The Stelvio

The Stelvio Pass is the second highest pass in Europe, the first is the l'Iseran, which I was able to see two years ago in france. I had known this was nearby, and helped convince me that I should try to attend Worlds this year. Thursday afternoon most of us took the afternoon of and decided it was a nice day for a drive.

48 Switchbacks up to the top.

I was able to get behind the wheel for part of the drive up and while it was quite good, the road is narrow with lots of other cars, motorcycles, and cyclists. 

The first snow sighting led to impromptu sled runs with hazard signs

A few of these looked runnable, downstream had more potential

There's still lots of snow at the top,  people are even still skiing at the moment

Looking off the other side 

It was nice to have an afternoon doing something cool completely unrelated to training

The World Championship Course

It's been a while since the last update and that's because quite lot has been happening.  Everyone on the team has their boats and we are all in full training mode.  The course itself is on the Adda River in the Sondrio region of northern Italy. At race level the whitewater is big and continuous, it's hard to compare to anything because people in the US rarely paddle whitewater of this magnitude in wildwater boats, let alone race on it. If I had to describe it, I would say a mix between the big waves of the olympic section of the Ocoee and the continuous nature of the Cheoah  When we first arrived, the water level was low, which was good to learn lines, but there were more rocks to hit.  Even at this lower level I was a bit intimidated because this spring was quite busy for me with grad school applications/decisions and final projects and graduation and the never ending need for fundraising.  Coming over I didn't have the best preparation, but all things considered, I'm happy I was able to make it happen.  The water level was been all over the place,  we (the Irish, Americans and Australians) arrived a week before the other team in order to try and learn the course, the downside was that the water level wasn't regulated and the race lines change quite drastically with the higher water levels.

Hard to show the scale or continuous nature of the water, lets just say it's a little big and pushy

The first time the water was up at race level I was really nervous, I felt really out of control.  A swim on the course almost certainly will mean major damage to the boat.  After two more days at the lower water level, as well as changes to boat outfitting, I began to feel more comfortable and starting flirting with the idea of trying to put in some speed. Unfortunately the first sprint run that I really tried hard was when I blew the line on the bottom portion of the sprint course which resulted in a hit that managed to put a 16" hole along the side of the virtually new boat.

Two hits puts a 16" crack completely through the hull of a "new" boat.  10kg weight limits are pointless

While putting a large hole in a new boat is definitely depressing, I sort of figured it would happen this course is difficult and completely new to us and it takes time to learn the course.  Luckily we were able to scrounge up some resin from the Irish and i was able to patch this up pretty well.  With the patch, the boat is stronger than is was new, which is a sad testament to the build quality of light race boats. Today (Saturday)  the Irish, Aussies and American did an unofficial time trial to start working on bench marks for times and to see how everyone was doing.  The result is that I'm pretty slow but I figured the considering the continuous big nature of the whitewater. Anyway,  now I feel pretty comfortable with the course and can now work on pushing harder to squeeze out as much speed as possible.  4 days until the first race.

First Runs on the Course

The plan for Monday was to meet the Australians and Irish at the course in the morning.  Luckily there was water, it was low, but there was water. Being my first time on the course in the new boat I was quite nervous. Luckily the Irish knew the course so I was able to follow them.  First run was okay, there are some tight lines, but no major damage, which was good considering I only had a front crunch pad and one airbag... The next run was worse,  I was sloppier and the water level had dropped slightly making the lower portion of the sprint course quite hard to run clean.  Since the water was dropping off everyone elected to stop after two runs and take the afternoon off.   Since it was close to noon, Chris and I elected to stop at a cafe to eat lunch and of course drink coffee.   Having the afternoon off was nice to kick back and relax a bit.  Marin and Doug were also able to find their boats and spent a bit of time working on outfitting them.

Later that evening Emmanuel arrived bring epoxy and float bags. I then set about making a stern crunch pad that evening,  I'm not sure if it's good or bad that I've made lots of crunch pads so this wasn't really a big deal. That pretty much wrapped up Monday.

Tuesday had basically the same plan, meet the Irish and Australians in the morning. This time there was slightly more water so it would be closer to race level (or so we think because there is no information and it's Italy).  I spent quite a bit of time going over video of the previous day's runs so I think I had a good idea where the lines where.  The extra water made things a bit pushier, but I was less nervous than the first time down the course.  Both runs in the morning, someone was in front of me, but not directly in front so I was working on remembering the course.  Then we took a break for lunch and to spend a little time relaxing before heading back for an afternoon session.  Back in the afternoon, the water sort of low, but we (americans, irish, and australians) did a full top to bottom classic course run, since the water was lower there was a bit of hitting and nearly everyone had some bad lines at some point.  However, when we arrived back at the sprint course, the water was back up.  When the water is low, there's a higher potential for hitting, but it's less pushy, as the water goes up, the rocks get more covered but the waves and holes get pushier and the consequences increase drastically for blow moves.  I had some rough runs on the sprint course, with one mediocre one.  There are few things that can test you both physically and mentally like a properly difficult sprint course.  Luckily I did not need to do any boat repair (yet), but one of the aussies did and apparently no one on their entire team knows how to do patches. After dinner that night, Chris and I helped out by working with the Australian teaching him how to do some patching.  While I'm not fast, it's nice to be able to help out.

