Off to the races!

We arrived in Luxembourg yesterday for the Elsy Jacobs Grand Prix. Elsy Jacobs won the first ever World Championship cycling event for women (1958 I believe) and this is the second addition of the race. The event is held on the on the first statutory holiday in May, so there should be many spectators out to watch the race. In addition to getting very lost on our ride yesterday, we also pre-rode the course. It is quite hilly, so the race will likely break apart quickly...it’s going to be very hard! We will complete 10 x 10 km circuits for 100 km.
For UCI races the race organizer is required to provide a hotel and race meals for all of the teams and support crews. I’m not sure how it’s financially feasible, but it’s nice for us. We are staying at a hotel with teams from the US, Finland, Belgium, and Italy. For dinner we had lots of pasta and a large piece of unidentifiable meat...possibly pork? Not very appetizing in light of the Swine flu outbreak. Breaky was more my style – a variety of meats, cheeses, breads, yogurt, and muesli. We will have another meal at 11:30 before leaving for the race. European racing often starts later in the afternoon which I appreciate. The hotel is bustling with lots of activity and many languages. The mechanics have their own little club and they are all outside laughing and working on bikes, coaches are at the managers meeting, and riders seem to be pacing around doing I’m not sure what. It’s hard to focus on racing because it’s just so fun to sit back and observe this foreign world! Dan is only about 40 minutes drive from us, so he is going to try and catch the end of the race and then we will go for dinner. We will then leave for Switzerland early tomorrow morning. With any luck we will have an internet connection in Switzerland and I will be able to post an update about our first racing adventure.