Kyle Thomas - Professional Mountain Bike Racer: January 2012

Ok, so I went to Colombia last April for the Pan-American Championships. This was before I started my blog, so I had nowhere to post my write-up. Anyways, here it is, written when I got home. I was having some car trouble back then, and that's where the story starts. Enjoy!

This is going to be long, so grab a beer, sit back, and enjoy the ride! Normally I tend to have pretty good luck in life, but I must have pissed off the car gods at some point recently. Right after getting back from the Beacon race in Spokane, my van sputtered and died on the side of the road. I assumed it was the fuel filter, which is an easy fix and headed to Auburn to pick up my VW pickup. On the way back with my little truck, it blew the lower radiator hose and overheated on the side of the highway. Great, two cars down, one to go. I grabbed Ruth’s VW Beetle and limped the pickup to a random parking lot in Issaquah just as her check engine light comes on. After replacing the fuel filter in the van, it still wouldn’t start and I was running out of time as I had to leave for Colombia the next day. I decided to have it towed to the dealer and have them look at it. After a day at the dealer, I got a call saying they wouldn’t be able to fix it in time for my trip and I would have to leave it with them. Perfect, I have to get to the airport in 4 hours and am left with a VW Beetle to haul myself, my suitcase, and a bike, damn. That brings me to the start of my trip to South America.

The Beetle packed for the airport

I got home from work on Tuesday evening at midnight. With my recent car troubles, I hadn’t even started packing for my 6 am flight the next morning. I grabbed a bike box and started taking my bike apart. Using a few tips from Luke Strobel, I managed to pack my bike into the box with a few spare things thrown into the suitcase for good measure. One final check around the house: frame, fork, wheels, tires, spare tires, pedals, shoes, pads, helmet, gloves, goggles, check! I felt like I was forgetting something, but it all seemed to be in there. With that thought erased from my mind, I somehow managed to throw everything into the back of Ruth’s Beetle and tied the hatch with a bungee cord. The PRKT express rallied to SeaTac at 4am with the check engine light still brightly lit.

My bike making it onto the plane! This is always a welcome sight!

I checked in, paid the $150 oversized luggage fee instead of the $200 bike fee thanks to a lazy ticket agent, grabbed a bite to eat and went to my gate. I was flying from Seattle to Atlanta, and Atlanta to Bogota. I got on the flight and was told it was going to be completely full. Being 6’3, cramming myself into a small plane for hours on end is never a fun proposition. I had a window seat and waited for the inevitable Jabba the Hutt that usually tries to annex my personal space. My luck must have turned around though, as the only empty seat on the flight was the one right next to me! I slept most of the way there and arrived in Atlanta without issue. I got on the next plane to Bogota and got to watch them load my suitcase and bike onto the plane. While looking at my bike box, I could see the lovely job the TSA did after they opened it. Somehow they must have assumed that two little pieces of tape were sufficient to try and hold it closed. Surprise, that didn’t work, and I hopelessly looked on while Mother Nature rained into my open bike box on the Atlanta Tarmac.

I arrived in Bogota where I was supposed to meet up with everyone else from Team USA. Scott Sharples was our coach/team manager for the week and said everyone was getting in about 15 minutes before my plane landed. I was supposed to meet them before going through customs, and we would all be together as a group. I get to customs and didn’t see anyone. I assumed they had gone through already and must be on the other side. I went through customs making up the hotel name and phone number as I didn’t know where I was staying or how to contact anyone. I walked through customs to the baggage claim and didn’t see anyone I recognized. I was now in Colombia, by myself, no way to contact anyone, and my Spanish is limited to my usual order at the local Taco Bell. I grabbed my luggage and as I found my bike I got bumped by someone behind me. I turned around to see Canadian DH racer Steve Smith. Finally, another person who speaks English! Steve assured me that the rest of the USA team was on his flight and would be there shortly.

Victor and I at dinner.

Scott Sharples, Katie Holden, Heikki Hall, Mitch Ropelato, and JD Swanguen, came through customs and finally had some resemblance of Team USA. Jackie and Dante Harmony were delayed and rolled in later that night. Michael Buell and Ethan Quehl were already in Colombia and were going to meet us at our hotel. I exchanged $40 cash for 72,000 Colombian Pesos and went out the door to find Victor Heresmann. Victor is Chilean and is the organizer of the Valparaiso Urban DH race every year. Victor got us onto our bus and we started on the drive from Bogota to Chia, where the hotel and race was located.

