I’m sitting here at 5am on Thursday morning, tubular glue all over my clothes. The Veloshop was busy as hell all week and I did not get a chance to setup my race bikes until the night before my flight. Which, because you asked, is also the season premiere of LOST. (A TV show that Brian Ellin and I have become absurdly fascinated with. I tricked Pete into falling in love with the show by sticking a bunch of episodes on her new Ipod.)

The Vanilla team has some exciting new sponsors this year:

Stumptown coffee roasters
Zipp Speed Weaponry
Chris King precision componentry

And that means I had a new King/Zipp wheel set to get built and glued up this week! We got some new uniform stuff and Sacha got us some hot new helmets too. So, I am slammed all week, barely training and hardly getting anything accomplished at the Veloshop.

Chuck has been an amazing asset by the way, if anyone goes by the shop and I am not there, buy him a snack or coffee or lunch or a beer or something! Lots of people do not actually realize how small my shop really is. It is me. And Chuck. Mostly me. That’s it. There is no back up or service dept. I’ve got no bookkeepers or sales staff. I also have no cash either so, I apologize in advance for likely not having everything you want in stock.

I never found a second to get my race bikes built and packed before last night and I am literally running around last minute, de-building and rebuilding my pit bike, putting layers of glue onto the new Zipp wheels I just laced up, realizing that I forgot my valve extenders, stopping by Vanilla really late to pick up some gear, give Sacha a hug, swing by the Laughing Planet, grab a burrito, speed over to Pete’s (who is hosting an America’s next top model/LOST viewing party) haul all my gear into the house setup a truing stand, put more glue on my rims, deal with the sealant, eat dinner, realize everything I have forgotten, do last minute laundry and find some sleep before the alarm goes off.

Boston.

Adam Hodges Myerson is an hour late picking me up from the airport. I put my bikes together while I am waiting and realise I did a crap glue job on the front…

Dinner at the Buddist delight restaurant, race gossip. Smack talk. I’m sleepy and it is not even 9 o clock Portland time.