Initially, the start of my bike racing season had been scheduled for the weekend after my return from my around-the-world trip. But horrendously crappy weather all across the state meant that the NICA North Conference season opener in Bridgeport (northwest of Dallas) was cancelled, as was the concurrent South Conference opener in Sugar Land (outside of Houston). To be quite honest, even though it was a real bummer that we couldn't race, I was not too distraught to get an extra few days of decompression time before flying out again.
And so I left Lubbock last week (exactly a week ago!) on Wednesday morning for DFW. After a relaxed couple of hours in one of the Admirals Clubs, I boarded the direct flight to San Juan to fulfill an assignment to a UCI event. I had paid ($225) for an upgrade to First for this almost five-hour long flight. The days of counting on the complimentary upgrades are over as AA has by now totally reneged on its promises and keeps selling upgrades until a few moments before departure instead of starting to fill these seats at the 100-hour mark with their loyal elite customers. (For today's flight back from Puerto Rico to Dallas they wanted first $1,040, then dropped that to somewhere around $600 and then back up to $840. Sorry, but that is more than what I am being paid for working the three-day long event, and I have a comfy exit row seat. Airlines are suffering a drop in loyalty behavior across the board, and it will be interesting to see whether anybody realizes that retaining a customer is much cheaper than trying to win a new one
.)
I arrived late at night in SJU, around 11:20 pm. Thankfully, I had been able to get in touch with the race organizers with less than 24 hours before my arrival, and somebody came to pick me up and drive me the 75 minutes from the airport (north coast of Puerto Rico) to an Airbnb in Salinas, on the southern coast of the island. The competition of the Tropical MTB Challenge 2026 didn't start until Friday morning, but with all the recent extreme weather I had not wanted to leave my arrival to chance and thus had an extra day on the ground.
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| I always cast a watchful eye on Linda when she explores the 'hood |
The Airbnb was a modern, clean place with a small pool; my colleague Linda (who arrived at noon on Thursday after an initial red-eye flight from her home in Portland to New York and then onward to San Juan) and I stayed in a spacious and airy upstairs apartment for the duration of the competition, while the race director, Hector, and his GF Yvette had a separate ground-floor apartment. Since Linda and I didn't have a car we had to rely for our transportation on the organizers who dispatched two volunteers, Axel and Vianca, to take us to a supermarket to buy some breakfast supplies (nothing in the immediate neighborhood) and shuttle us to and from the venue. It all worked out very well, and I can't praise the organizers and their helpers enough for everything they did for us.
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Our best friends for the weekend: top photo, Axel with Linda and me;
Hector and Yvette at dinner with Linda y moi;
and at the bottom, Vianca with her husband and their son |
As mentioned, the event was UCI sanctioned and featured both short-track (XCC) as well as cross-country (XCO) races. The chief commissaire was my old friend Leandro, with whom I had sat through and passed our initial UCI International Commissaire course 20 years ago in Switzerland. It's always good to see him, but it is sobering to think that I am 70 and he still is just 47! Leandro lives in south-eastern Argentina, and the last time we had run into each other was in Araxá, Brazil. Another old commissaire friend of mine was Betzaida, a Puerto Rican commissaire who had been on two of my crews in two mountain bike races and the San Juan 70.3 triathlon back in the days. It was so wonderful to see her and chat between fulfilling our respective duties. And then, as at almost every race, there were another half dozen faces whose names I don't remember but who come up to give me a handshake or a hug. It's pretty embarrassing.
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| What a treat to see both Betzaida as well as Leandro! |
The setting of the Tropical MTB Challenge 2026 (one of two UCI-level events in PR within two weeks, the next one taking place this weekend in Rincon, a race that I have worked in the past) is the Albergue Olimpico, a large sports and recreational complex that features an Olympic-sized pool, an archery range, baseball diamonds, and a waterpark, apart from outstanding mountain bike trails. Every day, Axel or Vianca would pick us up at the Airbnb at the scheduled time and we'd be on-site for however long it took.