Being able to make crunch pads is a worthwhile skill

My boat, still looking good at the moment

Proper italian dog carrying scooter driving technique

First Time Paddling

I woke up early Sunday morning to finish outfitting my boat. Luckily the epoxy on the footboard had set and it seemed like I would be able to paddle today.  The next step was to prepare the seat.  A few years ago I made a seat mold off of a flatwater seat that I liked.  I use this seat in my race boat in the US, so all I had to do was lay up another seat off the mold before I came and I could have essentially the same feeling boat. One exception is that I used one less layer of foam to shim the seat, so now I am about 1/2inch lower in the boat which will make it more stable, which is a good thing for this course.  After the seat was in, the next step was to secure the back band, this boat didn't come with a back band, but I brought one with me.  Once the footboard, seat, and backband were in, the boat boat is usable so we loaded up and headed to the sprint course to meet the Aussies and Irish.  When we got there, it was low, very different from the race level and too low to paddle. Since some other members of the team were supposed to arrive around noon, Chris and I opted to drink coffee and wait at a cafe.  But a little before noon, we received word that they were having issues, so we went up the valley to a lake in switzerland.

 It was really windy with a lot of chop, but with views like this who cares?

After paddling, we again headed to a cafe to drink coffee and wait a little before meeting back at the course in the afternoon to see if it was running. The answer was no, still not running, but two other members of the team arrived so Chris went with them to show them how to get to the cabin while I went with the Australians and Irish to do a flatwater session.  The workout was 10x~250m sprints, and man was I slow haha.  It's always strange how different the racing standards of each country is.  Well I have my work cut out for me, but now the boat is ready to go, hopefully there's water on the course tomorrow.

New Boat and the Joys of Outfitting

Waking up Sunday, for the first morning in the cabin was no disappointment, the view is spectacular.

The first task of the day was to sort out our roof rack,  while the rental car had roof rails, there wasn't a gap underneath, so we would need to us foam blocks to set the wood pieces on before using a strap through the car doors to cinch the whole thing on the roof.  There's no easy or good way to this, just a little creativity, trial and error.

Here's an interesting sight: Dr. Team Manager Chris Norbury using a hand tool

Once the roof rack was sorted the next task was to get internet to find my boat.  My boat was bought from a German company, luckily the father of an Australian team member was driving near the factory and was able to bring it from Germany to the course in Italy. That's one of the cool reasons I like wildwater,  all of the small teams work together to help each other out.  After wandering around in Sondrio looking for a place with wifi, we stumbled upon a phone company store.  Turns out for 50 euro we could buy a mobile wifi hotspot with 7GB of data for the time we were in Italy this was a much better deal than renting one and bringing it from the US.  And since we bought it, in the future all we would need is another SIM card. Happy with the purchase, we found a cafe to eat that also had wifi.  We were able to sort out that my boat would be at the sprint course later that afternoon.  Since we had some time to kill we looked at different parts of the course

Once of the spots to see part of the course is at an old stone bridge that was built by the Romans

Looking downstream from the bridge,  the whitewater is much bigger than it looks

After a while we headed to the sprint course to meet up and grab my boat. The Aussies and Irish were going to paddle so I watched since I would have a lot of outfitting to do, and I wasn't in a hurry to just jump on hard whitewater in the brand new boat.

$2400 boat on $20 roof rack 

We headed up the valley back to the garden supply shop to grab some epoxy because I would need it to secure my foot bar. The boat comes with aluminum foot braces, but they are only little pedals that are right next to the side of the boat, since I knew what would come with it, I prepared by pre-making a foot board and bringing it with me.  Since I paddle this design in the US, all I had to do was measure where everything was and I should be able to make it fit just right.  After acquiring the epoxy, the next task was prepping everything by marking out where the foot board would go and shaving it to fit just right.  Since I am quite tall people tend to ask if I need to order special boats, I just smile and say no, but the procedure below is always in the back of my mind. 

