Two world-level UCI races sandwiched between two trips to Europe

The past couple of weeks have been very busy, and sometimes I scratch my head and ask myself: What day is it? Where am I? What's on the plate for today? 

Since returning from Albania less than three weeks ago I have worked the two biggest international races of the year in the US on the east side of the country, with flights back and forth from Lubbock. The finale of my race involvement for 2024 comes at a time when I am just days away from departing for a private cycling trip in France. Talk about staying focused on not mixing up things!

The first of the two world calendar races that I was assigned to as a member of the officiating crew was a World Championship, namely the UCI Marathon Mountain Bike WC in Snowshoe, West Virginia. I left for IAD (Washington Dulles) less than a week after my return from Albania. Several members of our US-based officials as well as three foreign members were picked up by a ridiculously dangerous school bus that gave us a bouncy roller-coaster ride to the Snowshoe resort. When you think of a school bus you expect at least forward-facing seats; well, not this one. The race organizers had dispatched a ski bus with bench seats along the sides, so that the six of us kept sliding forward whenever the driver braked, and we couldn't really hold on to anything once the road became narrow and winding. The Swiss and Italian commissaires just looked at one another: "Is this really how they transport commissaires at a World Championship in the US?" Our joy ride lasted for almost five hours, until late in the night, with one potty break, incorporated into our 15-minute Walmart shopping spree for some food essentials.

I had been to Snowshoe, the "upside-down" ski resort, on numerous occasions before, both for officiating as well as anti-doping assignments. Of all the races that I have attended in the land of moonshine, this one was the most laid-back and low-key one. We were not even given credentials! Spectators were hardly noticeable, and there wasn't much vibe. We had been told to arrive on Thursday, but there was literally nothing for us to do on Friday. And on Saturday, our official duties consisted of attending the 5:00 p.m. racers' meeting and a short briefing by the UCI PCP, my old friend Michael Drolet from Quebec. Thanks to afternoon showers it wasn't really possible to go out for a long walk, and the best I could do was a hike around Shaver Lake at the bottom of the resort.

So, we spent essentially two days on the mountain doing nothing (but at least getting paid a reduced fee for "rest days"). We were able to reconnect with fellow commissaires whom we hadn't seen in a while, and I also got a chance to spend quality time with my friend Linda who had been dispatched by the ITA. Our accommodations were nice in that Tobin, Uǧur, Katsu, and I shared a basic condo with four private bedrooms and two bathrooms. Meals were provided by the race organization so that our expenses were mostly limited to adult beverages. In the evenings, we all congregated in the condo where the UCI commissaires were staying. Party time, and not just because of Uǧur's having passed the UCI practical exam as an International Commissaire!

Race day finally came, on Sunday, and we all breathed a sigh of relief when the morning dawned sunny and crisp, after the heavy rains on Friday evening and into the night. The fog had lifted, the racers got ready, and at 8:30 a.m. the first Elite racers left the start line, without much fanfare. Ahead of them lay about 70 miles of racing in the rugged and remote mountains of West Virginia.

Together with my German colleague Ulf, I had been assigned to supervise Tech/Feed Zones #1 and later #4. Even though this was a World Championship, the Elite fields (men and women) were rather small, and for the open amateur category we had just a dozen starters! The racers trickled by, muddy and with race numbers barely readable. There were a few support staff who had scrambled to make it from the start to the first aid-station, and our job was one of the easiest assignments ever. When the final racer had passed by, we were transported to our second position where we stayed until well after the first Elite man had claimed the rainbow jersey. When we finally made it back up to the resort village, only the barricades and the finish arch reminded us that there had been a race, because there were no crowds or any kind of faldera to indicate that cycling's premier event this weekend had just taken place here.

In the middle of the night it started to rain again, and for my entire shuttle ride starting at 7:00 a.m. (this time in an actual car, driven by Snowshoe employee Terrie) it was pouring cats and dogs. Man, we had really lucked out with the weather. The rain also meant that I didn't see much of the countryside, except a few valleys with buildings pointed out as the homestead of some of Terrie's family. I got to IAD with enough time to spare and bemoan the fact that this international airport doesn't have any kind of OneWorld lounge.

My first flight, from IAD to CLT, was just a short hop in a puddle jumper and I had to gate-check my rollaboard because the plane didn't have overhead bins accommodating anything larger than a small purse. No problem, right? Well, not so: During the handling of my Away bag the small paper gate-check tag was ripped off, and the ramp dragon in Charlotte would not allow me to take my bag as it came up to the jet bridge. There was my bag, a foot away from me, with my name tag identifying me as an Executive Platinum 5-million miler, and I was yelled at to not dare touch the bag, despite my showing my AA identification. 