Every night, we'd pile into Hector's fancy Jeep Gladiator and head out for dinner, courtesy of the organization. Twice we were joined by the outgoing president of the Puerto Rican cycling federation, Roberto, a high-strung, fast-talking gregarious man who seemed to be holding court the entire weekend. The small port of Salinas has several seafood restaurants, right on the water, and that's where we had delicacies such as carrucho (conch), pulpo (octopus), and camarones (shrimp). Add to that various massive (and often, fried) appetizers and the late time of night for our dinners, and sleeping soundly became impossible. But dang, the food was so good. |
| Roberto and two of our volunteers |
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| Yvette and I |
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| Linda and Hector |
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| Mofongo y churrasco |
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| Tostones y pulpo |
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| Something fried, like so much of the food ... |
Monday morning came quickly, and Vianca showed up on time to take both Linda and me back to San Juan. I had planned all along to stay an extra night on the island as I had a soon-to-expire IHG-group hotel certificate to burn, and Linda on short notice changed her departure to Tuesday as well: Her nephew works for one of the big hotel chains and had offered to get her a preferential family rate, and it looked as if the weekend's nor'easter was going to throw a monkey wrench into her travel plans anyway, so why not extend the paid vacation?
Linda and I parted ways when Vianca dropped me off at the Hotel Wave Condado, just a few blocks away from the beach in this popular tourist area of San Juan. Since it was early in the morning and my room wasn't ready yet to be occupied, I went for a nice, long walk around the Condado lagoon and some of the adjacent beaches. The scenery was quite different from our bike race venue.
After check-in and the excitement of a Dumpster fire outside of the hotel (the Wave is currently undergoing renovations and something flammable led to this six-fire-extinguisher blaze outside of the lobby) I hailed an Uber for six bucks to go to Old San Juan. It's really something special to walk around Americas' oldest European-founded city, at now exactly 505 years, going back to 1521 and the Spaniards. Castillo San Felipe del Morro is currently undergoing some restorations, but it's impressive to see ramparts that have withstood centuries of attacks by cannon balls and hurricanes alike. What a history! No wonder it's one of the many UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
I didn't have any sightseeing agenda as it was late in the afternoon and I had visited before the beautiful and history-dripping peninsula that cradles the San Juan harbor. I simply walked around, enjoying the quiet afternoon with its beautiful colors, the fresh breeze, and the general Old World ambiance. My quest for microbrewery #641 came up short-handed when it turned out that I had arrived at
La Taverna de Lupulo on the day when they were having their annual employee appreciation party. And so I walked across the street and listened to some
salsa and enjoyed three 8.6 oz baby cans of Heineken for an even $5 while the bartender continued to groom his hair.
Dinner was in an outdoor restaurant that Linda had recommended, but by then the streets were already starting to get really quiet and I didn't feel like hanging out for too long. Another 10-minute Uber ride and I was back at my hotel, which had not burned down during my absence. Thirteen hours later it was time to check out, Uber to the airport, and get ready for my flight back home.
Walking up to the gate, after an unexpectedly pleasant hour in the Priority Pass Lounge (AA doesn't operate an Admirals Club in San Juan), I heard a PA announcement seeking volunteers for my flight to Dallas. I honed in on the check-in agent, asked for the details and guarantees (such as keeping my exit row seat in case that at the last minute they would
not need me after all), and then went into a 30-minute holding pattern until it was official: I would have $500 in travel credits in hand, get a free room in the San Juan Airport Hotel, and even be given a $12 dinner voucher to tide me over to Wednesday's 8:00 am departure.
As it turned out, the room somewhat resembled a decent prison cell, and the "patio" where I happy-houred with two Whiskey+Coco looked like a jail yard, but overall it was a small price to pay for $500 off a future flight. And let's not forget, I got to watch the tragicomedy known as State of the Union Address, featuring America's worst (or best?) comedian.
