Mountains, deep blue skies, breathable air, no humidity, no storms—Missoula is Heaven!

The thing about bike races is that race directors generally try to schedule their events during the climatically best time of the year. We all get that. And we also get that the weather can always throw a mega curveball and ruin the best-prepared race. But for this year's Missoula XC mountain bike race, everything came together perfectly, creating a race weekend that I won't forget for a while, and only for the most positive of reasons.

Having learned from my long weekend in Virginia (a three-day race) I certainly wasn't going to check any luggage for a one-day event in Montana. The weather forecast was almost too perfect, and even though I packed an emergency rain jacket and long pants (plus a lightweight USA Cycling fleece), the Away pull-along was large enough for all my stuff, including officiating paraphernalia.

This time, my flights were not affected by the vagaries of weather. We left on time, both flights (to DFW and then onward to Missoula) were smooth and uneventful, and I got to enjoy myself. At the time I had made my reservation months ago I was still sitting on a soon-to-be-expiring systemwide upgrade, and instead of letting it just go up in smoke I decided to use it on such a pedestrian itinerary. (If you don't know, SWUs can be used for transatlantic and transpacific flights to upgrade from economy to business class [of course, always depending on availability, which has become scarcer and scarcer over the years], with savings potentials in the $2,000 to $4,000 or more range. But I just could not use the remaining two for the year in any other way than on a domestic flight.)

Once I got to Missoula, my old Canadian friend and mentor Fred from the Toronto area was waiting for me to take both of us to our hotel, the Center City Motel. I wouldn't mention the name of this tiny place if it weren't for the fact that its owner is one of the sponsors of the Missoula XC and comped the rooms for all officials. The hotel is an old motel, in the layout reminiscent of the untold thousands of shitholes of the likes of the Relax Inn, an OYO property in Jacksboro, TX, where I had to spend a miserable night earlier this year. But this time, instead of blood-stained bed sheets, broken TV-screens, and a foul bathroom my digs were immaculately clean, stood out with a modern design, and had friendly service. 

On Friday morning, Freddie and I went with Peter, the course dude, for the obligatory course inspection. In other words: That was our excuse to see the hinterland! The venue is located at Marshall Mountain, a former ski area that now serves as a type of mountain bike park, less than 15 minutes from downtown Missoula. The race director, Shaun, a slim, dynamic dynamo of a man, has built this race up to a true C1 level on the UCI cross-country circuit. I don't want to talk smack here, but the difference between the Virginia and the Montana races, both C1s, was staggering. I leave it at that.

Race director Shaun, on the left, with Peter and Fred

On Friday afternoon, after most of the crew had trundled in, we went out for a bit of dinner and brew-pubbing, or maybe in the revers order. Our Secretary was Leslie from Colorado, an official whom I consider the best at what she does for our high-level national and international races in the US. Our Finish Judge, Holly, from Utah, is rock-solid, and we have worked innumerable races together. The final member of our crew, Gal, currently lives in Bozeman and, as a UCI International Commissaire like Freddie (and myself, ex-officio) obviously knows his stuff. So, none of us really felt a need to talk about Saturday's race and rather enjoyed the ambience of our evening in Missoula's "downtown." 

Holly, Leslie, Gal, and Fred 

What is there to say about the race? It was near perfect. Had it not been for a computer bug in the timing company's software (took about 45 minutes to fix during which time we created podium results manually with a template from my laptop—always make sure Plan B is ready to be implemented)—and a SNAFU with the call-ups in one of the races (caused by ambiguous language in the regs), it would have been smoother than oiled butter. Overall, I'd give this race a 9.5 of a possible 10. I had so much fun starting all categories and then keeping my finger on the pulse of things; Gal was taking care of the feed zone and later the 80%, when I went to the feed/tech zone; Holly was happily scoring away; Leslie was churning out start and call-up lists and generating results; and Freddie just hung out and talked with everybody who would lend his or her ear. Freddie is one of the legends of our officials' tribe, one of the early commissaires of our still-young discipline and someone who knows more about the people and politics of the sport of mountain biking than anybody else. What a privilege to call him (and be called by him) my friend.

