This tech-savvy day in age, that’s the ambiguous and frequent expression when more than one person is on a wireless network. Turns out that 97.3% of cyclists have no idea what that means on a technological level. Superficially though, it turns out to be quite true – when you take a team of six riders at a South American race hotel with already poor internet, and then supplement the hotel’s capacity with another dozen cycling teams, plus cycling press, and their corresponding need for internet, the result is flickering hopes and shimmering seconds of working wifi followed by mind-numbingly futile hours of hitting Connect. Again and again and again all for not. That goes to explain why I became internet-quiet as soon as the race started.

Now that I’m back in the arctic tundra that is Europe, let’s quickly rehash some things and then move on to the present. Aaaand GO!

The team presentation for the Tour of San Luis was the most entertaining such event we’ve ever experienced. You see, a typical presentation in Europe lasts 30 seconds in the time leading up to a race, right on stage where we sign-on; line up as a team, shoulder to shoulder, they announce your name, you wave, smile (or frown and look badass) at the camera, step off, done. Meanwhile in America, it’s generally the night before a race in a ballroom with the race/town/state/city’s VIPs wearing their Sunday finest.

Definitely a different scene here: in stifling heat in the center of main street in downtown San Luis, we arrived at the tender hour of 8pm where it was still light out, and proceeded to wait protected by metal barricades from the ebullient and growing crowd.

Team after team are being called while we wait. We learn later that each team is standing under deafening speakers and in front of a roaring crowd, so we’re actually winning this situation since we can sit in relative quiet peace. After a good long while, we’re called up, and in this photo are waiting behind an enormous TV monitor:

And to the booming delight of the crowd, dodging a canon shooting glittery paper, a smoke and light show, cheerleaders, we walked on stage. Smile, wave, move right… and join the other 150 cyclists standing on another stage.

The point being, these San Luis’ians know how to have a good time. The entire town, and I do mean the entire town, came out to this rock star team presentation. It set the tone for what was going to be a unique week of bike racing.

And since I don’t write race reports more than once ever seven years, let’s say simply the following, in no particular order:

-We interrupted the Saxo-QuickStep show by taking an impressive victory with Elia Viviani. Yup, I called it that morning.
-The weather all week leading to the race and the entire race itself was roughly 38-45 degrees Celsius (100-113F). Except the first day which featured hail, sleet, wind, and three turn over the course of 170km. That day was bitter in every sense of the word.
-The TT featured a variety of set-ups. I had a skinsuit and shoe covers, which shaved 0.8 seconds off my time. I’d guess 1/2 the field had TT bikes. I just used it as a sweet fitness test and sat at a million watts for a bit shy of a half-hour.

-Courtesy: Bettini Photo

-And you can see the entire race on yonder Strava website. (Hark friends! Use the code tedking2012 and knock $10 your annual paid membership. And as always, you can still use the basic account for free.)

And then it was time to make a sufficiently long trip to Europe. I started to take photos of all the modes of transportation I used to get from our hotel in San Luis, Argentina to my apartment in Lucca, Italy but after the first three successful photos, I found myself sprinting between terminals and airports and vehicles so it became impractical to snap a photo in lieu of missing my connection. So for a quick summary: San Luis hotel, 20 minute bus to San Luis airport, 3 hour delay, 1 hour flight to Buenos Aires, 3 hours checking in/security/passport control, 13 hour flight to Rome, 2.33 minutes in Italian security and passport control,… ooooh, mind you it’s now day two of my travel which means it’s my birthday, everyone’s favorite day January 31. So with 32,000 of my best friends in the Rome airport, I bought a celebratory glass of Brunello and a mixed app’ plate. T’was excellent and since I like to photograph food, it looked like this.

And for the record, that short red cylinder on the left is beef tartar and the one on the right that looks like a red, disembodied finger is a stuffed red pepper.

Continuing on, I passed through Roman customs in a matter of seconds – opposed to America’s 2-3 hour wait to protect our borders – and then took another hour long flight to Lucca where I had our friendly soigneur Michelli pick me up and drive me the half hour to Lucca. I noticed upon landing that the ground was damp and the arrival staff was wearing lots of clothing. Clearly this was a far cry from the stifling heat of Argentina. Moreover, on the drive to Lucca it started misting, then sleeting, then a full fledged blizzard. (Sigh.)

