The Dirt Field

I got a call up at the airport! Apparently this is what happens when you nearly miss your flight because you had to stop for a soft pretzel.

I sprinted onto the plane and was greeted by a sea of silent, staring faces who all watched me wrestle my luggage into the overhead compartment. SO AWKWARD. The man seated next to me seemed less than excited to be my neighbor, but the feeling was mutual as I quickly realized he was not a believer in the powers of deodorant. Then the woman in front of me handed her small daughter a large plastic bag and instructed, “Throw up into this if you need to, honey.” She’d better have brought two, because if her kid had erupted, that soft pretzel was going to reappear.

After 2.5 hours of watching that woman’s children behave like spoiled, rabid monkeys and fantasizing about pushing them all out the emergency exit, I was in Minneapolis. By the time I left baggage claim with my bike, no less than a dozen strangers had asked what was in the bag. What’s with that? I understand being curious, but just because I’m curious about how somebody lost a limb or whether or not a woman is pregnant with quadruplets doesn’t mean I’m going to ask.

Rant aside, I was grateful to have received my bike at all, as Pete, the other NVGP qualifier from the Jeff Cup race, had no such luck. While inquiring about the missing bike at the baggage counter, he faced questions from the helpful clerk that included, “Do you know what was in the bag?” (“no – I let the local arms dealer pack it”) and “Was there anything in the bike?” (“you mean other than the baggies of cocaine?”). It later turned out that his bike never even boarded the plane. He was remarkably calm about it; I would have gone up in flames at the counter.

Pete and I joined other riders from the Pro Chase and the Collegiate All-Stars team in a van to drive to the camp base. We disembarked at a massive house in a rural area and were greeted by the team staff and the host family. I staked out a bed and then ate my weight in home-cooked food. The rest of the evening was a blur of putting my bike together (a short project, thanks to the massive Scicon case that – for an optimistic ‘of-course-the-airline-will-handle-my-bike-lovingly’ person – means I only remove my wheels and pedals), trying on my new team kit (and exploring the external chamois that looks like I have girl parts on the outside), and meeting the multitude of other riders staying at the house.

Now it’s time for breakfast, a ride, and an afternoon team meeting. It’s weird being here – like an episode of Real World for cyclists where everyone has compression tights, water bottles, and a fetish for oatmeal. Everybody seems really cool, but it’s a bit overwhelming to be surrounded by people who are all just as obsessively motivated about cycling. I spend a lot of time with other cyclists who love riding and racing, but here, it’s more than that. These people are all hungry for the same dream and the same goal. It’s like sleeping with the enemy, but the enemy happens to be a group of genuinely cool people with whom I can relate the most.