The most important part of every race: Do the racers have enough fun to want to come back next year (and drag a friend or two along)? You bet! Shaun, Abby, Seldon, Mike, and his altogether 16 staff members did all the right things. What about free ice cream for everybody, all day? What about t-shirts and stylish Skeds for the women that those making the podium could individualize with glitter and paint? What about a ginormous antler trophy for the UCI Elite men and women winners? What about swag galore, free beer (by Big Sky Brewing), and all the other stuff you can only dream of? We had 363 racers on Saturday, and I don't think anybody went home unhappy. In my book, this was the best-organized event that I have attended this year.

Saturday—race day—was a loooong day for everyone. Our crew ended up being something like 13 or 13.5 hours on the mountain; Shaun's people put in even more time. The sun eventually settled behind the mountains and things cooled off within minutes, and we finally drove down to the City Center Motel. That shower felt great! It actually felt so good that I was revived enough to venture out one last time to The Dram Shop (superb taproom!) for another pint of Lupujus 7, the award-winning IPA that Image Ination brews just a mile or two uptown—Fred and I had spent some time on Thursday afternoon at this top-three brewery in my book. I went out not because I am, as my brother is insisting, a hopeless alcoholic who needs help and counseling but rather because I realized that it will be a long time before I get to taste another glass of this amazing beer, surpassed only by Pliny the Elder (Russian River Brewing, Santa Rosa, CA) and Weihenstephan' s Vitus. If you've tasted more than 560 IPA in 26 or so countries and you get a chance to have a second pint of pure bliss on the same trip, what do you do?

Punctually at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, Abby waited outside the CCM to take me back to the airport. She is an unbelievable worker, just like Shaun and all the others. I had to take opt for this early departure since there were no other flights that would have gotten me home on Sunday. Bummer, but that's the life of a commissaire.

And now I've been back in the Hub City for four days, enjoying evening thunderstorms and riding my bike in the relentless heat. I have started to work out the details for numerous upcoming trips, such as Munich, Provence, and Doha, with a few pretty major races thrown into the mix. Please be patient in regard to updates because chiefing our National Championships and being on the crew for both a World Cup and a World Championship requires a bunch of time. I am so fortunate. Enjoy the summer solstice next week!

Jürgen

Air travel woes seem to be getting worse and worse

Flying used to be fun! Looking back at those past 14 years of chronicling my peripatetic ways, more often than not have I delighted in the magic that flying entails: You get on a plane, you sit back and maybe enjoy a drink or two, and then—before you know it—you've arrived at your destination. IRROPS, the cute acronym for irregular operations, were seldom encountered, seat upgrades were plentiful, and the airline staff were mostly friendly, competent, and genuinely happy with their chosen career.

But, even before the pandemic, things started to change bit-by-bit and they get progressively worse, especially if you were not one of those elite passengers who are minor or major VIPs in the hierarchy of the masses that are moved between points A, B, and C. Then COVID-19 hit, and the bottom fell out: Fewer flights mean higher prices, crowded planes, stressed-out passengers and flight attendants, and just a generally crappy atmosphere. Being someone who is loyal to an airline by flying it is no longer enough: You need to spend money (beaucoup) with an airline's co-branded credit card to achieve that coveted elite status that may, just may, give you preferential treatment.

Line in front of DFW's Terminal B Admirals Club

So, when the weather once again played ugly this past week over wide swaths of Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and surrounding states, airtravel pretty much melted down in Dallas/Ft. Worth. Months earlier, I had booked my flight from Lubbock to GSO, also known as Piedmont Triad International Airport, the closest airport to Danville, VA, that is served by American Airlines. Building in a buffer (after all, I do know about our springtime weather in these parts) I had scheduled my departure for 10:24 a.m., which should have given me plenty of time to make it to GSO, pick up my rental car, and drive to the Airbnb in Danville that the race director had rented for our crew.