With internet coverage deader than a doornail in hotel-Argentina, I didn’t know what sort of weather to which I’d be arriving on The Continent. Wet precipitation isn’t fun, cold isn’t so bad, but the combination is heinous. As Michelli said as he graciously chauffeured me from the airport, “Merry Christmas! Welcome to white Italy.” How thoughtful.

The biggest shock to the system hasn’t been the culture shock nor time zone shock. It’s the 47 degrees Celsius at the start of day seven San Luis (116F) as compared to -1C here (30F)

BrrrrRRRrrrRRrrrrr

Thankfully I’m here to help out those of you trying to stay warm this winter and have created this gem. (Yes, sold out, but check back in daily as inventory is about to be back up to stock.)

An Italian winter wonderland, complete with blanketed vineyards, craggy snowed-in mountain roads, and all of town/school/banks shut down.

And if you’re still after more Argentinian stories, give this a minute of your time. Time to bundle up and go for a bike ride.

Go to the Source – http://iamtedking.com

Now back in the arctic tundra that is Europe, let’s rehash some things startlingly quickly and then move on to the present.

The team presentation for the Tour of San Luis was the most entertaining such event we’ve ever experienced. You see, a typical presentation in Europe lasts 30 seconds in the time leading up to a race, right on stage where we sign-on; line up as a team, shoulder to shoulder, they announce your name, you wave, smile (or frown and look badass) at the camera, step off, done. Meanwhile in America, it’s generally the night before a race in a ballroom with the race/town/state/city’s VIPs wearing their Sunday finest.

Definitely a different scene here: in stifling heat in the center of main street in downtown San Luis, we arrived at the tender hour of 8pm where it was still light out, and proceeded to wait protected by metal barricades from the ebullient and growing crowd.

Team after team are being called while we wait. We learn later that each team is standing under deafening speakers and in front of a roaring crowd. After a good long while, we’re called up, and in this photo are waiting behind an enormous TV monitor:

And to the roaring delight of the crowd, dodging a canon shooting glittery paper, a smoke and light show, cheerleaders, we walked on stage. Smile, wave, move right… and join the other 150 cyclists standing on another stage.

The point being, these San Luis’ians know how to have a good time. The entire town, and I certainly do mean the entire town, came out to this rock star team presentation. It set the tone for what was going to be a unique week of bike racing.

And since I don’t write race reports more than once ever seven years, let’s say simply the following, in no particular order:

-We interrupted the Saxo-QuickStep show by taking an impressive victory with Elia Viviani. Yup, I called it that morning.
-The weather all week leading to the race and the entire race itself was roughly 38-45 degrees Celsius (100-113F). Except the first day which featured hail, sleet, wind, and three turn over the course of 170km. That day was bitter in every sense of the word.
-The TT featured a variety of set-ups. I had a skinsuit and shoe covers, which shaved 0.8 seconds off my time. I’d guess 1/2 the field had TT bikes. I just used it as a sweet fitness test and sat at a million watts for a bit shy of a half-hour.

-Courtesy: Bettini Photo

-And you can see the entire race on yonder Strava website. (Hark friends! Use the code tedking2012 and knock $10 your annual paid membership. And as always, you can still use the basic account for free.)

And then it was time to make a truly epic trip to Europe. I started to take photos of all the modes of transportation I used to get from our hotel in San Luis, Argentina to my apartment in Lucca, Italy but after three photos when I found myself sprinting between terminals and airports and vehicles, it became impractical to snap a photo in lieu of missing my connection. So for a quick summary: San Luis hotel, 20 minute bus to San Luis airport, 3 hour delay, 1 hour flight to Buenos Aires, 3 hours checking in/security/passport control, 13 hour flight to Rome, 2.33 minutes in Italian security and passport control,… ooooh, mind you it’s now day two of my travel which means it’s my birthday, everyone’s favorite day January 31. So with 32,000 of my best friends in the Rome airport, I bought a celebratory glass of Brunello and a mixed appetizer plate. T’was excellent and since I like to photograph food, it looked like this.

And for the record, that short red cylinder on the left is beef tartar and the one on the right that looks like a red, disembodied finger is a stuffed red pepper.

