3 Jours d'Geneve: Catch Up

Things finished up late last night, and racing started again early this morning, so I passed on the post-elimination update. Suffice to say I rode a spectacularly poor race, got swallowed up and spit out the back, and pulled early. Oops. Adrian faired pretty well, but again the night for the Americans was topped by Simes pulling off 6th. He rode a very respectable set of races, and definitely put in the best results of the Americans. Simes and Wiswell ended the night in 4th, while Adrian and I dropped to a tie for 6th, 1 point behind 5th.

Adrian and I are CouchSurfing with a really nice guy named Florent who lives only 2 km from the track, and not only is it convenient, but he's a masseur, and offered to give us free massages last night. Awesome. He says that if he wasn't working this weekend, he would come to the track with us and give us massages between races. What a great guy. Yet again, CouchSurfing comes up with the best.

Back to racing. After a breakfast at the track of bread, croissants, and triple shots of espresso that are also used for degreasing engines and stripping the paint off boat hulls, the racing got under way. Adrian pulled off a very nice ride in the points race (red numbers only) taking 4th, only finishing behind the 3 riders who gained a lap. Simes looked a bit toasted from his stellar performance yesterday, but still pulled out a respectable finish. Wiswell and I needed to wait for a couple hours until our first race: an elimination with all rider competing.

Adrian wasn't really feeling it, nor were Wiswell and Simes, but I finally pulled myself together for a decent ride, finishing 5th. Not great, but at least it garnered up some good points against the other teams around us in the standings. We've got a lunch break now, then it's back to racing, with Wiswell and I (and the other black numbers) taking our shot at a points race, followed by a set of keirins, and finally ending the day with a madison.

A funny thing about the lunch. The organizers provided sandwiches and Coke for only 2 Francs (about $1:75. Cheap!) but gave them to us Americans on the house. I imagine their thinking went something like this (only in French):

You know those dirt-bagging Americans, the ones who are living in the bike cage and sleeping on a stranger's couch rather than the bomb shelter dorms to save 10 Francs per night? I bet they could use a cheap lunch.

And we were more than happy to eat it.