Leaving Helsinki

The three separate alarms I set go off in a symphony of noise welcoming me to a full day of airline travel. This is low key stuff compared to my normal pilot workday. Missing a wake-up call or a meeting time could be a major, major issue. Not so today. All we have to do is meet our driver and traverse the lonely streets of this town, negotiate the airport check-in and security and we are basically into relaxation mode.

As I sit, we have made it to the gate at Vantaa airport and even made a coffee and pastry stop. I commented in the limo that I could live here and I could. I told Jean that this is the "Land of the thin haired people." I might as well be strolling through an Anderson family reunion. Everybody looks familiar and has hair like Abby and me, (that is when I had hair). Whispy thin hair. The city is so clean. This is so remarkable after enduring the filth of China for a week.

Getting home means I can once again ride my bike. It has been ages. The last time I rode was the day of the Ann Arbor PH race. I needed the time off pretty badly. My bike thoughts now gravitate towards long fall-ish rides through Waterloo and beyond. CX?j Maybe but it isn't what sounds good. There are some maintenance issues awaiting me when I return. A couple of wheels need to be trued and some other little issues. Bikeboy and his sister are on a fall retreat with their school so It will be Mrs. A, Abby and myself for a couple of days.

Walking tour of Helsinki part 5

Helsinki Walking Tour 4

Helsinki Walking Tour Part 3

Walking tour of Helsinki Part 2

More!

Walking Tour of Helsinki Part 1

I spent the day in Helsinki.

Attention all athletes...

Fill in the blanks.  

Victory is _____% ______and  _______% _______!!

Pilot's Nightmare

Getting sick on the road is just plain bad.  Worse yet is getting sick on the road in a foreign country. 

I awoke yesterday with a dull headache and abdominal pains.  I new I was in for it because our flight attendent developed similar symptoms the day before.  I didn't feel awful just not right.  As the day progressed I became more and more sypmptomatic with headache and fatigue.  The city we were in had tremendous pollution and it was raining.  In those conditions it is more like "mudding" than raining.  I began to wonder if it was the atmospheric conditions causing it but probably not.  

I went to dinner with the crew and then excused myself because I needed to get some relief from the headache and fatigue.  I went to my room and laid down.  It was 5pm.  The next thing I knew the clock read "1200 am".  I got up sent some email then collapsed again until 6am!  Still feeling poorly but much improved from the day before I went down for breakfast where I learned our third pilot on the crew had also been felled by this thing.  He would not be available to fly.  When I saw him I could see that he had an even worse case than I did.  

As a side bar, I gotta tell you that this China thing gets really old.  Finding a smoke free zone can be really difficult at times.  Restaurants, non-smoking hotel rooms, hotel lobbys, elevators are all frequently smoked up.  Industrial towns like the one were in have smog so think you could cut it with a knife.  You should see the mess the mudding made out of our jet!  Streaks of dirt are running down the sides where rain fell then dragged mud down the side of the fuselage.  Nasty, nasty, nasty.  The pollution thing is so bad here and it doesn't seem like there is any plan to fix it.  More cars are going to be on the roads not less.  They are building more refineries to produce more gasoline which will produce more pollution.  

Last night we landed in the next town and rode to the hotel.  I had a dull headache that was very tolerable.  Well, that changed as the evening progressed.  I met the crew for dinner and by the time that was over I had what can only be termed a migraine-like headache.  Just being awake was terrible.  I crashed at around 9pm but was in and out of sleep because my head was bumpin' so much.  At around 3am I took Ibuprofin and awoke at 6am headache free!!  As I write I feel almost normal.  

Ugly Americans

We landed in Guilin, China today which is a very beautiful place. Oddly formed mountains rocket up to the sky in myriad shapes and sizes. That being the case, many westerners touring China stop here. My crew was having a night-cap in the bar and we were able to observe Americans ordering drinks and just getting along. First off, we are all fat. No question. We are fat compared to the rest of the world. Next, we expect the world to conform to us. This fellow waltzes up to the bar and proceeds to order the most bizarre martini I have ever heard. Imagine you are Chinese and you basically know a trade language which in this case is a very limited range of mixed drinks. As he explained it was clear the bartender had no idea what he was asking. They brought in a second who knew more English. This also flammed out. The American got frustrated but what did he expect? The bartenders were patient and kind but struggled to understand just exactly what this guy wanted.

