WADE'S JOURNAL

AUGUST 15, 2001
Staying in Lausanne, Switzerland before heading up to Leysin was awesome. We went to the lake every day and rode all over the place. It was nice to relax and enjoy some of the places we travel to all over the world, especially after a long travel from Japan. We left Lausanne on Thursday and checked into our hotel, which was much different from Lausanne. The place was tiny. Sean and I had a room with a bathroom, and Patty had her own room with just a sink. The hotels in Europe are small but the one Patty had was for sure the smallest we have seen.

The course was much better than last year as they went across the mountain instead of straight down. There were a few places to pass and the racing was great. I ended up qualifying bad in 9th place, I think I just took it a little to easy around some of the tricky corners. I ended up winning my first round and also the next but I did not have lane choice and had to make a pass towards the bottom of the course. The rider who had lane choice had a big advantage at the start, which made it hard to catch up. The next round I meet up with Brian, I need to win this round to hopefully catch up to Brain in the overall points chase. Brian got out well and I could not catch him from the advantage he had out of the start. So I ended up 7th for the day and Brain ended up winning again and gained a lot of points for the overall title. It was not the weekend I was looking for, but that's racing. Saturday night most of us all went out to one of the clubs and it was a blast, this was like the first real party we have had all year. It is great how all the riders just hang out and have a good time. We left the next morning back to Lausanne and rented a boat and cruised around the lake. This was one of the best days we had all summer, the weather was perfect and the view was wonderful, swimming in the lake with the mountains in the back ground. Well at least we had a good time even though my racing was not the best in Switzerland.

Monday we were off to Kaprun, Austria, one of the best venues on the World Cup circuit. Tuesday we went to another ski resort, which had 2 dual courses and 2 downhill runs. This place is a rider's paradise. Brian, Scott Beaumont and I were messing around for about 2 hours at this place. One of the Downhill runs was more like a free ride course; all groomed and filled with jumps; it was great. The Baum Bar was happening ever night at the race venue. Especially Saturday night, the place was so packed that Cedric and I were crowd surfing most of the night.

We actually had two races this weekend, one on Saturday night and the other was Sunday afternoon as it was the make up race from France, which was cancelled. Saturdays race was a little off schedule due to the rain on Friday, so qualifying, practice and the finals was all done Saturday after the downhill. I ended up qualifying 4th and was doing really good until I meet up with Brian in the round of 4. It was a real close race to the first corner, but as he had the inside this gave him a little edge to take a shorter line in the first corner. I tried my best to stay with him and hopefully pass him in the pedaling section, but I was trying to hard and was making little mistakes, which gave him a lead. I went on to the race for 3rd against Scott Beaumont and ended up edging him out for the podium spot. With Brian winning and me getting 3rd, gave the overall world cup title to Brian as he had a enough points lead to where I could not catch him as I was in second. The race finished at 11pm, it was a great race as it was under lights and all the flashes from the cameras made it hard to see while racing.

Sunday's course was a little different from Saturday and I qualified 5th as I messed up under the bridge. I ended up meeting Brian again in the round of 4 and he edged me out by riding smoother than me. I then went up against Cedric and was winning and ended up sliding out in one of the corners. He passed me and I was coming back to get him but my pedal hit the ground and I ended up crashing. So I finished 4th place for the day.

Sean started to pack up as we had an early flight in the morning back to the States for the Norba finals in Mt Snow, Vermont were I have a chance to win the National title. So leaving Europe in 2nd place in the world cup overall, with Deldycke, Cedric and Carter right behind me, we race the World Cup finals the week after Vermont in Quebec City, Canada. We also have a biker cross race mid week and also at the Norba finals.

AUGUST 1, 2001
I ended up driving up to Mammoth as flying there would have taken a lot longer, especially as Travis Brown's flight was late coming in. I started to get a sore throat on Monday and by the time I got to Mammoth I was getting sick. Patty quickly put me on antibiotics to get rid of any infection before I was off for our five-week adventure around the world. I took it easy until practice day and even did minimum runs, as I was not feeling well. The course was super fast and a little pedaling was involved but most of the way it was just rolling as fast as you could with no brakes. So for me the course was pretty much a blur, as I was not all with it.

Race day I was feeling a little better, but far from being as good as I could. I won the first 2 rounds and then come up against Cully. Cully just beat me on the faster side but then I came back and won by a good margin to head off to the round of four against Eric Carter. I had a good run against Eric as I beat him on the slower course and was feeling good as I was now going to race him on the faster course. All was going good until one corner I went in to hot and did not get to hi low one of the soft patches in the corner, my front end bogged in and I lost all my speed. Eric was then too far in front for me to pull back the difference. I then went into the consolation round for 3 and 4th. I raced against Greg Minnar and I rode well enough to win on both sides and finished the day in 3rd place.