With my connecting flight not even 20 minutes from boarding I decided not to even argue with her (we know where that can easily lead these days!) and seek out a supervisor, who was equally unhelpful, telling me that I needed to go to the central baggage office outside of security and that I probably would miss my next flight. Hello, any common sense here? So I hoofed it, hard, exited the secure area, found the office, and somehow got to talk almost immediately to a friendly agent who promised to take personal ownership of the issue. I gave her all the needed info, including of course record locator and final destination, and she gave me her office's direct phone number. Then I was outta there, bypassing the 20-minute long regular TSA line, zipping through TSA Pre-Check, and arriving at the gate when Group 4 was starting to board. Close call.

I was reunited with my carry-on the next day in the Lubbock airport. The AA agents there only scratched their heads and said that was the stupidest thing they'd ever heard of on how to handle such a situation. My ensuing complaint email to AA drew nothing but a mild apology regarding my "experience" and the usual "we hope to see you on-board soon." I had hoped for a few extra miles for my "inconvenience," as is the common term these days for a fucked-up situation that elevates your stress level five-fold, but this time there were no "goodwill gestures." And for those wondering, I also wrote another email to AA, complimenting them on having an employee like Trish, the baggage office agent, who really did her best getting my bag back to me.

It's not as if I don't have enough underwear and even official's shirts to pack two or three rollaboards (and I certainly have enough pieces of luggage to cover a situation like this), but my three stopwatches were in that delayed bag, and I was going to need them for the next race, for which I was going to leave 48 hours later. I had been informed that I would be working the so-called 80% line at the World Cup in Lake Placid, and that requires the use of stopwatches—preferably those with which you are well familiar. Thankfully, all those worries were resolved with the reappearance of the bag.

Two days later I was back at the airport, for my flight to Albany, NY. This time things ran smoothly, two of my three flights were upgraded, and Amy, Judy, Uǧur, and Katsu were waiting for me so that we could drive the two hours to Lake Placid. The organization had set up hotel rooms in the Cambria for us, and we had to share with one other person; Uǧur and I roomed together, as we have on numerous occasions before. The next morning we piled back into the rented minivan and drove out to the venue at Mt. Van Hoevenberg. The set-up that we found made the previous weekend's race in Snowshoe look rather amateurish, I'm sorry to say. We had been given our credentials the night before in our hotel, and we needed them to pass the tight security controls that were in place.

The previous rounds of the UCI Whoop Mountain Bike World Cup had taken place in Europe, and the whole affair is a well-oiled machine that exists for nothing but the show, both on-site and especially for television. Warner Brothers / Discovery has acquired the exclusive broadcasting rights for these events, which draw an extremely large international viewership. The entire race infrastructure (fencing, the start/finish arch with built-in LEDs, signage, and of course all the broadcasting equipment) had made its way across the big pond for this event and next week's World Cup in Mont-Sainte-Anne in Quebec, not all that far away. Offering two World Cups in such close proximity on these shores is the only way to ensure that the racers will not skip a race. The show must go on.

After hosting two Winter Olympics (1930 and 1980) and of course all kinds of large skiing and triathlon events, Lake Placid is not a newcomer to the scene. But there were still some lingering concerns that a bike event might be a different story as there had never been a smaller UCI event or a national championship at this venue as a first stepping stone. Well, those concerns were totally unfounded, and now everybody is relieved that there will be two more World Cups in the next two years under the current contract. Who knows, Lake Placid may become even more of a fixture on the circuit after that.

While the organizing committee in Snowshoe had paid us for not doing anything for two days, here we were put to work on all three days, with one day even drawing some overtime pay (which kicks in after a 9-hour shift). Now, I can't say that this race was as strenuous or busy for us as our National Championships, but I say this for the following reasons: At Nats I have been more often than not the PCP (chief ref) while here I was a member of the general commissaires crew, and at Nats we have fewer officials to do more tasks than what one finds at the highest level of international racing. Additionally, while at Lake Placid we would deal with only two short-track races on one day, Nats will see four or five of them back-to-back-to back, with no time in between.

Still, we all had roles to play, even if we were not all busy all the time. At Nationals, we do worry about screwing up something seemingly simple; at a World Cup, however, screwing up even at the lower crew levels means you most likely won't be working such an event ever again. Lots of pressure, for sure. It was the first time for me to actually work as a commissaire with our PCP for the event, Geordie from Canada; we knew each other from various races where I had been doing doping control, but I didn't really know his leadership style. Well, I was extremely impressed by his focus, task management, follow-up, and generally tight reigns on every aspect of the race. And I appreciate his trust and confidence putting me into the 80% for all short-track and cross-country races on all three days. (I was assisted by different commissaires each day so that we always had at least two refs in this important position.)

Since some non-cycling friends of mine read this blog, let me briefly explain what this 80% line is. Depending on the type of race, laps can be extremely short. For example, for the XCC (short track) we had lap times as short as 2:30 min:sec. With a field size of 40 racers, and a race length of only 25 minutes, it's full gas from the very start. The field will string out, there will be slower riders or riders who have a mishap and fall back. These races are not about finishing but winning, and so we certainly don't want the leaders to come across some stragglers who have fallen far enough behind to now impede the progress of the leaders or, equally unacceptable, be in view of the cameras when the winner comes across the line with a big victory salute but an off-the-back racer right in front of him. So, we pull riders who are no longer in contention out of the race. They will be placed in the results as one lap, or two or three laps, down from the leader, depending on when we pull that particular rider. We determine whom we pull early enough so that they are never (if we don't screw up!) lapped (overtaken) by the leaders, based on a formula that is based on 80% of the time they are behind the leader. 

