Wednesday, April 13, 2011

First part of my brazil trip



Ok, so im here in brazilian on my exciting bike racing adventure. Its been unbelievable so far, its so beautiful and fun here. The first few days we were in a city called Florianopolis. This is the real touristy part of south brazil. It was really amazing here. The first day we showed up and had Rodrigo, our teammate and translator, show us around the city a little bit and take us to some great local food places. The first thing we got was an acai berry sorbet with granola and sliced banana, it was delicious. Then we checked out the local mall where everything costs a million and a half dollars because everything is taxed so high for the imports. A set of Nike or Aasics shoes costs about $600 US dollars, crazy town.



Then we went to the beaches the next day. Rodrigo took us on a tour of 4 beaches and one of the most amazing ones in south america. It was so nice and relaxing.




After the second day we headed out to the hotel for our first stage race in Gravatai. It was about a 5 hour drive and it was so nice with all the mountains and new sites.




So today we finished out first stage of the Volta Cyclita International Tour de Gravatai. It was a 115 mile flat road race. It was pretty challenging in the first 2 hours while the break away was trying to be established. Al, Sean and I were being aggressive and getting into a lot of moves, and thank goodness we didn't make it into the break because the 3 guys that were in the break had to suffer in the blistering heat and wind all day just to be caught with about 20K to go. That sucks. Well the race wasnt to crazy and i was feeling really good with about 30K to go when a dude crashed in front of me. That sucked. I went down really hard and smashed my back and my side. My back is bothering me a lot, but hopefully a good nights sleep with make me feel ok.


Check back tomorrow for a video that is taking a millions years to upload.