Driving through Bogota was kind of surreal. It looked like a level from Call of Duty as all of the buildings were boarded up and trash was littered around. I was later told that we were in a pretty bad part of town for the beginning of the drive. You could smell the lack of emissions requirements in the air as we passed trucks spewing black diesel fumes into the sky. The surroundings got progressively better as we continued on our way. I just kept staring out the window to try and capture as much of the local scenery as I possibly could.

Mitch and our bag of chicken

Everyone was pretty hungry, so we asked if we could stop and get some food. The driver took us to a hole in the wall poultry place. The restaurant was literally a big rotisserie with a bunch of chickens on it. You ordered a chicken; he grabbed it off the rotisserie, cut it into chunks with a garden shears, threw it in a bag, and handed it to you. Mitch and I decided to split the “dish.” The Chicken was actually really good, it was a little strange just eating with your fingers and we definitely made a mess in the bus, but we were starving and would have eaten without our hands, off the floor of the bus, if we had to.

Our hotel outside of Chia.

We arrived at the hotel at midnight and could just make out some mountains in the distance. The hotel was where most of the riders were staying. The rooms were nice and reminded me of a typical Super 8 style motel. The rooms had a nice flat screen TV and comfy beds, which is all I needed! We got checked into our rooms and went to town building bikes for our practice the next morning. Heikki and I were paired together and we started opening our bike boxes. I still had the feeling I had forgotten something, then it hit me. Back home in Issaquah, my bike stand was clamped nice and securely around my seat post and seat. So I built my bike, sans seat, and set out to try and find another one. Katie walked by our room and mentioned she had a spare post she had brought to sell. Apparently, bike parts are really expensive in South America and the locals will pay top dollar for our used parts! I had people come up all week and ask if they could buy my wheels, pedals, suspension, etc. She said I could have the post, although it was the wrong size. Lucky for me, some locals were drinking in the lobby and I managed to snag a few spare beer cans and make a set of shims. With the seat post secure in my bike, I just had to track down a seat. After contemplating “borrowing” one from one of the random locals commuter bikes, Michael mentioned he had a spare one lying around as well. I finally had a complete bike! With that, I went to bed, excited to head to the course in the morning.

Typical meal.

We awoke early the next morning and went to the hotel dinning room for breakfast. I say dinning room, but I really mean the back room of the adjacent gas station. However, the food smelled great and that’s all that mattered to me. The food was good and every meal came with fresh fruit. I was eating fruits I’d never seen or tasted before, but they were fresh, juicy, and delicious! We ate at the same place for every meal. I was expecting burritos and tacos, but we ended up eating chicken and rice at every meal. It was good, but I wish I could have had more variety with my food down there. My only other food complaint was that they were serving little emaciated XC rider portions. We had to get creative with how to get more to eat. My favorite technique was touching what I wanted to eat, I wasn’t sure it was going to matter to them, but it worked and we were able to finally get some decent sized portions.

Looking down the final section of the DH course.

After everyone was done, we loaded up and headed to the venue. The venue was amazing. At the bottom of the hill, literally after the finish line, was a huge castle. This thing looked straight out of a Disney movie. I was told by the locals that it was used by the Colombian billionaire drug lord, Pablo Escobar. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but he was active in those parts of the country. The valley we were in was absolutely beautiful. The finish line area of the venue looked just like the world cups on Freecaster. It was fun to see all of the set up, as I’ve been watching big UCI races for years. It was great to be coming down the course, instead of watching from a computer or TV thousands of miles away!

The XC finish area.

Sharples went and got everyone registered while we all did a last minute bike check. After affixing my number plate we headed into the shuttle truck up to the top of the course. The shuttle truck wound its way up the paved road to the top of the hill where we had a short gravel road pedal into the track. This was where I really started to feel the elevation. The course sits at about 9,000 feet above sea level. I realized any pedaling on this track would be pretty difficult and crossed my fingers there wouldn’t be a lot of it. I dropped into the top of the course to check out what we would be racing on Saturday.


I was ranked 26th in UCI points.

The shuttle truck. I'm pretty sure the exhaust was routed straight into the box.

My bike before practice (Note: DB DH prototype version 1.0!)

One of the good corners up top.

Man made whoops!

Blue grooved corners. Not exactly PNW loam.