Why do we think the world must revolve around us? Unless you speak Chinese, you better plan on some minor inconveniences when it comes to such things. This morning, my hotel bill was messed up. I made one attempt at getting it fixed, (the error was in my favor), but I could see it was going to lead to massive confusion at a time when the hotel clerk was totally alone. I dropped back and punted the issue away. This is what you have to do when travelling internationally. If you can't speak the language be prepared to be flexible. Just because your from the U.S. you can't expect the rest of the world to understand what your life experience is all about. You can't and won't get "it" the way you want "it".

Still out on the road

Hey all. Anchorage is in my rear view mirror and I am somewhere in Asia twelve time zones away from home. We flew out last Saturday and are working our way back around the globe. After a few more stops in Asia we fly on to Helsinki where we hand the keys to the jet over to a relief crew. That crew will continue on to another destination while we cool it for a day before riding NWA back to the D.

I have taken some pics but for some reason I can't upload anything on Blogger. Being able to make an entry here is a big improvement. Maybe next time I'll be able to use all the available features.

The name of the game here is high humidity, pollution and temperature. Lots and lots of people and cars. You really appreciate the good 'ole USA. We live in, bar none, the best country on the planet! All the malcontents need to hit the road for a bit and see how the rest of the world has to live. Just breathing clean air is amazing or experiencing a crystal clear day. We take all that for granted. Folks over here just don't have those days.

Anchorage

Another trip another beginning city. I left Detroit this morning and flew on NWA to Seattle. From there I flew Alaska Airlines to Anchorage. It was a nice day of travel except for the couple in front of me on the way to Anchorage. They behaved as if the entire business class area was their living room howling and carrying on.

Here's to you Ray!

Happy birthday Ray, AKA "Big Ray", AKA "Dybo", AKA "You make me hurt so bad", Dybowski! You're an inspiration to us all!

A Happy Ending

There a lot of quality folks in the cycling community. Oscar, owner of Great lakes Cycling and Fitness, is certainly one of those. Both he and his service manager were upset that Ritchey had given me less than good service on my broken wheel. I went in today to check on the status of the missing paperwork and Oscar said he was going to get involved directly. A few hours later he called me to say that I can pick up my wheel. When I asked about the charges he told me that there wouldn't be any!!! No shipping, no crash replacement, nothing! He stepped up to bat for me even though I am not a regular customer of his. That has all changed. Let me encourage all of you in the AA area to throw some business his way. Way to go Oscar! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

The decision is...

Thanks for all the input. I ordered the 566 because it is red. Ray says they go faster so that ends it. Thanks Ray! Really, I did order it but in the end it is about re-sale value. Sadly, I don't think it comes in red if you order it with SRAM Rival which I did.

Still no word on my broken Ritchey wheel.

Tomorrow is packing day. I hit the road Thursday for another twelve days. Let's hope things settle down for a while after this.

New Bike

I am looking at a price differential between a brand new Look 566 and a very slightly used Look 555 of $400. This would be James' bike for next year. We are moving him into a size medium frame. The fit doesn't look too bad right now so I am confident he will grow into it nicely. Should I go new or slightly used?

Off Season Day 5: Lions Football

Now that is how you lose a football game my friends. These guys are taking this fine art to a whole new level. I'm a huge pessimist went it comes to this team it is hard to find anyone who is more doubtful that they can figure out a creative ways to lose a game but c'mon! You're winning by one point after a major come back with minutes left in the game and you end up losing by over 20 points! That's a quality loss my friends...quality.

Day 2...Bikeboy's Soccer Game

Here I am in the stands watching the Wildcats take on Clissfield Christian. BB looks good so far making solid passes. It's Wildcats 6 Blissfield 0 with 6:37 leftin the first half.

Ritchey Rant
After 3 months my broken now repaired Carbon wheel tha( I broke at Allen Park finally arrived. I asked how much and they shrugged and said,"dunno". Ritchey sent the wheel with no accompaning paperwork. So, I left the wheel with the shop instead of giving them a credit card number. My plan is to write the "Mother of all Complaint Letters" when I can present with the proof.

For contrast, a friend of my sent a broken Zipp in and got it back in. a week. As always, buyer beware.

Wildcats 8 Blissfield 0 at the half.

