Olympic Summer

BAM weeks done!

Wow, SUPER long day. Woke up to beautiful weather and no smog. Had a
great breakfast and hustled to get ready for the BMX finals. On the way
to the Shimano safe house we stopped at a local shop to check out the
Shimano stuff. The workers were wearing Shimano shirts and they had a
great selection of the Shimano. Come to find out they were also the
owners of Flight Lite bikes also known to you and I as Airborne. Great
people.

When we arrived at the shop Leo and I got a great spectical of the
Shimano team fixing a lightbulb. I saw a ladder in the back but I guess
they don't use them with these types of skills in my second photo.

The race went off with a hitch. Hopefully most of you have got to see
the coverage but if you haven't it was a barn burner. Man there were so
many wrecks and upsets to talk about. Bottom line is we didn't win gold
but we did pretty darn well for Shimano.

The winners of both the men and women finals were using Shimand cranks
but were not sponsored by Shimano. Current World Champ Maris Stromberg
got the gold and Mikey Day ended up with Silver and Donny Robinson got
the bronze. Donny rides our pedals only and Mikey runs all Shimano
except the shoes. In the Women, the lone American Jill Kitner pulled
the Bronze. Bazzillion time World champ Ann Caroline Chausson won the
Gold with Corguil from France got Silver. Jill Rides all Shimano except
pedals.

After the races we went back to our safe house and went over to the Trek
store next door where Oakley had a rider/mechanic lounge. Free food and
fun times were had. After words we went back to the Shimano house next
door and finished off some with some pictures for the day.

Tomorrow we are going to go help Ben Pye from our Canadian office and
Robert Vunderink from our European office work in the pits for the MTB
XC finals. Girls go off at 10a.m. and the men go off at 3 p.m. I saw
American rider Adam Craig and his race bike weighed in at 21 lbs. It is
a sweet hardtail. He says he feels good so maybe a podium for our MTB
boy wonder.

More later...

Taste of home... ALREADY?!

We finally got to get out and away from the track and hotel. Our first
stop.... you got it, MC Donalds! OH my god that was good. Ben was
frothing at the mouth as you can see.
Ok off to bed...

From there we were off to a 5 story market. This place is crazy. You
name the brand and it is here and in knock off form. This is big
business and not illegal in any way here. It is also all about
bardering. They will start off with a calculator and give you some high
price and you go half right away back. Then they say "I give you BEST
price because I like you big American" and drop another 1/4 off the
price. You then walk away and they come running after you and drag you
back into the booth and give you almost what you want but then you knock
it down another 1/4 and you get some great deals. For example a friend
of mine bought and item that they said lowest price was 4800 RMB (700
US) and negotiated for about 1 hr and walked away with the item for 200
RMB (30 US). Super funny but you can get it done. Maybe it was his
size or voice. He is the official BMX announcer for the Olympics.

The last place on the evening is we visited a steak house. As you can
see, it is "PROBABLY" the best steak in town. What is cool is when you
sit down you can eat and shop for DVD's. Pretty crazy for sure.

A China Surprise...

Well race fans... Waking up this morning to what I call a China suprise. What is the China suprise you ask? RAIN!!!

With rain, pavement corners and huge starting hill it is a recipe for a disaster. They made the best choice and covered the track and postponed race until tomorrow morning at the same time.

Don't worry as NBC will still air the race in primetime but the difference is it will be one day later.

Let us hope and pray the rain goes away so you can see BMXers race at 45mph down the first straight and jump 35 foot double jumps in 2nd straight. If you have never seen BMX at this elite level then you are in for a treat.

Today's pictures were from my phone. Hope they are clear enough for you. Enjoy....

30m high starting hill..BRAAAP!!!

Ok track and BMX fans. (Part 1)The next installment of the Roberts report now starts...

Leo and I made our way over to the venue which is what they call the Laoshan Bicycle Cluster. It includes the Indoor Cycling track, BMX venue and MTB venue.

walking to the venue we passed a piece of art that was a big metal structure of a Track Cyclist. Pretty dang cool. Coming into the venue it is hard to get around without the proper credentials. Being that we are Shimano we can and do go where we are needed. We walked by a hill that the BMX track was situated on and it had a sweet Olympic ring art with flames on the side of hill. I got our contact Xu to get into the picture.