Of course, none of that happened. One delay extended into the next, with us boarding and then deplaning our aircraft twice. Ground holds in DFW were to blame, and around 1:30 p.m. our flight was cancelled for good. I had already been working the AA app chat when it became clear that we might face worse than a half-hour delay. At this point it became clear how insufficient the communication between air traffic control, the airline, the people who staff the chat, and the Lubbock gate agents was. Everybody seemed to have different information.

Somehow I weaseled myself onto another DFW-bound flight, scheduled to depart LBB sometime around 4:30 p.m. that would connect me to RDU (Raleigh/Durham), about twice the distance from Danville as GSO, but that was OK. I'd arrive around 10 p.m. and would drive two hours and be able to work the first day of the race on Friday. In Lubbock, I had to exit the secure area to reclaim my luggage, like everybody else whose flight had been cancelled. Luggage, you ask? Well, at this point I asked myself the same. Whenever I can, I fly just with carry-on, but since this was a three-day race and the flight was about as straightforward as they come, I had decided to pack a few extra things, among them evening pajamas to lounge with my fellow crew members at the firepit of our Airbnb as well as my spice kit because we were all planning on a bit of a vacation after the work was done, including home-cooked meals.

Rechecking the baggage took at least an hour, if not longer. The LBB airport was chaotic, with people stranded already into their second day, only one ticket agent on duty (the others were at the gates inside the terminal or moving baggage back and forth), and a general feeling of helplessness. At least nobody got pissed off and started a Facebook moment. Patience and a certain sense of humor help in situations like this (but there were definitely more police officers present than usual).

If possible, try to fly with nothing but carry-on!

After several delays our flight finally took off, and the captain assured us that despite the extra hour or almost two the vast majority of us would not miss our connections because no planes had moved in Dallas for hours. And that was true: Looking at the large electronic boards listing the flights it became clear that probably 95% were either delayed or cancelled. To get into the Admirals Club took twenty minutes because they were so crowded; the terminals were clogged by people camped out since there were no available seats. I've never seen anything like it.

OK, let's make a long story short: Our flight to RDU suffered the same fate as so many others. After numerous delays the flight finally was cancelled at 11:45 p.m., at a point where our arrival had been forecast to be at 3:40 a.m. I immediately booked one of the few remaining hotels in the DFW area, got into a vastly overpriced Uber ($70 for a 20-minute ride), and spent the night in better shape that many of my compatriots. Chatting with AA resulted in my being confirmed for a late-afternoon flight the next afternoon to RDU, but I was also on the stand-by list for one of the earlier departures.

When I arrived back at the airport on Friday morning I went to an Admirals Club where I happened to come across an amazing agent who was able to confirm me for a stand-by seat on a delayed flight to GSO, my original destination, that was going to take off in 30 minutes. I was assured that my luggage would be retagged (remember, a few seconds earlier I had still been going to RDU?) but that it might not make it onto the same flight but arrive later. I did make my flight and got to GSO by noon, early enough to complete a missing bag report and pick up my rental car and head for Danville. (I probably had changed my reservation with Budget at least half a dozen times!)

By 2 p.m. I was at the race venue, in time for the Pro riders' short track competition.

I had worked the Anglers Ridge race last year, and I knew it was going to be a small event and we'd be overstaffed. Nevertheless, I was glad to get there and of course everything was well under control. I had never worked with the UCI's chief commissaire, Jim, from Canada; there was a second Jim from NC who was our Finish Judge, and of course I had worked a gazillion times with my old friends Justin and Judy. With only something like 50 Pro racers we were overstaffed and had a hard time looking busy....

Of course, I was expecting my baggage to arrive within the next 24 hours. Modern scanning technology shows us where the bag is located, and for the next three days it did not budge from the baggage office in RDU. I called AA, I chatted with half a dozen agents, I even tried several times to call the baggage office directly—nada. Our Airbnb had a washer, so I didn't run out of clothing, and fortunately it stayed dry and warm so that I didn't need my hiking boots or raincoat. But I started to doubt that I'd ever be reunited with my stuff.

