1 week to go

The next trip is all about ME ... do you hear that Dave? Costa Rica...Australia...and the bike stays home! Oy veh...
-Julie

Game On

The Lakers won the NBA Championship last night and the College World Series is churning out some exciting late inning heroics in Omaha. Brett Favre is thinking of becoming a ViQueen and surely Tiger is kicking somebody's ass in golf somewhere as we speak. But you know what, I could care less! In 14 days I will be landing in Nice, France, for the adventure of a lifetime. I feel a bit renewed as I actually had a solid ride tonight (3 hours) after work. My legs actually felt pretty fresh. Still a few bugs to work out on the bike but all in all I'm liking the way the Merlin Magia handles and it will be reasonably comfortable with a little more spring than the carbon bike. It doesn't have quite the snap on the climbs but overall I think it will be a good choice for the long miles. I got in 17 hours of riding last week, which was below the 21 I was shooting for. This week will be similar with the added fun of some altitude work with Marco on the weekend.
He always humbles me but is a great riding partner. Julie and our dogs continue their patient vigil as I am freed to ride and concentrate pretty much on work and fitness for now. Lots of love here at the Rogers house. Sleep time!

Countdown continues

We're closing in on the last week-and-a-half before we leave for France. Dave has gotten, and is taking, an opportunity to fly to Denver to see our good friends Marco and Jacqueline Vasquez (and little Marco) this weekend. He and Marco are going to do two uphill time trials Saturday and Sunday. Dave won't ride it competitively, or - thank goodness - take any risks, but it's a good opportunity to get some good ascent riding in before we leave. Needless to say, I encouraged him.

More stick shift driving under my belt, thanks to Ian's little VW GTI. I must say, I did pretty well. Only panicked once when I killed it after a stoplight on the highway and had vehicles behind me. That's down from the multiple panics in the previous drives, even when there were no vehicles for miles! I'm progressing. Dave even gave me a couple "excellent jobs" on my accelerations from stops to 1st gear. Yee-hah!

I actually started "staging" the things to bring on the trip in one of the bedrooms. Maps, books, camera with 8GB memory card, Garmin with European card, small first-aid kit, small backpack for touring, etc., etc. Liz is loaning us her camcorder and dad is loaning us his little binoculars. If anyone out there has suggestions for things to bring or otherwise, please send us comments. We don't want to forget anything as buying it in Europe, if necessary, will be more expensive.

On that note, I did see that the dollar is now at 1.385 Euros (down from a previous high around 1.42). Good news. Keep dropping, please!

Dave has the new Merlin built up, thanks to our Kaos friend Bryan Redemske. It turned out great and Dave said it's a fantastic ride. Stiffer than the Felt. He's still getting a few things dialed in, like the seat, but the ride in Denver will also help him with that. Still needs a few more things - most importantly an extra set of wheels - but the other things are little and he can buy at the bike shops around here or in Denver.

The excitement builds!!
- Julie

Slow Twitch Dave

Preparation for this run at the tour route sure is different than the usual racing focus I have this time of year. The training intensity is down while the miles are up (I should have 380-400 miles for the week). Skipping all the local/regional races with my team to rack up the miles and avoid the risk of a crash has been quite out of character. I really miss the competition and the pre-race jitters, but this year the goals are different so I'm trying to keep the focus. I've been getting in generally 40-70 miles/night during the week and doing my longer rides on the weekend. I'm hoping that having the unique chance to ride without a full work week thrown into the mix will let me feel a bit more fresh. For now I'm feeling pretty worn down. I'm still struggling in my mind trying to comprehend the idea of doing so many successive 100+ mile days. It's uncharted territory for me to be sure. My daughter, Liz, told me tonight that on her recent birthday (23 on May 20th) she twittered Lance and told him all she wanted for her birthday was for him to post a message wishing me good luck in my quest to ride the TdF route. Needless to say he's been a little busy so I'm not expecting any good luck wishes from Mr. Armstrong, but it shows you just how special my daughter is! My good friend, Ian Gray, and his mates from Ciclismo Racing out of Fort Collins, CO, stayed with us this past weekend on their way to Minneapolis for the Nature Valley Grand Prix. Great bunch. Oh to be 20-something again! Also got a chance to catch up on the phone with my friend and former Team Kaos stud Matt Landen. Matt moved to the LA area this winter and is tearing it up for Team Liquid. He was recently pictured in a Rudy Project ad attacking Levi Leipheimer on a climb at the Tour of the Gila. Awesome photo Matt!
Tomorrow I'm going to finish building up my bike for the trip with my friend and Team Kaos mate Bryan Redemske. For any biker types reading I'll be riding a Merlin Magia with Campy Chorus 11 spd. Will work out the mechanical kinks in the next two weeks and get the rig dialed in before we head for Green Bay on the 26th. I'm scared and nervous but honestly, I can't wait to get to France and get this show on the road. Time to go beg Julie for a leg massage! Peace.....

14 Days! 14 Days???

Do we really only have 14 days until we leave for Green Bay? OMG ... where did the time go? Dave got a good ride in last night, but I had to light his way home via car - picking him up in Blair at 9:30 and giving him headlights for the rest of the 13-mile ride to our house. He got 60 miles in. The weather will hopefully hold out for the next 2 weeks so he gets some great long rides.

Time to start setting out our stuff to pack. Guess we can't do our usual "toss everything in a bag the night before" routine (or, as Dave packs, the morning of). Starting to fret about how to pack for a month, how to bring all the things Dave needs (yes, I'm bringing a small first-aid kit!), uncertainty about what we can buy there and how accessible things will be (and how expensive!). I heard diesel is cheaper in Europe, so cross your fingers on that.

Shout out to our biker friend Ian Gray, who left his stick-shift car at our house for two weeks for me to practice on while he travels. Thank you, Ian. It's still in one piece and I haven't ground the gears ... yet.

Picking up a hitchhiker

We found out today that a good friend from Green Bay is possibly going to join us for a few days of our trip. Fred Sheppard was Dave's travel companion when he went to Belgium for the Spring Classics in 2005 and biked the routes of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. We have a great picture of Fred feeding Dave a HUGE French pastry from the window of the rental car!! We're looking at picking Fred up in Barcelona and taking him with us through the cruelty of Andorra and dropping him off a few days later alongside the road - or in Toulouse. :)

Fred knows Spanish (along with several other languages) and can also drive a stick, so we're of course welcoming him to the bus! Dave will be glad for the encouragement, I'll be glad for the assistance!!

Euro vs. Dollar

If you haven't already heard, the dollar is sucking big-time against the Euro. Luckily, we've already paid off the two most expensive portions of the trip - the plane tickets and the motor home. Had we been paying off the motor home today, we would be paying almost $300 more than 2 weeks ago. Start praying for the exchange rate to start coming down in the next three weeks or I'm going to be making Mac 'n Cheese in France, too!