Logistics

Dateline: Nuremberg, Germany, 12 July, 2008

At last, race day is upon us. Almost. It's a rainy, blustery Seattle-esque Saturday, with the first wave scheduled to start with the cannon blast in less than 10 hours. We have been prepping, Pascal and I, for two days now, outfitting his Ducati 700 with everything we could throw at it. It'll be an RCV first, oh loyal readers, that the bike configuration will accommodate BOTH cameras. His bike has a very sleek front profile so we've attached the Bogen 3025 Super Clamp to his right mirror rod with the Sony HC7 sitting atop. My thoughts here are that the Sony is half the weight of the Canon, and now that we can dial up the shutter speed to better the smooth cam render, this might be the perfect time to test its capabilities up front where we can grab HD widescreen uninterrupted. Then, a few meters behind, I'll wear the vest with the Canon attached (rigid) to the Fig-Rig. This might free my left hand enough to hold on to the Ducati as, once again, I have managed to draw a bike with no back rest. It appears that big touring bikes (Gold Wings, Harleys, Yamahas) are not the popular ride in Europe. My poor back. It already hurts.

All we need to capture what, by every testimony to date, is a spectacular bike course, is some decent weather. Consider: Felix the RD, in an exclusive interview on Thursday told me that in 2001 when he was negotiating with Lew Friedman of the WTC, he stood fast on the validity of the bike course, to the chagrin of WTC who wanted to make it one loop. It was a deal breaker. WTC went up the road to Frankfort and started their own event (timing it so to discourage participation in Roth) and Felix kept his vision of a uber bike course. Who needs Ironman when you have everything else, eh? Still, for RCVman, rain is the deal breaker. And just for this record, I never liked that money grubiing Friedman anyway.

So there I was yesterday. Had it all planned out to the second. Did a test walk of the 2.5 miles from the hotel to the hauptbhannhof (38.32 with a 10lb pack and stopping for red lights), and then from the Roth train station to the bus departure site (15.37). All this means that I could get up at 0345, walk the 2.5, catch the RE 23909 local train to Roth, walk to the bus departure area and catch the last bus to the swim start at 0520. All this to get there, film some of the swim, get set up on the Ducati and start filming at approximately 0725 or so. It was all tested, perfected and ready to go. I was happy with the logistics and ready for the wake up call from the iPhone.

I told Pascal the plan. He replied, in his very decent English, "Dude, be in front of your hotel at 0530, I'll pick you up."

Logistics.