Westside Racing

Check-in, Really Good Pizza, and a man named Dan

The check-in went pretty smooth.  We signed our lives away on the dotted line absolving the race owners of any malady or death that we might have to endure.  There were lots of other racers there and most everyone was pretty friendly.  Nathan and I got a brat from FatCyclist but everyone else declined.  We listened to a podcast from FatCyclist last week that was specifically about this race and it was packed with a lot of good information.  The guy who runs it is named Elden and I got to meet him.  Very friendly guy and I felt like I was meeting a celebrity.  He runs a great blog about cycling.

For myself, I was feeling quite intimidated looking at other cyclists.  Nathan asked me later this evening if I was nervous.  I realized that I am a bit nervous.  I'll be able to cycle the miles - that I'm not worried about.  But, I also want to do well and not drag everyone else down.  So, to that end, I am a bit nervous.

After check-in we went over to Paradox Pizza and ordered a large pizza.  This was supposed to be a pizza that was going to feed me in between legs.  Well, the pizza is really good and there is only 1 slice left.  So, I'll be eating something else in between legs.  (And, just for the record, I only had 2 slices tonight - the rest was consumed by others).

On the way down to Moab, our laptops started getting low on battery life so we fired up the generator.  A few minutes later, however, the generator stopped.  We tried to restart it but it was a no-go.  We spent some time on the phone with the rental place and tried their suggestions but the generator would never run for more than a few minutes at a time.  It was now almost 8:30 at night and all of the mechanic shops were closed for the evening.  Jeff Bray found a mechanic, though, that was willing to work on it.  So, we took the RV over to his house and he started looking at the generator.  We were there for a few hours, but he was able to find the problem (bad fuel pump) and send us on our way.  The mechanic's name is Dan and he is a very good guy to have helped us so late at night.

Everyone is in bed except for me and that is now where I am headed.  We need to be up at 6:00 and to the park by 8:00 tomorrow morning for our launch at 9:00 AM.