Continuing on, I passed through Roman customs in a matter of seconds – opposed to America’s 2-3 hour wait to protect our borders – and then took another hour long flight to Lucca where I had our friendly soigneur Michelli pick me up and drive me the half hour to Lucca. I noticed upon landing that the ground was damp and the arrival staff was wearing lots of clothing. Clearly this was a far cry from the stifling heat of Argentina. Moreover, on the drive to Lucca it started misting, then sleeting, then a full fledged blizzard!

With internet coverage deader than a doornail in hotel-Argentina, I didn’t know what sort of weather to which I’d be arriving. Wet precipitation isn’t fun, cold isn’t so bad, but the combination is heinous. As my team soigneur said when he graciously chauffeured me from the airport, “Merry Christmas! Welcome to white Italy.” How thoughtful.

The biggest shock to the system hasn’t been the culture shock nor time zone shock. It’s the 47 degrees Celsius at the start of day seven San Luis (116F) as compared to -1C here (30F)

BrrrrRRRrrrRRrrrrr

Thankfully I’m here to help out those of you trying to stay warm this winter and have created this gem. (Yes, sold out, but check back in daily as inventory is about to be back up to stock.)

An Italian winter wonderland, complete with blanketed vineyards, craggy snowed-in mountain roads, and all of town/school/banks shut down.

And if you’re still after more Argentinian stories, give this a minute of your time.

Go to the Source – http://iamtedking.com

In a surprising turn of events, Argentina does in fact have both hair salons and barbershops. However, free was a better price than any number of pesos I would have had to spend and I’m quite pleased with my end result handiwork.

With temperatures again in the 40+ Celsius range, we’ve put together a few consecutive days of excellent San Luis’ian training (this is the Tour of San Luis, after all – basically a tour of the central, western province of San Luis that looks like a mirrored image of the state of Vermont). The first day was curious because it started out with a horrifically boring 30km out and 30km back along a dead straight road with nary a turn nor geographic aberration in sight, but eventually it turned into one of the best days of training I’ve ever had with the team. With a fairly dramatic sky overhead, those boring as heck first 60km looked something like this:

Absent turns nor virtually anything even mildly interesting for miles on end I nearly passed out from boredom. Just before that fateful, sleepy moment thankfully there was one, umm… I don’t even know what to call it. Let’s dub it, Yee Highway 7 Shrine to Plastic Bottles. In this photo, Timmy considers adding one of our team bottles for posterity’s sake, but thought better of it since our bottles claim to be biodegradable as opposed to the mountain of plastic that will perhaps someday cease to exists nine billion years from now.

We also returned home that day to witness a massive tour bus being removed from the roof of a nearby building. It was precariously parked 1/2 on and 1/2 danging precariously over the edge. The rear portion was painted black (no, it was not burned) and the front, which by this time has been sawed off and removed already, was painted white. In a stunning show of coincidence, we noticed the bus fully intact and perched happily up there the previous day, and then the next morning I read on the front news of the local newspaper that after nine years being parked up there in this position, city officials decided that it was simply too dangerous to remain up there. So one crane and a dozen workers later, KAPOOF, gonezo.

The following day we set out to scope a good portion of stage 3 of the Tour of San Luis. After a short stint along the same road we have ridden each of the past six days, we discovered the first climb of this particular stage. Someone mentioned that it was 12km give or take a few. Additionally, given that the area in which we’re staying is relatively flat with a few rolling mountains in the distance, surely nothing could be terribly long nor difficult. Some went as far as to say that this climb was facile… easy.

More than 25 arduous kilometers later, we reached the top. This shot below is Vinny Nibali, our new Columbian ace climber Jose Sarmiento, and American all-star Timmy Duggan. I was pleased to summit with these whippersnappers considering I’m 6’2″ and as they admitted during a sweaty respite at the top, they were not going easy at all. Punks.

Roughly the shape of a giant D, the ride looked like this:

In related news, if you are not yet on Strava, I’ll take this opportunity to say that you should be. One, because it’s awesome and I’m truly passionate about their product. Two, because when you sign up now and use this coupon code, tedking2012 you’ll save yourself $10 on an already completely inexpensive account. Two words: Do. It.

Aaaalora.

After a tough day of training, it was high time to soak up some Argentinian urban culture. Not far from our fancy hotel we came upon this buggy of travel patiently waiting for a green light which left me amused. No, not the scooter, it’s the horse attached to the rear end of a pickup truck that left me needing a photo. H’yaaa horsey!