Leo and I made our way up this ramp to the top of the hill where the track was. Yes, BMX is big time and the track is AWESOME at the O-Show. I took some pictures of the Leo on the starting hill along with a picture from the side to show how big it was.

Anyway, Leo and I went back to Shimano's home base for lunch. I had a Burger but I am telling you it sure didn't taste like a double-double animal style for sure.... Anyway, more later....

(part 2)Fast forward to early evening....

Leo and I finally made our way back to the track for the Finals in Match sprint. We got there early to get some pictures before the chaos started. The track building looked like a huge spaceship inside and outside. The races were cool. Watching the British was unbelievable. They are so strong. Ok off to bed for the big day.

(part 3) Arriving at the event for the first day of Qualifications we got some great stuff. They had the big screens going with fun stuff on them for starters. I was able to take a picture of our Shimano Pit area. Leo looks good eh? While there today my good friend and past teammate for many years in BMX, Jamie Staff was there with the British team. Jamie won gold in the Team sprint event a few days ago. Along with the gold his team set a new world record. We got to talking about the medal and low and behold he had it on him. Holding the gold was very cool and inspiring.

After all that I was then able to get a shot of 2 of our 3 USA team riders. Kyle is on the left rides for Shimano 100%. Check out the new 09 kicks he is wearing. Donny on the other side rides just our pedals. Both were also using our Olympic only limited edition white DX pedals. Super cool for sure. Anyway, both had crashes today but both had low enough points to make it to the next rounds. Kyle however with his crash dislocated his shoulder so he will be sore for tomorrow's big day.

The races tomorrow will be pretty crazy. It is too early to tell who are the favorites. Come back and check out more tomorrow as I will let you know how it goes. Also, BMX is on primetime on Wednesday and Thursday from 8-10 p.m. each day on NBC. Don't miss it. They do say there is rain tomorrow but from what I hear they have been spraying stuff in the air to get the rain to not come down. They also have ways of manipulating the clouds to rain in certain parts of the city. Definitely a cool thing with the technology but then again it is the Olympics..

12 hrs equals FUN!!!

Well the first day is down.  I have now been up for a total of 22 hrs.

Since we left at 1 a.m Los Angeles time we decided to stay up for 2-4 hours and then sleep the rest of the flight since we would be landing at 5 a.m. the next day.  China is 15hrs ahead of us. 

Fun times for sure.  We were good for a while.  I woke up with 4 hrs to go which is not what I wanted.  What was cool is that the airline must have gotten on a good air current because we actually touched down 1 1/2 hours early.

So there we are.  I had raced BMX race in China 2 yrs ago and let me tell you that this place has completely changed.  Everything is completely new.  It was such an easy process going through customs compared to the past.  The taxi was new and everyone spoke some sort of English which for me is great since Chinese is super hard to understand. Being Leo knows spanish and me hick it really wouldn't have worked. Anyway, we went to one hotel and picked up Akira and headed off to the hotel.

We get to the hotel and check in.  This place is swank (more pictures on that later). We cleaned up and went to the buffet.  It was really good and lots of American food.  After that we met up with our Chinese Shimano contact and got our credentials. 

We took a short walk about 10 minutes away to the Shimano house.  This place is great.  This place is a perfect home base with internet and perfect distance to the cycling venue.  There is a Trek store next door and Oakley has their home station above the bike shop.   

From there once we got our clothing and supplies situated we headed off to the track.... Keep checking back as those sets of pictures are awesome.  We will leave that for Part 2 of the first day.  I need to sleep now or I will start typing backwards.

Leo Finally Finished packing!

Well the time has come and NO, Leo and I didn't make the BMX Olympic team for racing, BUT we did for Shimano.  Since Shimano is the Official Neutral support for the Games we were picked because of our vast knowledge of BMX. We both have been mechanics at races and BMX racers where we have raced all of the world. 

Enough on us though.  This blog is to give you a new perspective of the games from behind the scenes.  Hopefully we can give you an up close look from our eyes as we take this journey through the week.  I hope you enjoy!

More to come when we land.  Here are some starter pictures for you.

Chad and Leo