Belize Day 3: Can we race? (Updated)

Did a nice 2-3 hour ride today to Crooked Tree, but our whole gang is pretty stressed out. It was really nice to meet up on the road with the Sugar City Boys team and train together. The roads here are really rough and it was good to have friends, teamates and a support truck to share the ride with. We are running into some opposition down here to letting us americans race. There were some heated discussions at the team meeting last night that lasted late into the evening. We have been going round and round with the Belizian Cycling Association constantly. Their intentions are good, but we are having to scramble to get documentations squared away that we had already sent prior to us buying tickets to race. Foriegners racing in the USA don't have anywere close to the hard time as they evidently do down here with registration. We just want to race! Right now there is about a 70% chance we can race tomorrow, but that other 30% is driving us crazy. Big thanks to our NC/SC Cycling Association President, Vicki Lyons for all of her help in getting us the repeatitive documentation they are needing down here. All in all a real stressful night last night and today. We need to get out and go for a walk to clear our minds. Great Country, great climate, great people, but a totally different approach to allowing foriegn riders to race.

5:30pm: Things look much more promising for us to race tomorrow and we are prepared. Our local friends, Melin with the Sugar City team and Andrew with Acros-Guiness, have taken great care of us while we have been down here and helping us get things squared away with the race. We re-sent all of our documents and are ready for a good race. Our spirits have picked up greatly. I am looking forward to dinner tonight at La Hacinda and a nice team meeting tonight. Everyone is fit and ready, but heat is definately going to be a factor, but we have a good plan and great teammates and support. Breakfast early tomorrow and we head off to Corizal to start the race at 9:00, which runs from the Belize-Mexico boarder to Belize City, 100 miles south.

Someone local at home keep Melissa in the loop, my email is down and I can't get through. Adam

Belize Day 2: "Chicken Slayer"

Woke up today at 5:00am to ride at 6:00...Monte looked outside and proclaimed that is was "pitch ass dark outside" and about 80 degrees. The equatorial Sun soon came up with force and we set out with bellies full of tropical bananas and mini clif bars. We rode 60 miles on the roughest roads I have ever seen to the Mexican boarder and back to Orange Walk with our Sugar City teammates Nery, Bertrain and their director Damion. Basically the roads are a mixture of 1-2" sided gravel with huge gaps between. The smooth sections lack the characteristic mindfield of 2 foot HOLES that the really rough sections have. Monte was having a little trouble with his hands going numb, and I know we will be really sore tonight. We stopped just shy of the Mexican boarder (long story again) and decided to turn around. A quick stop at the local store for some bagged water (chilled 1 quart plastic bags of water, rather than bottles) and Gatorade.
Passed another guy on the bike with a gun (double barrel this time) on our way back to Orange Walk. About 20 miles outside of town went through a pretty rual area (mile of sugar cane mixed with shanty shacks along the roadside with various livestock roaming free in the "yard"). A huge golden chicken was running across the road, and diverted its path straigh towards us. Harkey narrowly dodged the fleeing fowl, but Adam t-boned and ran right over the entire chicken with his bike, both wheels. Feathers flying, know known as the "chicken slayer of belize".
Late 10:00 Breakfast of tortillas, beans, eggs and fried jack pies was a welcomed blessing. We all agreed that we would crawl across a desert of broken glass for the homemade thick totillias from here. We cracked and caught up on some sleep and will head back out tonight for dinner.

Belize: Day 1 Run over the Boarder

We flew out of Charlotte today on the way to Cancun. After the 3 hour flight, we waiting in about an equally long line at customs and immigration. Andrew picked us up and we started our run into Belize. During our 6 hour drive...yeah, I could not help but notice that there are tons of machine guns in Mexico. Military checkpoints every few miles will well armed chaps, heck we even passed a civilian riding a bike with his gun straped to his back. Crossed the boarder out of Mexico (real scary, ask me about the details) and into the "Free Zone" a short area between the 2 countries. Our van was searched as we left the free zone and again as we entered Belize but Andrew definately helped clear us through. Arived in Orange Walk, Belize at around 6:00pm and met up with Melin, owner of the local Sugar City Boys Team. Due to some registration problems, we will not be able to race as our own team. Monte and Adam are racing with the Sugar City crew (Orange Walk is famous for sugar cane), and Harkey and David are racing with the Guiness Team in Thursday's race.
Melin has been a great help and has taken great care of us. We had a nice meal of chicken fajitas and bottled Coke tonight and met on of his riders from Guatemala, Nery Valasquz who just won the climbers jersey in the Tour of Guatemala, who will be racing with Monte and Adam. We checked into the Hotel de La Fuentes here in Orange Walk. Will try to get pics us as available.

KMC Test Chain - 1000 Miles

With just over 1000 miles on or KMC test chain (see original article below), we have noticed some wear to the paint. The outer links on the outer drive side show about 20% wear, mostly on the center portions due to the cassette teeth while down shifting. The inner side of the chain (the side against the frame) shows much more wear with about 50% of the paint gone. As you can see, most of the wear is found on the outer X-Bridge links as well as the hollow pins. This wear is attributed to repeated upshifting up the cassette. Other than the paint wear, the functioning of the chain is still perfect. Shifting is smooth and the wear life of the chain seem unaffected. Look for future updates.