Eric and Brian where in the finals and Brian did the exact same thing as me in the same corner but he ended up crashing. So Eric won with Brian second and me third. For the overall title it is very close, Eric and Brian both have 480 points and I have 460. 20 Points is the difference between 1st and 2nd so basically it is who ever beats who at the finals in Vermont will be the overall Norba Champion.

Sunday we packed up for Japan and headed up to Lake Tahoe to Patty's house as we stayed there the night before we left from Reno to go to Japan. Patty's Husband Glen took us out to dinner on the lake, which was absolutely beautiful. The next day I did some training and went down to the river and paddled around, it was great as I got to relax before our long trip over seas.

Patty and I got to upgrade to Japan, which makes traveling that much better, but after the 12 hour flight to Japan from Chicago we then had to get on a 6 hour bus ride. All the athletes use the same bus transportation as it is the safest way to get there, as if we rented cars we would have a hard time reading the road signs as they are all in Japanese. We arrived to the hotel around 11:30pm Wednesday and went straight to bed.

The next day I meet up with Brian Lopes and went for a road ride through the small villages near Arai Mountain. I had dinner with the IRC crew at a Sushi train spot and we all had a great time. The craziest sushi I had was Whale. It actually looked like hydrated beef jerky. The next day I spent most of the day in the pool with Brain and relaxed. That night we had a team dinner with Trek Japan at a traditional Japanese Sushi restaurant. It was great, all of us at this low table sitting on cushions on the floor with no shoes on.

Saturday was practice, qualify and race that evening. It is so hot and humid in Japan, which makes it hard to practice. The course was quite challenging as it had a huge first corner double and a bunch of man made off camber corners. I finally got the course down but it was hard to get it perfect ever time. My qualifying run was good, I nailed all the difficult section and qualified 3rd, with Brain first and Cedric 2nd.

We raced late that night under light with a huge crowd. There were spectators at the dual course 8 hours before we raced, all with their chairs and sections marked off. We started the finals at 8:30pm and the crowd was huge. I was riding well to win my first 3 rounds with ease. I then met up with Cedric in the semi final; he had lane choice and had the inside. I had an awesome gate and was in front and cut him off before the first stall wall. I then got on the gas and lead all the way to the line. I then meet up with Mike Deldycke in the finals who beat out Brian. I had lane choice and had the inside. I hit the gate just a little to mess up my second third crank. Deldycke had the lead over the first jump and was cutting me off to the stall wall. I was not going to let him get a way with it so I kept on going and stayed on my line and we bumped up the take off of the stall wall. Deldycke was then off balanced and over shot the stall wall and lost control and fell. I quickly took advantage of his mistake and raced away to the finish line to take my first win this year in a Dual World Cup. With this win puts me in 2nd place overall in the World Cup standings. Brain beat out Cedric for 3rd place.

The award ceremony was huge with plenty of fans and fireworks going off. Japan really knows how to put on an event, and is the main country that really makes you feel like a "Rock Star" as it take about 10 minutes to walk 30 meters because of the huge fan base wanting pictures and autographs. My Trek Japan teammate went big in his race. He ended up losing but he stopped on one of the jumps and got the crowd pumped up as he was going to jump the last jump. He rode up to the jump and tried to pull a back flip. He was so high in the air and he did not pull it off and landed hard. He ended up breaking his ankle. He will be back soon racing hard again.

We left for the airport at 2am Monday morning; I ended up sleeping on the floor of the bus. We get to the airport and we go to check in and they wanted us to pay $8,000 in excess baggage on Swiss air. This is crazy, we have excess baggage every time we travel and usually have to pay about $200 - $300, not thousands. The problem in Japan was that we were only allowed 20 kg per person. We have 3 people traveling and with 8 check in items, 2 Bike bags, toolbox, massage table, medical bag, and one bag each with our clothes. Our one bag each weighed 20kg. So we ended up getting them to charge us $150 Swiss francs for each bike bag ($180US total). But that still left us with $4000 with excess baggage with the toolbox, massage table and medical bag. So now we put all that we could in the bike bags, most of the tools and any other small heavy item in the bike bags as they said they would only charge us $180 for both bike bags no matter what it weighed. We did all we could and we still had to pay $1600 for overweight baggage. What a joke. The only good thing about our travel was that I ended up having 4 seats to my self so I could lie down and sleep.

I am now in Lausanne, Switzerland for a few days before we head up to mountain to Leysin for the race.

Lance Armstrong wins the Tour De France for the third year in a row! Congratulations Lance.

See you soon,
Wade Bootes

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