Thus begins a long series of inane, boring off season posts...Episode I: Diets

Transition has begun for me which means dieting has begun. This year I am going to make it down to a new fighting weight of 150 pounds. That means I need to lose around 8 pounds before I start base training. It actual feels good to eat less after a season filled with excess. If I can't train at least I can do something that will help me to ride faster next year.

For me, the first step is always to completely cut out refined sugars. Once I get a few days between me and the last cookie my ability to fight the hunger cravings greatly improves. Tonight I dined on a salad while flying to New York. "Hold the dressing please. I'll go without." Not only that, I left the cheese.

Aren't you glad you stopped by today?

for DMO

DMO, check out this video from the Grand Rapids race last Saturday. At :25 seconds a crash takes place that takes me out along with a Coastie and one of those pink dudes. The guy with the camera caused the crash I'm told. All I know is I was riding a straight line and then, boom, I am on the ground facing backward about to be run over while skidding atop the Coastie. He suffered way more than me. The rider with the camera, (John Coyle), goes on to win the race. The course was very technical and it was hard to move up. My thinking is that people started to push it a little to gain position on this the second to last lap. Check this out though. It is a really cool video.

Eric and Giff did a great job fighting for position. Eric ended up 4th and Giff was 7th.

I was out on Sunday so I'll let the others tell the tale.

After the crash

Yesterday's race didn't really work out for me and that's fine. I was praying about the race on Saturday night and it struck me that I was placing the bike and racing in front of God. Long story short, I decided I would go to church and take my chances on getting to the race in Ann Arbor.

The race previous to mine was delayed which gave me the opportunity to get things together in time. Problems developed as I began my warm up. After the crash on Saturday, I straightened my handlebars. The crash wrenched them pretty badly. Well, during the warm up I noticed some play in the headset. The SRAM neutral support lent me some tools to fix it but no dice. It was still loose. Time was running out now and I was seriously worried that I had cracked the steerer tube in the race the day before. There was no way I was going to race on that course at that speed with a steerer tube that might give way and leave me doing a very poor impersonation of George Hincapie. At least he didn't have buildings, cars and signs to run into.

After pulling my handlebars completely off, pulling the fork out and inspecting the tube I determined that it was sound. The problem must have been in my adjustment at the SRAM tent. It was then that I heard the start.

James was a bit disappointed but it was really okay with me. I don't know how well I would have done on that course with my gimpy leg.

The racing was awesome! Kudos to my team mates, Eric, Giff and Zach who absolutely killed it! Well done men!!

Live from Grand Rapids!

Hey all. I'm coming to you now from the Priority Health Cycling Classic. The action is fast and a bit dangerous today as this course is very technical. The pro's are on the course right now. They have 60 minutes to go. Four are off the front representing Bissel, Priority Health, Successful Living and Texas Roadhouse. It looks like it is coming back. Yes, that four man break has been caught and Karl Menzies of Health Net is attacking.

My race went well right up until the crash. These things happen in bike racing. I am grateful to God that no one was seriously hurt. I have some bruises. I fared much better that the guy I landed on.

Menzies attack went nowhere. Now it is Paul Martin on the attack.

Every field has had multiple crashes with the exception of the women. I guess they just make better drivers.

James is selling Jittery Joes stuff for SLC.

Martin's attack has been neutralized.

Well, that's all for now.

Jet Lag

It is a little shocking to me that my little trip 6 time zones west has left me with serious jet lag! Last May, I traveled around the world and had less of a problem. It may be the length of time I spent in that time zone that caused the problem. I am falling asleep in the middle of the day and waking up at 5-6am after only 6 hours of sleep. Four days of this is usually the maximum so hopefully today is it.

Yesterday's ride got put off until after dinner and then the rains came. So, another day on the trainer.

Racing

It should be an interesting outing this weekend as I ride my first crit since I don't know when. Go easy on me Kroske, okay? I'm not comin' at you like a spider monkey this time. Conversely, I'm comin' at you like a timid sheep seeking a friendly wheel. I pray God, don't let me get dropped!! Oh the shame!

Homebound!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am about to leave the hotel to board NWA nonstop to the "D"!! Watch out Mrs. Anderson, here I come! BTW, it is our anniversary tomorrow. Feel free to send email to dander10@comcast.net and congratulate her on 19 years of putting up with me. She's a saintly woman folks!