Since I am tall, the boat needs to be dropped on top of me, then I lean forward and can barely reach where the foot board needs to go

Since the boat is a very confined space especially with half my body inside, a good respirator and headlamp are essential equipment

After a decent amount of time preparing everything it was time to start mixing the epoxy to get start, but when I opened the tube I found out that it was the wrong type of epoxy, it was thickened epoxy which has fillers to act like a glue rather than the liquid epoxy which is used to wet out composite cloths like the carbon fiber I would be using for my foot board. We quickly put the word out asking the Irish and the Australians if they had any epoxy.  Luckily they both did, but the Australians got back first and after getting their address I was off to pick it up.  I should note, it's a pretty good time driving in the Alps in the car with a manual gearbox.  After arriving back I quickly set everything back up and got to work laying up the carbon. Since the plan was to meet at 10 tomorrow morning, we brought the boat inside where it would be warmer to speed curing of the epoxy.  

This boat is expensive, not particularly well made, but man it looks good

Heading to the Course

Saturday morning Chris and I were in Milan packing up and getting ready to head north into the Alps.  But before we left I wanted to stroll around Milan one more time.  The plan was to go to Taglio, the really good cafe we ate at last night, but they weren't open, so I wandered around the canals and saw a pretty cool mural.

Jump the shark

After the nice walk we packed up and set about leaving Milan, which miraculously happened without making and wrong turns, running any red lights or hitting any cars, white knuckle driving but good.  Once on the highway it was smooth sailing. Since we had plenty of time we elected to drive the coast road along Lake Como rather than stay on the highway, it was a good decision.

Yep definitely worth it

The timing worked out that we had lunch on a lake side cafe  on Lake Como, just a nice place to drive around, and since it was early summer, it wasn't super busy.  There's a Moto Guzzi museum I wanted to stop at but they are only open for one hour a day,  italians...

Once we rejoined the higway it was a short trip to Sondrio, the biggest  city near the course.  The next task was trying to find the cabin where we would be staying.  To do this we needed a local map, which meant finding an information center.  On the third village we finally found one that was open and was able to get a map that led to where we were actually staying after many wrong turns.  In small italian villages, street signs or labels of any kind are small and hard to see.  Eventually we had it all sorted out and the next step was to find wood to make a roof rack for the rental car.  Luckily there was a home and garden store the next village up the valley and it was actually pretty easy to get to then we bought food and headed back.  After a little food, we received word that a member of the Irish team was around and was willing to show us around to the different parts of the race course, this was a good oportunity to see exactly where we needed to go to access the course which would save us a great amount of driving around figuring it out on our own. 

Training (my palate)

Well today was an off day in Milan.  I had ambitions to rent a motorycle and try to drive the Stelvio, but the combination of there being snow and just the experience of italian driver's I decided that could wait for another trip.  Instead we had a plan to drive to a wood working shop to buy some wood to make a roof race for the rental car.  After making directions and look at maps we set off.   Let me just say that driving in Milan is ambitious, just the vast number or cars combined with lane splitting scooters/motorcycles along with lots of cyclists and pedestrians makes things difficult.  About a quarter of the way there I ended up taking a wrong turn,  then took and even worse one heading further into the city center.  It took driving in a bus lane and some aggressive driving to make it back in the right direction. Once we got to the spot where I thought the store was the next task was finding a parking spot.  After a few go rounds of the streets in the area we actually managed to find one and with a little direction I was able to parallel park the car, which I believe is honestly the first time I've had to do it since my drivers license test. Then, we had to find the actual store, the unfortunate part was that we actually weren't at the right spot and after spending half an hour wandering around we gave up and headed back. After driving in Milan traffic for a good portion of the morning I came back and took a nap.  Later in the afternoon we headed out again but this time on foot.  We already saw the Duomo yesterday so today we went to an old castle, not really sure of the name but it was cool.

The main entrance of the castle

Outside of the entrance there were some crazy street performers.  The top one is sitting on a soccer ball on top of a pole held in one hand by the man on the bottom who is sitting on a glass jar.  The were just sitting there static, who knows for how long.

from inside the castle

Some castle's have moats with water, this one has a moat of stray cats

The view out the back of the castle

After all this wandering we were getting hungary. I heard tip from one of my old roomates about a cool coffee shop in Milan, after looking them up, it turned out they had an eight course dinner special that night, so that sounded like a good thing to try.  First was some Jean-paul Deville champagne 

Next, was basically a vegetable medley, but with 15 different elements and it was amazing

Next was a sort of tomato paste with stewed yellow tomatoes, basil and several other things I can't remember

this course was branzino (sea bass) with sea urchins, and a spinach cream sauce

Then came the some sort of meat? haha well it was marinated for 3 hours, then roasted and dried slightly and served with a light mustard sauce on thin slices of toasted bread doused in olive oil

Then came a shot of yogurt with ginger to cleanse the palate

Ah dessert, dark chocolate mouse, with rasberry jam, and white chocolate cream,  not nearly enough of this, so they have us another plate

Top it off with some really good espresso and some cookies. An excellent meal in a really cool cafe.  Going to try and head back in the morning for this before leaving Milan, so good.