JB's Adventure Blog: 8/27/06

Wow, what a day.

The US team had a leisurely Monday morning of packing waiting for the cargo truck that was to take our bikes and checked luggage to Auckland, NZ. We then loaded at 1 p.m. Auckland-time for the drive to Rotarua airport to get on our puddle jumper 40-min flight. We paid our 25-dollar exit fee, or rather USAC did, and then gathered our luggage from the trucks to check it. Most riders got hosed if they were over the 32-kilo weight limit, or like I was; had the bike as an extra piece. Whilst in line, I got a slick Great Britain jersey from Liam.

The flight from Aukland to San Fransisco was really long, but I slept for a good five hours. The remaining seven and a half were spent watching movies and trying to keep my legs from swelling like over-cooked sausages. We arrived at SFO and it took a while to get thru customs as usual. I had an open yogurt from the airplane breakfast in my hand, so the guy checked that I was bringing dairy from another county on my form. I was worried they were going to unpack my bike bag looking for snakes, oranges and tropical plants, but they let me on my way.

Next, Sue invited me as a guest to the United Red Carpet Club where we saw none other than Geoff Kabush. It is good to get a chance to talk to him without the normal pre-race game-on mentality. As it turns out, he is getting married on Oct. 7, the day before Erin's and my first year wedding anniversary. Cool!

On the flight across the USA, I started to get kinda weary. I watched a whole movie, ate lunch, read the stupid in-flight magazine, emptied my desktop and listed to all my music until I was sick of it.

We finally disembarked our aircraft at about 1:15 a.m. eastern time. We got on the moon rover toward the main terminal to meet Suzie's man Tim and his other main squeeze, his dog Ruby.

On the two-hour drive from Dulles to Harrisonburg, we cut thru the grey fog left over from a hot and muggy day. We were finally just 11 miles away from Harrisonburg when Sue, who was driving, started shaking Tim's shoulder to wake him up. Something was wrong with the van. The sudden loss of power was explained by Tim "the gas gauge is broken" OOOPPPS.

Well, seeing as it was a lot like something I have done in the past, I wasn't sweatin it. Tim removed his old GT Avalanche from the back and got ready to ride to the gas station but his tire was flat! No way! So we rummaged thru our bike bags and then got a tube. As Tim pumped I ran the model of what would happen next thru my foggy brain. It occurred to me the sign behind us said the gas station was miles away. I best recollection was maybe three miles. The Trucks on I-81 at 4 a.m. in the morning are pretty scary. I decided to sweet talk Erin into bailing us out. As I sat in the grass on the shoulder, I downloaded a game called Afterburner II to my cell phone and made the best of the ordeal. Erin was our hero and arrived with the precious 2-gallon gas tank normally reserved for the lawn mower. Man she's great! We pulled up the driveway around 4:30 a.m. in the morning!

I was so stoked to be home and I took the best shower ever and then passed out!

The first person to figure out how many vehicles and how many hours my travel home involved gets my autographed number plate from World Championships. Only one guess each, so think carefully!

See ya.

Jeremiah.

posted by Jeremiah Bishop # 7:54 PM 16 comments

My body ached all over after this race, but man what a blast to be racing in the realm of the fastest racers on Earth. After a less than ideal start, I went for it on the first and second climb to push into the top 10. I was flying, I was also riding way to fast to sustain. The thing is the course is important to have position because it was cracking into the pieces from the very steep 1000 foot of climbing per lap and the sloppy off camber decent.

After 5 times up the mountain batting with the likes of Sir Bart Brentjins, Oli Beckingsale and Roul Paulison; I started to fade but was re invigorated by getting past by Fill-EPO Mierhage and Thomas Frischnect. I killed my self to beat Merhager but slid out on the downhill and lost a little time on the two warriors battling for the supremecy of team Clean VS. Team Dope. I was just behind them and to say they were fighting it out was true. Brian Lopes was yelling at Frichi "don't let that F@$^&n doper beat you!" It was awesome to see Frichi beat him and even though I was just behind, I did my best and almost blacked out from going SOOO hard! I crossed the line and was so pumped. What a great race and I was so happy Frishi pulled it off that I hugged him.

The result of eighth for me was good; in fact, I heard it was the best World Championships by a USA rider in 11 years. Awesome. The spectators where just killer and some even were singing the Team America theme song! I was really fun.

Now I must hibernate. I am totally wasted from the race.

Thank you to all who have helped support me; it has been a great season.

Jeremiah

See ya at the SM 100!

posted by Jeremiah Bishop # 4:06 PM 6 comments

My body ached all over after this race, but man what a blast to be racing in the realm of the fastest racers on Earth. After a less than ideal start, I went for it on the first and second climb to push into the top 10. I was flying, I was also riding way to fast to sustain. The thing is the course is important to have position because it was cracking into the pieces from the very steep 1000 foot of climbing per lap and the sloppy off camber decent.

After 5 times up the mountain batting with the likes of Sir Bart Brentjins, Oli Beckingsale and Roul Paulison; I started to fade but was re invigorated by getting past by Fill-EPO Mierhage and Thomas Frischnect. I killed my self to beat Merhager but slid out on the downhill and lost a little time on the two warriors battling for the supremecy of team Clean VS. Team Dope. I was just behind them and to say they were fighting it out was true. Brian Lopes was yelling at Frichi "don't let that F@$^&n doper beat you!" It was awesome to see Frichi beat him and even though I was just behind, I did my best and almost blacked out from going SOOO hard! I crossed the line and was so pumped. What a great race and I was so happy Frishi pulled it off that I hugged him.

The result of eighth for me was good; in fact, I heard it was the best World Championships by a USA rider in 11 years. Awesome. The spectators where just killer and some even were singing the Team America theme song! I was really fun.

Now I must hibernate. I am totally wasted from the race.

Thank you to all who have helped support me; it has been a great season.

Jeremiah

See ya at the SM 100!

posted by Jeremiah Bishop # 7:31 AM 7 comments

Travel Day for the Books

Kiwi POWER! 8th at WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS!

Kiwi POWER! 8th at WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS!

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