Sun, clouds, wind, smoke, lightning, rain ...

... and even a bit of white dusting on top of the surrounding mountains: That was the way the environment played with us at this year's SoHo Bikefest in the beautiful Heber Valley, just south of Park City, Utah. We got a little bit of everything, and at the end of the three-day event only one race, the Elite Men's XCO, had to be shortened because of lightning strikes less than five miles away from the venue.

Even during our final approach into SLC on Wednesday afternoon of last week it was obvious that the many wildfires that are raging in the state are affecting visibility and air quality. The afternoon sky was brown, giving an ominous orange-yellowish tint to the usually pristine mountainscape. During my Lyft ride to the Homestead Resort, where we were housed this year, I started to wonder whether we'd actually be able to race. Earlier communications from race director Josh had painted a somber picture in regard to air quality, and everything depended on wind direction and possible precipitation to maybe clear out the atmosphere.

A few miles before reaching Midway, where the Homestead is located, it started to sprinkle and then pour, and I could not get the words "acid rain" out of my head. I settled into my room (the Homestead is undergoing a massive upgrade project and will become a Marriott resort next year, and the digs were showing much improvement over what their condition was when I last stayed here at least half a decade ago) and spent an hour or so sitting on my porch, listening to the rain and hoping for the racing conditions to improve.

The next morning came bright and sunny and with pristine blue skies.

We all knew that conditions could change at the whim of the wind and other factors, and so the group of us stakeholders (RD Josh, PCP Jim from Canada, Bill the "trail" guy, Rebecca from the medical team, Justin as the USAC joker, and I as ACR) came up with a plan that was going to set thresholds for the Air Quality Index and our response to the different levels, ranging from "all systems go" to "we're calling it a day." Tobin, our secretary, sent out hourly updates in the following days, and I am happy to report that the measured AQI never came close enough to affect riders' health. Follow science. Don't just go by what it looks like.

Of course, there was the racing. Aside from the Pan-American Championships in 2024 (which I worked not as a member of the commissaires' crew but rather as a DCO) that may have seen more participants, this year's race probably drew the largest crowd ever: We had 1,525 individual starters, amateurs and professionals, age 12 all the way up into the geriatric categories. That's a lot of folks, yet we somehow managed to not screw up too often. Nothing like a well-oiled crew of officials who know what they're doing.

Our days were fairly long, Saturday taking the cake with us being at the venue a little more than 12 hours. I really have to shout out RD Josh and his crew of volunteers who, knowing that we were going to be on the mountain past beyond most local eateries' last call, had arranged for delivery of a fabulous Indian carry-out meal that we enjoyed in the admin building that will be the central point of the 2034 Winter Olympics Nordic events, precisely 32 years after the 2002 Salt Lake Games. My, how time flies.

I continue to feel extremely connected to the sport, maybe more so than in years past. Getting to work with the local organization and the many friendly volunteers is just as gratifying as interacting with known entities such as the team managers for Booger, Orange Seal, or Team Big Bear. There are always those big hugs, the friendly high-fives, the appreciative "howdies" followed by that in-the-know smile. We all form an amazing tribal community of which racers and parents, officials and team managers are all integral parts. 

Our last day ended with a few cold ones, poured by none other than Luke, a 1992 and 1994 Olympian who is now the the GM of SoHo. Initially, our group  of commissaires had talked about a final dinner, but with Cyndi and Kris splitting—Utah residents—and Justin leaving for an SLC airport hotel those plans fizzled. Twenty-five years of officiating have taught me to always have a stash of emergency rations, both on the food and the beverage front, and so I enjoyed a last night on the porch while the temps were plummeting for the night, contributing to the aforementioned dusting of the surrounding Wasatch mountains.

Our crew, from left, Justin, Cyndi, Kris, Tobin, Jennifer, Jim, et l'auteur

My flight home didn't leave until Monday afternoon, and packing and catching a Lyft back to SLC were relaxed, muy tranquilo. With the nowadays almost obligatory flight delays and the final Uber ride home, I called it a race weekend around 0:30 on Tuesday morning. Unpacking, doing laundry, grocery shopping, riding my bike, going through the accumulated mail, and repacking took up most of my daytime hours for the next three days, while the evenings were reserved for Sandy time.

In less than about 15 hours I'll be on a plane to Missouri for the next adventure.

Jürgen

A quick run to Cancun for some beach time before heading to Utah

After getting back from Idaho there wasn't much layover in Lubbock—exactly five days, enough time to go to the grocery store for half-a-gallon of milk, seasonal fruit, and some fresh salad ingredients. Add a few bike rides and the usual unpacking/re-packing routine, and five days had evaporated.

