Thanks for all the love everyone!! I will do my best the next few days! Line up is pre riding the enduro wed, race the enduro Thursday, short track Friday, xc on sat, then a red eye home to attempt to hit up anyone of the various events happening on Sunday across NJ.
Full disclosure, I was down with a 103 fever over the weekend. Feeling almost completely back to normal, with just a little lingering chestncongestion. Not ideal timing, but mainly, I haven't ridden is a few days and it's messing with my head. Hopefully all the work I've put in over the winter and early spring will still be in the bank.
Anyways flight was pretty seamless, here's a pic of Newark from the sky.
Bags arrived, minus 2 zip ties that were locking the bike bag and one wheel pouch closed.
I always feel like I'm getting screwed when I rent a car. ++ 100$ of what seems like unavoidable taxes. $100!!
- 3.5% tourism fee ($10.46)
- 11.11% concession recovery fee ($39.41)
- air tran fee $19/rental
- San Mateo county bus lic 2.5% (?huh) $9.85
- vehicle license recovery $4.95
-sales tax 8.75% ($29.61)
Seriously, some of those are just made up, right?
Lots of traffic in the drive to Monterey, but the scenery was beautiful. Severe green hills and industrial farms opened up to a drive along the bay.
Hotel is nicer than last year. I have another racer rooming with me tomorrow+
Put my bike back together relatively smoothly. One piece of the back wheel was stuck in the plastic protector, which i finally realized after repeating to myself over and over, 'everything should fit together perfectly'.
Drive back up to Santa Cruz (1h) for the Juliana bike night at the factory. That was super cool- spilling out of the showroom were lots of small round high top tables and bar stools, outdoor gas heaters and a portable brick oven pizza & chef and a steady supply of food. Inside the showroom all the juliana bikes were displayed around the walls, a chill instrumental band was playing next to the bar, there was a pool table In the back and tons of super friendly people. I hadnt eaten since the flight so I grabbed a plate and started chatting it up. Sorry to disappoint on the pics from this event- of note, absolutely no one was taking pics. Actually, I only saw one person with their phone out-- I was already a sore thumb knowing no one. I snapped this awkward one as I was driving away.
