Life is great as I am currently making the Trans-Atlantic journey from Spain to my home in Greenville.  With even more once-in-a-lifetime experiences now behind be, heading home gives me the chance to let it all sink in, as well as recover!  Each block of time I spend over in Europe just seems to go by faster than the last.  It felt as if I never even unpacked this last trip, and in reality I really didn’t.  I guess that just means Girona and Europe in general is starting to feel more like a home to me.

I’d say the highlight, or most surreal moment, of the summer would have to go to the day we started our race in Poland at the gates of Auschwitz. It is impossible to even put into words the presence that the concentration camp carried.  Trying to comprehend what took place on those grounds, I just stood in awe as we waited for our little bike race to begin.  Moments like those are priceless and put everything in my life into perspective in a matter of seconds.

Sitting in the plane now, with my wife digging her nails into my arm each time we hit any section of turbulence, I can’t wait to get home and reconnect with family and friends.  Living in Europe is grand – I love the culture and general lifestyle – but there really is no place like home.

The coming weeks will be blur as I race out the remainder of the season.  The Canadian ProTour races have all of the ingredients to make for exciting one-day races and I am looking forward to taking part in their first editions.  Then, back to Greenville for US Pro.  After that, my work life is a bit up in the air.  I am planning on attending a few events during Interbike out in Las Vegas, with the hope of continuing on to Australia for the World Championships.  Then, on to Italy for the fall one-day events and finally completing my around-the-world trip when I land back in Greenville for the off-season!

Racing in Italy is always something I look forward to.  Even though at the moment I am completely useless – hardly able to get out of my own way – I am still happy to be here.  The hole I dug for myself during the Tour de l’Ain, racing through a sickness, has been deeper than I would have liked.  Having had only one day where I wasn’t racing or traveling in the past month doesn’t seem to be helping matters either.  But here I am in Northern Italy racing, or more accurately starting, some of the hardest one-day races of the year and somehow enjoying it.

Trittico Lombardo (Tre Valli Varesine, Coppa Agostoni and Coppa Bernocchi) and Trofeo Melinda used to be the races where the Italian World Championship team would be selected, back when Worlds were in August.  If you performed well here you would likely be part of the Squadra Azzurra. Now, even though these races play a minor roll in the Worlds selection process, they are still raced as if the rainbow jersey itself was on the line.  After Dan Martin (Garmin-Transitions) won Tre Valli Varesine the other day you would have thought it was the end of Italian cycling if you had glanced at the newspapers the following morning.  Italians are expected to shine here, and dominate these races in their home country.

The following day in Coppa Agostoni, the Italians blew the race apart from kilometer-zero, allowing only thirty-five riders to reach the finish line in Monza.  I was one of the many to hop in the team car in the feed zone, with my race long over before then.  A feeling I would like to soon forget and I hope to put that performance behind me come Saturday during the Trofeo Melinda.

Trofeo Melinda is held in the Trentino region of Northern Italy, and there isn’t a flat road in sight.  Maurizio Fondriest and Gilberto Simoni are from this area if that helps paint a picture of what kind of rider you’d be if raised here.  On our easy spin today we knocked out 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) in the flattest 1.5-hour loop we could find.  The race on Saturday will be more of the same, always going up or down.  Racing through endless fields of apple trees with only tiny hillside villages separating one from the next will make for a beautiful day.  I am just hoping to see more of the race from the bike than from inside the team car behind.

The Tour de l’Ain wrapped up last Saturday and I quickly, and happily, headed back to Spain.  I left l’Ain totally spent having raced over 2,000-kilometers in two weeks with tons of travel and a nagging head cold.  Not the ideal way to come out of such a big block or racing, but I am hoping a few days rest will breath some life into my body.

HTC-Columbia had mixed results during the week.  Coming close to winning two stages with Marco and Alex being caught just a few hundred meters from the line and placing Tejay high in the overall made for a solid week, but also for one of the few stage races in which we didn’t actually win a stage.  I felt worse by the day, and barely hung on to finish out the race.  Racing a week in Poland and then heading straight into another race filled with fresh riders made for a rough experience.  I am hoping my body bounces back in the next days and benefits from the race days.

Tomorrow will bring yet another travel day as I am off to Italy for the rest of the week.  Some very challenging races are in store.  Plenty of mountains are to be climbed and with these races being some of the final ones for the Italians to earn a spot for the upcoming World Championships in Australia they are sure to be fast.

Time is passing quickly here around Lyon, France.  Each morning and evening there is a touch of fall in the air, and I couldn’t think of a better time of the year.  The races this week have been extremely short – covering distances that would more resemble a junior race – but they have been intense.

