TJDu-@aol.com

Subject: Jen Dial's EuroCross Diary

From: jdv-@aol.com (JDVelo)

Date: Wed, 05 January 2000 04:32 PM EST

Message-id: <20000105163244.01079.00000727@ng-fq1.aol.com>



     The day after Christmas, Jen Dial said to hell with the feds, sold her

road bike (we posted it on the MARKETPLACE of course :)) and bought a ticket

to

Europe to race cyclocross. My huge thanks to Jonny Sundt and Adam Myerson who

came through when no one else would. She sent me this report today. It's not

as literary as Adam's but a nice view of her trip so far.



Oh yeah, I forgot to thank Andrew Albright, who was an awesome host at Monkey

Hill and helped get Jen's whole trip rolling this fall.

Thanks Andrew.

JD Bilodeau

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"If the kids are united,

they will never be divided"

-JD Bilodeau



Hi,

The trip so far in a nutshell:

Dec. 30-fly Boston to Amsterdam, arrive Dec. 31.

Dec. 31 8am. I got picked up by Annika, the hostess with the mostess, and we

drove an hour to Vinkel. I met the other host, Huub, the husband and wife

directors of the B1 MTB squad in Holland. We had coffee and I presented them

with a french press and some of that famous Seattle Special from Starbuck's.

Then a ride with Jonni Sundt and the Japanse team of three. Dinner by the

Japan

team-curry chicken and salad. Champagne. Coffee. Fireworks, and nothing blew

up

on the 1st.

Jan 1-Ride. Drive to Zeddam, check into official American team hotel. This is

when Huub shows his stuff. He and Annika went to the hotel cook and asked for

special dinner and breakfast. <<TopSport needs good nutritious food>>. Sleep.

I'm on the right schedule.

Jan 2. Get to the course. Get over the fact that every guy riding by is from

the pages of Cyclesport. The stares from the other women were awesome-the

first

sighting of the Americans and they are scared. It is over for me in an hour

when I am beaten to a pulp on a nice course, 14th with only one crash. C'est

la

vie. Aadar Myyrson, also known as Adam Myersondue to the US team manager's

terrible handwriting, (Jonni) found Jonni and I a ride to Germanie with

Steffan

Weigold of Telekom Espoirs. The all pro hook-up because they really do it up

right.

Jan 3-5: Doing the kilometers in Bavaria. It's beautiful and all we have to do

is ride. Steffan has a sister and a brother, Bastian and Elana. I room with

Elana, who is also a bike racer. They are really excited to try out their

english-Steffan is pretty fluent, and we're getting by. Last night we had the

feast. Fresh duck from Grandpa's farm, stuffed with spicy Hamburger meat. You

haven't lived until you've tried this. They were making Donald Duck jokes

through dinner, that much I can understand.

Tomorrow we race Magstadt and then I go to Frankfurt with the other two

American girls (Katie Blincoe and Ann Grande) and Jonni goes home to Holland.

I

am psyched to go <<home>> to Holland as well-it really feels like the place to

be right now.

More later.....sorry for the fast update, but Steffan's brother is waiting to

get on the phone with the ladies!!!

Jen