There's really not much to tell about the race; for the remaining two days our crew of five went through the motions, talking to lots of racers and the few spectators, and wondering how the race director can afford to put on such a small event (which requires, per regulations, a crew of our size, and we had already cut two other referees before the race after petitioning USA Cycling!).

Justin had brought along his wife, Morgan, and their little boy, Landon. Generally that would be seen as a bit unusual, but with Justin's crazy travel schedule (he had just returned from the World Cup in Nové Mĕsto in Slovakia) and the Airbnb it all made sense. We all had such a good time together!

The PCP of the 2024 World Championships in Andorra, Justin, creates the start grid with Comet while being supervised by his son

To bring this to its proper conclusion, after dropping off my car in GSO on Monday morning I went back to the baggage office where I had completed my delayed baggage claim. After telling the agent, Latrice, my story she tried to call the RDU office once more, also worrying that the bag would just be forgotten. And miracle of miracles, this time somebody picked up the phone, the bag was retagged and later that day put on a plane back to DFW and then LBB, and after my bike ride on Tuesday it was delivered to my front door. 

It is Wednesday evening, and my carry-on is packed for my flight tomorrow to Montana and the next race. It's just a one-day affair, and I think I have used up all my bad karma for a while and things will be smooth as butter. Well, we'll see!

Jürgen

The final few spring races

My week in Utah is slowly coming to an end, and by the time I publish this post I will be back in Lubbock. Since my last, post-Germany ruminations, life has been fairly routine (at least for me who is on the go so much). Actually, things were a little bit calmer than originally planned as the Troy NICA high school race, already rescheduled for the weekend after my return from Germany because of rain and then again rescheduled for a different venue in College Station, had to be cancelled at the last moment because of yet another massive round of torrential rains.

So, instead of unpacking, repacking, and driving off into the sunrise I got to stay home for a whopping eight days! (Yes, the NICA race would have eaten up four of those eight.) Weatherwise, it's been a rather cool and moist spring, and it seems as if my time at home always coincides with the worst of the weather. So, while I did get to go out for a few rides, it wasn't the usual mileage that I would cover this time of the year. Add to that the increasingly tender arthritic shoulders and—truth be told—riding has lost some of its luster for me. When I do pop a Meloxicam for the arthritis, riding is somewhat less uncomfortable (most non-cyclists would call it painful), but the pure joy of riding and hitting a climb hard has been relegated to that treasure trove of cherished memories. Go out for that ride, dammit, because if you stop you'll never start again—that's the new mantra.

OK, so let's add to the bad news that age brings with it: My visit to my opthamologist friend, Greg, revealed that there are the beginnings of a cataract in the right eye, something that's not requiring immediate action but that will need to be addressed later on in the year, when things are a bit less busy. Anything else?

I spent a good part of my ten days at home removing live oak leaves from my backyard. For those of you who are not familiar with this species of tree, unlike other oaks they don't lose all their leaves in one fell swoop during a three-day span in the fall (that's how "normal" trees in Lubbock act) but rather exchange their foliage over a three-month span starting in earnest in the middle of winter. Leaves gently float down, but when the wind kicks in at 25 mph or more, it's a veritable blizzard of leaves. And the wind, of course, does its part to build piles of them here, there, and everywhere throughout the yard.

Even with various blowers, vacuums, and a "mower" that collects the leaves from the artificial turf, it is pretty much a sisyphean task to rid the yard of all that detritus. I have no idea how many 60-gallon barrels of dead foliage I have collected and deposited in the back-alley Dumpster, but I know that I treated myself to several full-body workouts that lasted an entire afternoon. Sure, after clean-up the yard looks beautiful enough for me to plop down, switch on the water feature, and kick back, but the next hard wind will negate all the efforts.

