Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Saving the trees?

We drove over an hour to the race start today. Literally in the middle
of nowhere. They put rugs on the desert floor and tents up. There was
also a small toilet building. Inside there was a toilet, and a hose
with a sprayer, like the one on your kitchen sink. No toilet paper.
You use the hose instead. Yea, really. Remember that movie demolition
man, which takes place in the future? They didn't use tp either, but
shells instead. In qatar, THE FUTURE IS NOW. Wrap ur head around that.

The award for brilliance today goes to the race commasaires, and team
car drivers who repetedly drive around the pack of riders by going off
the road, into the rubble, flinging chunks of rock and sand at the
riders. Add a nice 20 mph cross wind to that and u have a tasty and
dangerous rock/sand cocktail flying through the pack.

Today was fast. We had to have averaged around 50km/ hour. The sickest
part about that is that there were some cross wind sections which were
so strong it was hard to keep ur bike on the road. Not just a few kms
at a time but nice 10-20km at a time. Ugh those were rough.

I am realizing more and more that to be a good cyclist, you have to
reject and deny any thoughts of logic which enter your mind. If you
think its a no brainer to do a particular thing in a race, you should
probably do the opposite because that is what everyone else will do.

Markus was a stud again today, made the front group. its impossible to
use words in describing what a feat that in itself is. He then
finished a solid 8th.

The rest of us survived. 3 more days.

Please send any extra mutant strength lying around to:

Brent bookwalter
Endless Desert patch 352
Rock and rubble road
Qatar

--
Sent from my mobile device

5 comments:

Breezer said...

Sounds like your having a blast! It's fun reading your updates. I'm currently living in a white dessert, but at least there is the occasional tree and toilet paper. Good luck out there.

Anonymous said...

I really hope this isn't your attempt at pma

Anonymous said...

Good Lord! I've followed this race over the past couple of yrs. It looks to be one of the toughest of the season. For MANY reasons.

Great updates Brent!

Joe B.

Ps. How's the food? :)

Anonymous said...

Good Job Brent. Moving up well.
Sounds like a really tough race
for a mountain boy?

Keep the updates coming.

Dad

Doug said...

Got any pictures of this little adventure in Qatar?