The first section was really fun with some flowy jumps and good corners in the woods. You launched out of the upper woods into a wide open section with logs across the trail acting as whoops. After that, the course had a small road gap into the steep sections. The course at the top was dry and pretty firm, but down here it turned to pure concrete. It was solid clay, and covered in blue groove skid marks. The chutes were incredibly steep and all seemed to end into ninety degree corners with barbed wire fences if you didn’t turn all the way. It was a different style of track than I had ever ridden, but it was really fun. After the last chute, you hit a little step up and the course flattened out. I mean it got FLAT! The big, flattest, pedalling section I had ever seen in a downhill course lay ahead.

Looking "down" the flat death sprint section. It kept going like this for a long ways.

I was later told the record for the entire flat section was 1:10. Over a minute long sprint, in the middle of a downhill course, at 9000 feet above sea level equals not cool. The flat section had a bunch of small little doubles made out of pallets that made it so you couldn’t just put it in a tall gear and crank it out, but you actually had to sprint and jump. After crossing the flat miserable section, the course dropped into another real downhill section that was really fun. It had rocks, roots, off camber, and multiple lines into the final jump section which culminated with the finish line step down onto the back of a portable freestyle motocross landing. If the upper and lower parts of the course were connected, that would be a really fun and technical track, but the pedaling section killed it. I kept a good face about it though and just knew I was going to have to smash the pedals to do well here. After practicing for the day, we attended opening ceremonies, which were all in Spanish and didn’t make any sense, and then headed home and went to sleep.

The finish line step down onto the moto landing. This was much too short and multiple people sent it to flat.

Looking towards the start of the 4X couse.

Friday rolled around and everyone hopped on the bus back to the track. I had a few successful practice runs and was really starting to feel good on the course. I decided not to push it to hard at elevation and chose to sit out the afternoon practice to watch 4X. Michael, Stevie and I hiked up to the 4X track to check it out and were blown away at how fun the course looked. It started off with the first straight going into a large cliff drop into some big doubles. It had 2 rock gardens and a really fun looking rhythm section. I was wishing I had my 4X bike just to ride the course, but the dagger came when I learned there were only 16 riders who signed up to race! We watched the race and were cheering on Camillio Sanchez, who was in the US last summer and did a bunch of races with Yeti rider Joey Schusler. Camillo ended up crashing in the round of 8 and missed the finals. He won the small finals, finishing 5^th. The Colombians went crazy for him though, he was obviously the crowd favorite. We headed down the hill and hopped on the bus back to the hotel.

One of our shuttle buses.

Up until now, the bus drivers had been pretty mellow, but I swear we ended up with the Colombian version of Travis Pastrana for this ride. This driver was determined to get us back to the hotel in a record time! We were flying through the roads, passing drivers around blind corners, forcing motorcycles off the road, hitting washed out sections of the road without slowing down, blowing stop signs in front of cops and nearly losing the front bumper of the bus going through a checkpoint chicane about 5 times faster than I would in a rally car. I determined I will never drive on Colombian roads in my lifetime, those drivers are crazy!

Typical passing on Colombian roads. There was no slowing down for this either.

Saturday morning was race day. After arriving at the venue, we donned our team USA jerseys and headed up for a final practice run. I hit all of my lines and kept it smooth and was feeling confident I could do well. I decided to try and put down a good time in the seeding run to evaluate how hard I needed to go for the finals. I came out of the gate on the gas into the first gradual right hander before the first jump and started losing my rear end. I put a foot down and ended up having to take the easy out around the jump. This was not a good start to my run, so I dropped the hammer and sprinted into the next section at full speed. I came into the tightening “S” corner way too hot and blew that as well. Now I was really mad and tried to make up for both mistakes. I came into the wide open section just flying and in the fast right hander my rear wheel broke loose and I went down hard onto my side, still clipped in. After managing to get unclipped and push the bike off of me, I continued sprinting knowing my run was already over, but I still tried to push it and blew another corner further down and came to a complete stop after hitting a stump in one of the lower sections. I came through the finish line step down with a huge “Jammin Salmon” for Adam and ended up in 58^th place. I hadn’t crashed all practice and that was not what I needed going into my final race run. My side was hurting from my crash as I had given myself a large abrasion/burn while sliding on my butt cheek. Sitting down was a little sore and I was not looking forward to having to sit on the airplane on my fresh wound.