Several months ago I had received an offer for a four-night, five-day stay at the Westin Laguna Mar in Cancun, as part of a timeshare preview for Marriott properties. Sandy had been able to tweak her work schedule and so we flew out on a Sunday morning. Despite some weather issues we were able to make our tight connection in Dallas, and by 2 p.m. we were checked into a nice ocean-view room smack-dab in the middle of Cancun's Zona Hotelera. It continues to boggle my mind how fast one can be in a totally different world, seemingly a million miles away from everyday issues and worries.

Nope, not a cemetario—it's a sea turtle hatchling sanctuary right on the house beach

It had been quite a few years since my last visit to Cancun, as the H-10 properties that I frequented were farther down the coast, near Puerto Morelos as well as Playa del Carmen. A few times I had ridden my bike from down there up to Cancun, a roundtrip distance of between 50 to 60 miles, but with increased traffic and my gradual decline in fitness it probably had been in the pre-pandemic days that I had last visited Cancun proper.

Fancy malls, a new bridge across the lagoon, and even a Ferris wheel

The coastal building boom continues in unabated fashion, with several new hotels having been added to the long strip of land of Yucatan's north-east corner. The last time I actually stayed in Cancun had been about 20 years ago when Judy and I stayed in one of the Riu properties. Back then, the white beach had been pristine, but now the coastline has the same seaweed problems that the beaches farther south have been experiencing for years. One of the locals told me that the sargasso phenomenon sprang up about 15 years ago, and it is getting only worse. Oh yeah, that's right: Climate change is just a hoax, and the fake weeds don't actually exist. What a simpleton I am!

During our stay we had ample of sunshine but also a lot of wind; as a matter of fact, it was so windy that we never ventured any farther into the Caribbean than up to our knees as the wave action was more than I have ever seen down there (except during a hurricane). On two days, even more adventurous (and younger) tourists than we shied away from the broiling sea. We spent time in the two infinity pools of the resort to cool off and lounged under a palapa on the beach, listening to the crashing waves and just taking it easy. The Laguna Mar is not an all-inclusive resort, which was just fine with us as it cut down on some of the extra calories from sugary foo-foo drinks—we had thought ahead of time and brought Crystal Light packages to prepare our own cocktails with locally bought rum.

If you have been to Cancun you know that a local bus runs the entire length of the hotel strip, all the way to the original downtown area. The bus fare of about $0.70 takes you anywhere, maybe not quite as comfortably as an Uber but at a fraction of the cost. One night we had dinner in the downtown area, and the other two nights when we went out we stayed in our part of the zona and simply walked to two excellent fish restaurants. For breakfast and lunches we had bought some supplies in a nearby supermarket when we went on our rum & cerveza shopping spree. We were perfectly happy.

The days when Mexico was cheap and a dollar stretched all the way to the horizon are long gone, at least in Cancun. The prices in both the supermarket as well as the restaurants were either equal to what we pay in Lubbock, or higher. Of course, it is a tourist mecca, and that's the end of the story.

We shared this fabulous dish!

As mentioned earlier, this short getaway package involved a timeshare presentation. I had not really expected to buy into a scheme, but the structure and modalities of the Marriott Vacation Club ownership are quite different from other programs. Make a long story short, I think there will be quite a few trips in the future to way more destinations than what H-10 ever had to offer, and I will no longer have any reason to bitch and moan about RCI and its system, which never worked for me the way it had been presented. So, stay tuned in the months to come and see how all this will shake out. Let's put it this way: The investment was small enough to make any buyer's remorse rather insignificant should reality not follow expectations.

On Thursday it was time to pack our stuff and shuttle back out to the airport. Our flights were more or less on time, and in Dallas Sandy was able to go through her Global Entry interview, the process for which she had set in motion a month or two ago. In the future it will be nice to be able to use the same TSA pre-check line and not have to split up when returning from abroad. Just this afternoon she received the email from the CBP that she has been approved and is now a card-carrying Globalist.

Sandy just totally loves being glued to the window and seeing all those colors

We got home late Thursday night, and then it was back to our respective routines, the Vision Center for her, the getting ready for the next trip for me. With Lubbock's temperatures as high as 105°F two days ago and another 100-degree broiler today, I am looking forward to this weekend's race in Utah, even if we may have some air quality issues thanks to wildfires. Let's see how it will all pan out.

Jürgen