Yesterday I went over to Breckenridge to see Trudi and the end of the 2nd stage of the Pro Challenge. The town was obviously crowded with tons of crazed cycling fans. But more than that, it was completely jammed with team support vehicles. So many that it nearly seemed silly. The team support at the bike races has turned into an arms race. Each team is trying to one up the next. Bigger team buses, more elaborate vehicles, cooking trucks with chefs.

With all these extra vehicles etc., there is a need for more and more team support. At a race like the Pro Challenge, I’d say that the bigger teams have a ratio of at least 2 support staff for each rider. At the Tour, it is over 5. It seems a little ridiculous, but it isn’t like each and every one of the support staff isn’t working their tails off every waking minute of the day.

Yesterday, Trudi got up before 6 am and worked pretty much nonstop until 10pm. And that will be the case the whole week of the race. She did the hotel yesterday in Breckenridge. So, she collected all the luggage in Aspen, loaded it into the van and drove it over to Breckenridge, then got all the rooms and assigned them. Then she had to haul all the luggage to each person’s room. The condos that they were at were on multiple levels and had a weird configuration. So, it was a luggage moving nightmare. Waking through the hallways, there were support staff from other team, RadioShack, Garmin, etc. and all were doing the same thing.

She usually doesn’t get to see any of the races. Yesterday, she did walk the 1/2 mile down the hill to the course and watched the leaders come through the first time. She then said that she sort of felt like a cat that had wandered too far from home and needed to head back up to the rooms. She was stressed.

It is sort of strange how the support of all these Pro teams seemed to make it sort of into a competition between themselves, thus there is stress involved. You’d think that the repetition of the process would streamline it and make it less stressful, but that isn’t the case.

Anyway, if you’re thinking that doing the team support for the Professional Teams is super glamorous, think again. You do get to travel and go to super nice places, but you work crazy long hours and work super hard.

Trudi and Bromont. They hadn’t seen each other in a couple weeks.

This is Eric Heiden, one of the team doctors from BMC, waiting at drug control with yesterday’s stage winner, Mathias Frank.

Yesterday I rode over Vail Pass with Sue, met Vincent near the top, then rode down to Frisco and then back again to Vail. I took off with no headband, but it was cloudy. I also left with no lip stuff with sunblock. I always use that at altitude or my lower lip gets really burnt.

Anyway, today my forehead and lower lip or pretty toast. I keep forgetting how much more intense the sun is at altitude than in Kansas. It always surprises me.

I went to a dermatologist a few years ago and the nurse asked me if I’d ever been sunburned. I thought it was a trick question. I hesitated and then just answered yes. She then asked more than 3 times. I laughed. I said yes again and told her I’d been completely sunburned toe to head 100’s of times, if not thousands. She looked shocked.

I told my mom the story and she said something like you always went to the pool with sunblock on when you were a kid. I told her that sunblock hadn’t been “invented” when I spent the whole summer at the pool. The lifeguards and a few others used to put zinc oxide on their noses, but other than that it was full sun.

I couldn’t come close to counting how many times I have been completely fried by the sun. My normal summer look was peeling skin on my face and back. Sometimes when it was bad, I could pull nearly complete sheets of peeling skin off my back.

I have pretty okay skin. I had freckles as a kid, all over my face, arms and shoulders. Most of my friends had freckles too. It doesn’t seem like many kids have freckles anymore. I wonder why that is? Must be sun related. I don’t know why you lose your freckles either? I just they just slowly disappear as you get older.

When I raced The Tour of Southland, on the south island of New Zealand, they have a problem with really bad sunburn. I guess there is an ozone hole that moves around above and that the sun is super intense and dangerous. The race supplied sunblock. Every school kid that lined the courses when we rode by wore long sleeved shirts, long pants and a hat that covered their faces. It seemed strange at the time, but it made sense.

Anyway, I don’t use sunblock on my skin. Well, hardly ever to I use sunblock. I’m not completely sold on the whole thing. Plus, I can’t stand it when it gets into my eyes while riding. I know that I’m going against the grain on this, but I think the jury is still out, scientifically, on this one. I guess time will tell.

Sue riding back towards Vail near the top of Vail Pass.

I saw this mushroom near the top of Vail Pass. I have no idea what it is, but it is the biggest mushroom I’ve ever seen.

These guys were near the top of Vail Pass too. I can’t believe how hard it must be to do this. I was so impressed.