I went back up for my race run, but my confidence was shot. I couldn’t understand how I made that many mistakes in my run and was determined not to do that again. After waiting for the count down I took off down the hill. I crept through the first corner and barely cleared the first jump before firing up the engine and hitting the gas. I ended up going really slow everywhere I had made a mistake in my last run, which was a lot of places, and came into the pedaling section trying to save some energy for the end of it. I think I saved too much at the beginning and should have been pushing hard through the whole thing. I ended up missing a line of mine towards the bottom, which was another mistake, but I managed to keep it up right and came into the finish line strong. I came through the line pretty bummed on my time. That was not how I wanted my first major UCI race to turn out, but it was a little late at that point to do anything about it.

As I pedaled in circles trying to catch my breath, a UCI official came up to me and told me I was selected for a random drug screening. I went with him into the castle and was told to fill a cup. The UCI guys take drug testing seriously. I had to get patted down and they had to actually watch me fill the cup. I’ve never gone the bathroom with someone staring at my junk before. It was a little strange. I went the bathroom and managed to fill 75 of the required 100ml. I was told I needed to fill more and would have to drink some water and go again until it was full. 5 bottles of water later, I managed to fill the cup and after spilling part of it on the table and missing the awards, I was able to sign all of the paperwork and leave.

Being pretty bummed on my result, I decided to not let that ruin my time in Colombia. I was told there was a huge party that night in Chia and Ethan, JD and myself decided to see what the Colombian night life was all about. I got all dressed up, which means I showered and put on a dirty T-shirt, and we all piled into a super small SUV. We managed to get 6 people into a car designed for 4. With people sitting on laps, a cop walked up to the window and started speaking in Spanish to the driver. After some mean sounding words, he left and I got the translation. I was told the police said to not drink and drive. No one was buckled up and we had way more people than the vehicle allowed. You’ve got to love the lax laws in South America!

The first bar was awesome and laid back

The nights poison.

Dancing the night away. This club was huge.

After a quick pit stop at Mcdonalds (I didn’t have any, but the menu is the same as the US) we headed to a small bar in Chia. We sat down at the table and were immediately handed shot of Tequila. We ended up doing quite a few tequila shots and having some beers with the Colombians, Chileans, Argentineans, and Mexicans. After finishing all of the booze, we walked down the block to the club. I was told it was really expensive, but it turned out to be only 10 USD to get in. They had an interesting system at the club. They handed out a heart shaped sticker and I was told it was for those who were looking for love. I handed mine to Ethan and we all went into the club. The club was really fun. It was a labyrinth of hallways that went on forever. We drank and danced the night away. The bar even had fresh fruit. I’m not sure what I was eating, but it was good. I had a ton of fun and we danced until the bar closed at 3am. We followed everyone out of the bar and across the street to a big open air food court. We ordered some empanadas and hamburgers. After polishing the food off and hanging out with everyone, we hopped in with Pablo from Pinkbike to get a ride home. I ended up riding in the back of the truck back to the hotel, which was a little sketchy. I tried my best to be quiet as the XC race was the next morning and fell into my bed shortly after 4am.

The ride home!

The womens XC race crowd

At 7am, Heikki woke me up asking if I wanted to come with everyone to breakfast. Somehow, I managed to get up and grab some food with everyone. Our plan for Sunday was to do some shuttles with the locals on what we were told were real DH trails. The locals didn’t like the track we raced either and didn’t want our opinion of Colombian DH to be based off of one flat course. Our plan was to meet Camillo at the venue that morning and sort out everything from there. After seeing everyone at the bar the night before, I had a feeling our day of riding wasn’t going to happen. We all headed to the venue to be tourists and try and figure out shuttling. We assumed Camillo wouldn’t be there right away and decided to go and watch the women’s XC race. Somewhere along the lines, watching turned into full on screaming our lungs off for every American and Canadian woman we saw. The course doubled back on itself multiple times and allowed us to watch the riders multiple times each lap. Heather Irmiger, Emily Batty, Mary Maconeloug, and Amanda Sin, got the brunt of our screams and shouts. We thought we were being really obnoxious and probably super annoying to them, but it turned out that wasn’t the case. After the race the girls came up and thanked us for being there and cheering for them. The place was packed with Colombian spectators and it would erupt every time a Colombian rode through a section. The American/Canadians were happy to someone in their corner too and the English speaking ladies put down a great effort sweeping 2^nd -5^th place. We decided that Camillo wasn’t coming and we figured we should just stay and cheer for the U23 and the pro men as well. Todd Wells, Jeremiah Bishop, and Adam Craig ended up being on the receiving end of our shouts for the men and placed well too.