My friends Donna and Bobby set me up with some plant-life for the living wall that Bravo Xteriors had planted with annuals, not perennials as had been the plan. The ground plant life mostly survived the winter, and there are colors here and there. I thoroughly enjoy walking out into the yard in the morning with my cup of coffee and inspect my little fiefdom, taking note of a new shoot here or a budding flower there. Maybe one of these days I am going to grow a green thumb longer than just a centimeter!

Before I knew it, the time had come to get back to the airport to fly to Oklahoma for a weekend of working rounds 5 and 6 of the 2024 UCI BMX World Cup. My friend Andrew from Toronto joined me, and after work we had a chance to go to a few brewpubs and enjoy the feeble nightlife of Tulsa. Our hotel—the Hyatt Regency—was in the heart of downtown, but the entire place was deader than a doornail. Maybe it was the weekend's tornado watches that kept people at home, maybe it was some concert that was happening Friday night that syphoned off humanity, but it was dead. Four days on the road, job successfully done, not much else to tell.

Not even a week (and a needed haircut) later I was back on a plane, this time headed to Utah. Longtime readers my remember that for the past four or five years I have been on the officiating crew for the Soldier Hollow Bike Fest races. Since the humble first race I had been part of this event, which every year I put at the top of the race wishlist that we submit to USA Cycling ahead of the start of the season. For some reason or another, this year I was not assigned as a commissaire, something that I felt a bit sore about since over the years I had contributed a lot to the success of SOHO. And last year, I had been one of two USAC members who had, during an intimate VIP dinner at the Tree Room at Sundance Resort, provided our input to the organizers as they were preparing to land the 2024 Pan-American Mountain Bike Championships for this venue (a quest in which they were successful).

But sometimes fate plays in mysterious ways, and just a few weeks ago I was approached by Switzerland whether I could replace a colleague who was not able to go to Utah, after all. Even though this is the weekend of our NICA State Championship Finals (which are right now, as I am writing this on Sunday at noon, battling torrential rains in Longview, TX), I decided to work the American Continental Championships (or for short, the Pan-Ams)—high school race versus the biggest mountain bike event in the Americas this year has a clear favorite.

My colleague Juan José from Colombia and I have been spending our afternoons at the venue, working with a small number of athletes inside of a warm building after the conclusion of their respective races—and until yesterday, these races were run in extremely cold and wet (and muddy) conditions. When we arrived here, the area was under a winter storm warning, and we had fresh snow on the ground. There has been a gradual warming trend, but for our Central and South American riders especially, these conditions came as a total shock.

On Friday, Juan José and I had to make a run down to Salt Lake City to the fancy, new SMRTL laboratory, and we seized the opportunity to do a little bit of sightseeing around Temple Square. It is the first time for me to work with my Colombian colleague, and we're having a fabulous time together and have gelled into a great team. I hope we'll get some opportunities in the future to spend more time together. Seeing him gorge himself with Popeye's ("best restaurant!") chicken was a sight to behold.

In hindsight, I am very glad that instead of working as a commissaire all day long in the windy cold and enduring the occasional shower we can show up early in the afternoon, set up our workplaces, instruct volunteers in their duties, and then spend some time one-on-one with some of the best mountain bike racers in the world, warm and comfortable. Sure, we get back to the hotel well after the commissaires have left the venue, but we're certainly not pushing their hours. Not bad. And the pay is better....

Juan José commented on how many people I know here (and how many more people seem to know me!). Well, that's what working an event several years in a row and calling all of our national referees who were present my friends will do. This kind of experience has made our job really easy, so this turned out to be really much more of a vacation interrupted by occasional high-pressure tasks than a weeklong work slog.

The racing will conclude late this afternoon, and quite likely we won't wrap things up until after dark. Juan José will fly back early tomorrow morning, and I will make another visit to the lab before heading back to the airport, returning my rental car, and flying home to Lubbock for about two weeks before heading for the East Coast and then the Rockies for two commissaire assignment. Spring is done, and now we're looking forward to the summer racing season.

Jürgen