The Air BnB Linsey found us is good, 3 bedroom, cozy living room and kitchen, 1 big bath and one small toilet room. Quiet local family like community, across from an elementary school and only about a 20 minute drive to the track by car or bike. Not upscale but that’s just fine, easy to fit in and feel comfortable.
Back to the track with Andy and we find Steve, from Chicago has weaseled in to our cabin area. I just didn’t have enough gear and locks to stake out the whole space so, I guess we share with Steve too. There are almost 600 competitors this year, more than any I’ve attended so we will all be squeezed in some sharing space as needed. There is no infield warm up riding area so all warm ups are either during the hour and a half open track time before each session or on rollers/trainers, whatever.
Our cabin/crib/camp square at the track is on the back straight, not far down the back track from turn 2 and almost at the stairway that leads up to an area close to the pursuit line. We are right next to a group from France and and nice guy name Pascal from Corsica. Across from us are another group from France as well. We can barely communicate but we do and make friends with them. Lots of laughing along with serious racing, another part of Worlds that is great.
The track warm up session for me went well, a few slight slips on the track to keep my attention. I do a bit of undercover investigating and talk to the USA team mechanic about ideal tire pressures and with John, one of the locals who runs all the training sessions about how best to ride this track confidently. You just have to ask and everyone seems willing to share.
Still no Team Sprint 3rd man but Dan Casper hears about someone and I follow up with another local coach to find the guys name. We need to wait until tomorrow to meet him. Nothing like doing a team event with a stranger you never ridden with. At least Ray and I did one competitive event back in Boulder and did a bunch of starts with him. We will see what tomorrow brings.
Back to the house and a chance for another road ride, this time to the LA River bike trail. Yesterday I tried to find it and got nowhere close, only a sketchy ride towards a seedier part of town down Broadway and back. The LA River?, not like home, big concrete ditch sometimes with water, sometimes not. Closer to town, no vegetation, closer to the ocean some green but also some front end loaders working on clearing sediment deposited when the river does flow. At least better than yesterday’s ride area and not that far from our weeks home so this looks to be a route that I will become more familiar with as the week wears on.
Still no GPS speed and the local bike shop items I bought aren’t Ant+ so no speed signal from them either.