On this cultural excursion walk-a-bout – and similar trips trying to figure out a particular new society in which I’m traveling – I frequently find myself at grocery stores and local fresh markets. I have been surprised not to find any exotic fruits and vegetables here in San Luis since the produce section is often the most culturally enlightening section of the grocer. I was told seemingly correctly that Argentina is known for two things: beef and Malbec. After an amazing feast last night with some Liquigas VIPs, I can attest that both are excellent.

When it came time to shoveling through the frozen meat section on my grocery run, however, I was confounded with so many options. Do I want the simple Paty Express or should I be watching my waisteline and go for the Paty Light? And how do either of those stack up to the delicious sounding Barfy? Ooh, so many decisions…

Go to the Source – http://iamtedking.com

So day one exhibited temperatures reaching 42 degrees Celsius which is an uncomfortable touch over 107 degrees Fahrenheit, or in contemporary vernacular, “Wicked friggin’ hot.” It was dry and sunny and enough to make you feel unpleasantly toasty just by looking out the window. Here’s a photo I snapped as I stepped outside our hotel of the Liquigas-Cannondale South American support vehicle convoy, complete with a trailer ideal for a vertically challenged mechanic. The trailer door comes to just above my navel, so you’re basically guaranteed to hit your head even by crawling on all fours in the trailer. Thankfully I ride my bike and therefore need to spend more than 0 minutes in there. Look carefully by the driver’s door; I’m fond of the engine snorkel just in case there are any 2+ meter water crossings. Not knowing what we might encounter, I think the only thing lacking here is a snowplow.

The following day was significantly cooler in the morning. Furthermore we were blessed with the added excitement of about seventeen raindrops falling over the course of yet another training ride. Cooler temperatures and undeniable signs that it actually rains here – THAT’S good stuff. It was clear to me that things were bound to start off well that particular day, because I descended to breakfast and found a pair of matching team issue man-purses reserving the patrons’ seats. I prefer to put my book or perhaps my butt in the seat to stake claims to seating rights. Turns out that man-purses serve the same purpose.

That day two was further enhanced by riding for a short stint with a very friendly group of Argentinian cyclists. I had the pleasure of riding along with a fellow named Pampa. I spoke Spanish back in my high school days with the abrupt un-fluidity of your typical American bi-linguist who did not start his second language in kindergarden. That is to say, I speak some Spanish. But with the many similarities of Spanish and now my new, native Italian tongue, I frequently find myself tongue tied speaking some sort of Span-alia-ish while trying to communicate here in the southern hemisphere… complete with hand gestures when I can’t get my point across.

Cutting to the point, I learned from my nuevo amigo Pampa while riding along together past the vast expanses of rolling green fields that Argentina is the 2nd leading exporter of corn in the world and the 3rd leader in soy. Moreover, they will soon be exporting these crops to China. Which is absolutely stunning to me since I figured China was entirely self sufficient by now and certainly telling about just how abundant those crops are here.

Corn fields on a somewhat cloudy day:

One thing you cannot export is an awesome hairdo. And I hairdid! (…thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all night). I think it looks like a clone to Homestar Runner’s 2003 Halloween costume. Given how hot it is here in Argentina, this particular coif is more about style than function. We’ll see how long it lasts.

And continuing the theme of Argentinian exports, I found on my recent cruise through the grocery stores to be fully stocked (and therefore, they’re likely exporting) such fine breakfast offerings as these. However, unable to decide between Best Bran and Good Bran I opted for the lesser known and poorly selling Average Bran.

And lastly, onto the gratuitous friendly nature of the local folks here. I’ve obviously only experienced a small slice of Argentina, but at seemingly every opportunity people go out of their way to encourage us, show their support, and cheer us on… mind you, this is on training rides. Every second or third car that passes us (as we’re training on the country’s main two-lane highways) lets out a festive toot with hands clapping, cameras flashing out the window, and giddy ole‘s of encouragement. Cars frequently pass us and stop on the side of the road to catch the fly-by photo op’. And it was during the aforementioned bran cereal grocery shop that a very kind old woman and her grandson approached me and asked me all about how I’m liking Argentina, how we expect the racing to go, how’s the weather (ahem, why such a boring blog post is important), and plenty of other stuff. At which point I continued to hone my Span-alia-ish to her delight.

.

Go to the Source – http://iamtedking.com