There is a never-say-die mentality here.  Even the dropped groups, with no chance of returning to the front of affairs, race for every second.  There is no groupetto here.  No laughing bunch that soft pedals towards the finish only concerned about making the time cut.  From the kilometer-zero sign there are a fury of attacks, and even when the breakaway is up the road the fighting for position in the peloton never ends.

We have had the great, and rare, luxury of staying in the same hotel for the entire week.  The Mercure Hotel, in Bourge en Bresse, almost feels like home now.  Our bags are even fully unpacked, a feat I hardly ever achieve, even when at home.  The staff is well aware of our likes and dislikes, making life a little more enjoyable.  The chef knows not to even attempt to serve us his take on pasta that would be easier to eat through a straw than by fork.  Instead, we have been playing it safe with basic rice and omelets on most days.

With only two more days remaining, in what will be my last stage race of the year, the focus will now be on single-day races.  Starting just next week, I will be heading to Italy for a couple of tough one-day races in the mountains north of Milan.  And then on to Canada, and eventually, back to Greenville for one more shot at pulling on the stars and stripes in my hometown.

Here is a quick recap of the past couple of days of my life.  The final stage of Poland was spent riding the front of the peloton in hopes of setting up a field sprint for Andre.  Through the mountains, blowing winds, constant attacks and wet conditions, we managed to bring the race together in the closing kilometers and Andre did what he does best and won the sprint.  It was a hard fought victory and a tough way to end a weeklong stage race.

A short night of sleep followed and I was soon in the Krakow airport before 5:30AM heading back to Spain.  Two flights and a long taxi ride later I was finally home in Girona just in time for a great lunch on the patio with Courtney.   We spent the rest of the afternoon catching up at one of the many sidewalk cafes in town.  A solid night’s sleep in my own bed and the new day brought even more adventure.

An easy spin, to loosen up my sore and tired legs, around town with my agent, Andrew, and then back home to try to enjoy each passing moment with Courtney as I was heading back to the Barcelona airport that afternoon.  This time, the plane is bound for Lyon, France as the five-stage Tour l’Ain begins tomorrow with a 3-kilometer prologue.  As you can see, the life of a professional cyclist can be hectic at times.  You just have to roll with it and take each moment as it comes.

The Tour of Poland has treated us well so far this week.  Dry conditions and some exciting finishes have made for an enjoyable week.  HTC-Columbia already has one win in the bag, but we are still looking to add to that tally as well as have a rider or two in a good spot on the general classification.  Even though a few of the stages have been raced at a snails pace at times, we have been faced with plenty of challenges and each day has been increasingly harder.

Each day we have finished on a very technical and quite dangerous circuit.  The roads alone are hard enough to navigate.  Potholes are so sporadic that you have to remain 100% focused at all times.  And even when the roads are smooth they ride as if you were surfing the asphalt.  The Polish seem to be missing an important link in their road construction equipment, the steamroller!

On the finishing laps, railways, cobbles and off-camber turns are added into the mix.  These conditions open the door for anyone with nothing to lose to take the win.  I am sure it is exciting to watch on the television, but at times I could think of better places to be!

Today and tomorrow will see the overall race sorted out.  Plenty of hills are still ahead of us and the racing is just getting faster.  It is pretty obvious that many of the riders here put in some serious time on their bikes this summer.  I am feeling good heading into the final stages, just need some luck and to deal with a great deal of suffering and a good result will be waiting for me on the weekend.

The Tour of Poland is now underway as we head out for the 2^nd, and longest, stage of the race today.  I am packing up as we are leaving our massive hotel-built from some Polish black money, no doubt-that is far removed from even the remotest village.  I am not sure what would bring customers to this resort, or if they have ever, until today, filled the thousand rooms it probably contains.

Warsaw, and the surrounding landscape are dead flat, but after we finish today we will be in the foothills of some surprisingly big mountains that border Slovakia and the Czech Republic.   It will take us some 250-kilometers to get down there on some boring roads, but the sun in shining and there will be plenty of fans waiting for us on the finish circuits.

Yesterday was a nice opening stage.  Not too much stress and a good way to ease into the race.  HTC-Columbia took control of the race from the beginning while every other team had some sort of excuse for not helping us.  Seemed like every other sprinter in the race had some kind of issue and was on a bad day.  Yet, when the finish came, lo and behold, everyone miraculously overcame their illnesses and was mixing it up in the sprint.  A massive crash soon followed as we raced between narrow barriers at full-speed.  Fortunately, I escaped unscathed and will be one of the lucky ones to start today with all of my skin.