Every time the leader comes through, we restart the clock, and once we hit 80% (leaders turn a 2:30 min:sec, then 80% of that is 2:00 min:sec) we start pulling—anybody now coming by our spot on that lap will be asked to withdraw from the race. Of course, racing is not just black and white, and especially toward the end of the contest some riders will suddenly start to crater and start losing more time than early on in the race. It is up to us to keep track of what is happening at the back end of the race, and we may end a racer's day even before the 80% time has been reached because it has become clear that he or she is going backward so quickly that the leaders would catch them. The 80% line is generally located well before the finish line, out of sight of most of the fans and often the cameras as well, and so we have to make split-second decisions on whom we pull or leave in for an extra lap. At this level of racing, we prefer to err on the cautious side because a lapped rider will most definitely put us on the shit-list of Warner Brothers, the UCI Technical Delegate and all the other UCI brass, and of course our PCP—who himself is going to get called on the carpet for putting such nincompoops in charge of the 80%. I'm sure you get it when I say that's an exciting but also high-pressure position.

Well, we made it through the races without being yelled at, so I believe we did OK. And when I say "we," I mean it. This entire officiating thing is a team effort, and it is good to be surrounded by such experienced and level-headed coms. All of us need a wingman at some point, and we all know one another so well that we don't point fingers when a mid-air disaster has been avoided after Amy or Katsu or Uǧur next to me picks up and fixes my brain-fart, and vice versa. I am so privileged to work with colleagues like this.

We so lucked out: For the entire three days the weather was perfect, with occasional clouds but mostly sunshine and definitely no rain. A few hundred miles south of us, the leftovers of hurricane Helene pummeled numerous states, North Carolina where Judy hails from among the worst. I didn't hear anything about how West Virginia fared, but if even Virginia to the north was experiencing torrential rains then Snowshoe quite likely was hammered as well. Instead, we enjoyed the most beautiful autumn weather that the Adirondacks could have dished up. 

After dinner at the venue (free meals offered by the organizer leave per-diem money over to eat ice-cream at Stewart's or have an IPA or two at Prison City Brewing) we'd drive back to the Cambria and clean up. One evening we stopped for a quick look at the Lake Placid Olympic ski jump facilities before heading back to town. Impressive! The town itself was hopping both Friday and Saturday nights, with inexplicably early closing times at Prison City (8:00 p.m.) while tourists were out in droves. This tiny tap room had one of the most extensive IPA menus I have ever seen, and each one of the beers I tasted was of outstanding quality, something that couldn't be said about Lake Placid Brewing and Big Slide Brewery. Those were enjoyable evenings, with our local official, Gary (I had worked with him last year at Mountain Spring), acting as the official driver and guide. He enjoys a good IPA just as much as does my friend and colleague Jim from Victoria Island. Uǧur is more of an I-like-to-drink-anything kinda guy, going even so far as ordering a sampler flight, which drew the good-willed scorn of the three IPA boys. Geordie also showed up at Prison City after finishing all of his PCP meeting tasks while Amy and Judy preferred a shopping escapade. 

Sunday afternoon came quicker than anticipated, after late nights and early mornings. Before we knew it, the Elite men had finished their cross-country race and it was time to say goodbye to Lake Placid. Judy, Uǧur, Katsu, and I piled into the minivan, chauffeured by Amy. On the two-hour trip to our airport hotel, we talked and laughed a lot, a clear sign that the we had survived the three days of racing in good spirits. Uǧur regaled us with one of his Turkish proverbs, Üzüm üzüme baka baka kararır (literally, the grape turns darker looking at other grapes) to explain why Judy was making good-natured fun of him by virtue of sitting next to me, and I give my friend a whole bunch of s**t! Well, you had to be there. We all decided to bring Depends next time around since we laughed so hard as to almost pee in our britches. Maybe there's another proverb for cases in which a team continues to jell the longer the members have known each other.

After an ice cream stop at Schroon Lake we continued to the Desmond hotel, just a mile or two from the Albany airport. At 4:00 a.m. the alarm rang, and half an hour later Amy released us all at the terminal. Five different people on five different flights, all taking off within an hour of one another. Who knows when we will all be reunited once again.

The trip ended on a happy note when my upgrade request for the direct flight from Albany to DFW was filled, despite my being #3 for one available seat. It seems that #1 and #2 didn't show up, and so I had a comfy seat. DFW to LBB had been upgraded several days before. I made it back to the house just a few minutes after noon, with all my luggage. A few hours later everything was unpacked and the washing machine was churning. It was time to start thinking about packing for France.

Jürgen