're going up toward the KOM and the weather is deteriorating FAST. I had heard that the riders protested the start and if they did, I totally support the call. We were following a big group of moto-marshalls when about 12 of them wiped out on a snowy, icy part of the descent. It was lucky we were going to slow and could stop before running them over. Luckily no one was hurt but can you imagine how the cyclists would have fared up there.

From ATOC

We stopped and directed traffic around the mess while they picked up bikes, assessed bike and bodily damage and determined how they would make it down to the fire station to regroup and get rides to their respective hotels.

Several plows and an hour later the moto's actually got back on all of the operating bikes (there were a few broken rides) and more or less coasted down the hill to the fire station. That could have been a lot worse.

We made sure everyone was square and headed on our way. Just getting up to speed, we saw two cyclists on the side of the road that resembled popsicles. I had seen them pass during the moto debacle at least a half hour earlier so they must've been standing there freezing for what seemed like hours. We stopped to pick them up and I'm not sure I've ever seen such grateful cyclists. The ice and snow had frozen on their wheels, brakes etc ... they couldn't even spin the wheels. We gave them lunch and dropped them in Tahoe City, finally heading on our way to reunite with our crew.

What a show.