First Day In Great Britain

Milton Keynes, England - So much to write, so little time to do it.

First, is it "Great Britain" or "United Kingdom" or "England"? I've found it listed all three ways in various drop down menus, etc. What a pain.

That's little compared to the trouble I had when I first arrived here. First, my flight was delayed (see previous post), so I arrived in the third "wave" of Rock Racing personnel. But instead of just hopping on a shuttle, I spent about 90 minutes looking (and waiting for) two riders who ended up already being at the hotel. But it was nice to catch up with Tyler Hamilton and meet one of the team's soigneurs from Europe, Letti Kemp (no relation to Mike Kemp).

Once we got on the road, it was a 90-minute drive to the hotel - in pouring rain. It's been raining here 12 days and counting. On the news, there are flood warnings everywhere. It's supposed to continue to fall through Thursday. Nice.

The hotel where we stay is modern. The elevator is "Otis" and it's listed as an eight passenger model, but it must mean eight YD girls because it is small. My room is nice. But I couldn't figure out why the lights didn't work. Or the TV. Or the light in the bathroom. It took a trip to the front desk to let me know I have to put my room key in a slot by the door to make those things work. Crazy!

Another crazy thing is the outlets. But I'll save that story for tomorrow. Suffice it to say that I can power everything I need - just not all at once.

The guys went on a training ride today and it started off as quite an adventure. Rich, the team's chiropractor, pointed out to the riders that they should "stay to the left!" as they rolled out of the parking lot. Tyler Hamilton just about got run over - and then scoffed "that guy needs to learn how to drive" before Rich reminded him that he was in England and should have been on the other side of the road.

The British press is having a field day - and that's going to make my life pretty difficult over the next couple of days. They're calling for Rock Racing to remove three riders from the race. Here's the article. It's shades of what happened at the Tour of California back in February.

It's 12:25 a.m. here so I need to get to bed. Girls, I miss you. I hope you enjoy the slideshow!