Here we go again

Getting ready for a trip to Junior Road Nationals. I haven't yet quite fully unpacked from track nationals yet, but that's the way summer goes for us, it seems.

With a few more people going to road nationals, we have to take the trailer to carry all of the gear. Chloe has been getting that sorted out with all the bike and wheel mounts. Noah has been helping her with that, and I just periodically look out my office window to check their progress. It's looking good. Not "pro", but then again, there's no "pro" budget. Just whatever money is on our pocket. Still, it'll be nice to have it set up so that we can be somewhat organized. 12 bikes, the race wheels, the rollers and trainers, the folding chairs, etc and so forth...it takes up some space.

We also rented a van for this one. 12 people don't fit in the Honda or Toyota, which is what we have taken to Nationals trips in the past. Wow! Renting a passenger van is expensive. Might need to hold more races next year. Or, we'll just save money and ride the bikes to Nationals. But for this year, at least we'll have four drivers to help us knock out the 30+ hour drive to Bend, Oregon.

We also rented a house for this trip. While nobody has really complained about hotel/moteling it, we'll ultimately have 20 people there (a few folks flying in). That's a bunch of hotel rooms and even more meals eaten out. No thanks. We couldn't afford it anyway. So, we'll fill up the floor with air mattresses, get cozy, community kitchen...it'll be a great bonding experience or everyone will be looking for another team in early August.

We have some unfinished business from track nationals, so this trip to road nats is an opportunity to make up for it. That's not to say track nats didn't go well, because our guys raced their hearts out. But Noah had a tough break in the 500m TT, and that set up a game of "catch up" for the rest of the week. In a sporting analogy, Noah was swinging for the fences because doubles and triples wasn't going to get it done at that point. As a squad, we couldn't have done much better. Everyone came home with a medal from Nationals. Every junior on GS Tenzing has earned a medal at Junior Nationals.

Off to get some work done, bikes tuned and cleaned, last things organized. Here we go again!