Today's flights worked beautifully, albeit not direct to DFW but with a detour via Miami, but I knew that beforehand. It almost looks as if my last flight to Lubbaville will be up front, without the extra $125 co-pay that they tried to extort earlier. (Never mind what I wrote in the second or third paragraph, as that was before my voluntary bump.) With a bit of luck, in two hours I'll give Sandy a big hug and we'll head to la casa, for a couple of nights before the next race. Yippy!
Jürgen
I arrived late at night in SJU, around 11:20 pm. Thankfully, I had been able to get in touch with the race organizers with less than 24 hours before my arrival, and somebody came to pick me up and drive me the 75 minutes from the airport (north coast of Puerto Rico) to an Airbnb in Salinas, on the southern coast of the island. The competition of the Tropical MTB Challenge 2026 didn't start until Friday morning, but with all the recent extreme weather I had not wanted to leave my arrival to chance and thus had an extra day on the ground.
The Airbnb was a modern, clean place with a small pool; my colleague Linda (who arrived at noon on Thursday after an initial red-eye flight from her home in Portland to New York and then onward to San Juan) and I stayed in a spacious and airy upstairs apartment for the duration of the competition, while the race director, Hector, and his GF Yvette had a separate ground-floor apartment. Since Linda and I didn't have a car we had to rely for our transportation on the organizers who dispatched two volunteers, Axel and Vianca, to take us to a supermarket to buy some breakfast supplies (nothing in the immediate neighborhood) and shuttle us to and from the venue. It all worked out very well, and I can't praise the organizers and their helpers enough for everything they did for us.
Every night, we'd pile into Hector's fancy Jeep Gladiator and head out for dinner, courtesy of the organization. Twice we were joined by the outgoing president of the Puerto Rican cycling federation, Roberto, a high-strung, fast-talking gregarious man who seemed to be holding court the entire weekend. The small port of Salinas has several seafood restaurants, right on the water, and that's where we had delicacies such as carrucho (conch), pulpo (octopus), and camarones (shrimp). Add to that various massive (and often, fried) appetizers and the late time of night for our dinners, and sleeping soundly became impossible. But dang, the food was so good.
Monday morning came quickly, and Vianca showed up on time to take both Linda and me back to San Juan. I had planned all along to stay an extra night on the island as I had a soon-to-expire IHG-group hotel certificate to burn, and Linda on short notice changed her departure to Tuesday as well: Her nephew works for one of the big hotel chains and had offered to get her a preferential family rate, and it looked as if the weekend's nor'easter was going to throw a monkey wrench into her travel plans anyway, so why not extend the paid vacation?
Linda and I parted ways when Vianca dropped me off at the Hotel Wave Condado, just a few blocks away from the beach in this popular tourist area of San Juan. Since it was early in the morning and my room wasn't ready yet to be occupied, I went for a nice, long walk around the Condado lagoon and some of the adjacent beaches. The scenery was quite different from our bike race venue.
After check-in and the excitement of a Dumpster fire outside of the hotel (the Wave is currently undergoing renovations and something flammable led to this six-fire-extinguisher blaze outside of the lobby) I hailed an Uber for six bucks to go to Old San Juan. It's really something special to walk around Americas' oldest European-founded city, at now exactly 505 years, going back to 1521 and the Spaniards. Castillo San Felipe del Morro is currently undergoing some restorations, but it's impressive to see ramparts that have withstood centuries of attacks by cannon balls and hurricanes alike. What a history! No wonder it's one of the many UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Dinner was in an outdoor restaurant that Linda had recommended, but by then the streets were already starting to get really quiet and I didn't feel like hanging out for too long. Another 10-minute Uber ride and I was back at my hotel, which had not burned down during my absence. Thirteen hours later it was time to check out, Uber to the airport, and get ready for my flight back home.
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