The whole week we were there, we were treated like rock stars. Everywhere you turned, someone was trying to take a photo with you. I felt like we were famous, but it made it hard to get from one place to another. As soon as someone would stop you for a photo you would be swarmed by people. Steve Smith always had a fan club following him. The South Americans were stoked to have a RedBull rider down in their territory. I thought we had it bad until I saw the end of the women’s XC race. Emily Batty got absolutely mobbed at the end of the race and ended up having to take a million photos while trying to get to the team Canada tent. I felt sorry for how long it took her to get to the pits!

Everyone packed and ready to head home!

We headed back to the hotel for the last time and packed our bikes and gear to head to the airport. My flight was flying out at 11:50 pm. I was supposed to fly through the night to JFK and then hop on an early morning flight from JFK to Seattle so I could work Monday morning and be home for Ruth’s birthday on Monday as well. After getting all loaded, we waited around for the bus to arrive. The bus finally arrived and I was starting to get nervous I was going to miss my flight. We couldn’t load up and leave as the truck to take our bikes and luggage wasn’t there yet. We waited, and waited, and waited. As I was beginning to lose hope, a different truck finally rolled up. I was told the one that was supposed to be there broke down. The Canadians loaded all of their stuff first as they were going to drop us off at the airport and they were grabbing a hotel near by so they could fly out early in the morning. The Mexicans then loaded all of their stuff so they could fly out that night. I put my bike and suitcase on dead last so I could be the first one off at the airport as I knew I was cutting it close.

The bus meandered its way towards Bogota and the airport while I talked to the Canadians about how I was going to miss my flight. After arriving, I jumped out and grabbed my suitcase and my bike and rushed inside. I found the Delta ticket counter and said I needed to check in for my flight. I was told I was 6 minutes too late and that they couldn’t let me on. I begged them to let me on and the guy said he would make a phone call. After calling the gate, he said he could get me on. He went through the paperwork before looking over the counter and checking my luggage. In broken English he asked “Is that a bicycle?” I said it was, and was promptly told that I could not get on the flight. Realizing I was going to be stuck in Colombia, I grabbed all of my stuff and ran out to try and catch the bus. I managed to catch the Canadians right before they pulled away and asked if I could come with them to their hotel. They were really friendly and invited me with open arms. We went to the hotel, which was a really fancy place and checked in. Most of the riders went to bed, but a few of the Quebexicans (Steve Smith’s description) and the coaches and mechanics went to the bar. I decided to join them and we all had a few beers, food and talked until late that night.

At the hotel bar with the Canadians.

Bogota Airport

The empty Delta gate.

At 4am, the alarm went off so the Canadians could catch their flights. I hopped into the shuttle with them and arrived at the airport to find the Delta ticket counter I was at yesterday was no longer a Delta ticket counter. I was now stuck in Colombia, alone, without a flight out, no translator, and no clue where or when the next available Delta flight left. The US XC team rolled up after an hour or so, and I managed to talk to them for a little bit which was calming, but didn’t help my situation any. After they left, I went back to the Delta service counter which was still closed and made myself comfortable for the long haul. I heard Delta only had one flight out of Bogota a day and it was at 11:50 pm. It was 5:30 am currently. I was stuck at the airport with no food, and no way to leave my stuff and even go to the restroom. After another hour of lounging around, I thought I saw a mirage; the ticket counter had changed their sign and was a Delta counter again! A few more minutes passed before I found anyone and was able to rebook my flight. They actually had a morning flight at 9:30 to Atlanta. I ended up paying 250 dollars to reschedule my flight, but I didn’t care at that point. I now had to fly from Bogota to Atlanta, Atlanta to Salt Lake City and Salt Lake to Seattle. I went to check my bags and tried my best to flirt with the girl at the counter to get out of the 200 dollar bike fee. Somehow I managed to work my magic and ended up getting out of that fee, which was great. Finally something went right on this trip!

Hanging out with the Canadians at the gate.

I went through security, or lack there of, and once again joined the Canadians at their gate. We all hung out until the flights started to board and said our goodbyes. I’m glad they were there, without them, it would have been a miserable night/morning. I boarded my flight and watched Inception all they way back to Atlanta. I got through customs in Atlanta and rechecked my bike and bags again. I went to my gate and noticed that our departure time had changed. We were now leaving 10 minutes later than my ticket said we would. I only had 35 minutes between flights in SLC, so this was cutting it even closer. I figured it would be ok though, as I was at least back in the states. I sat down and watched the TV while waiting to board the flight. While watching the TV, the weather came on and was showing a huge storm extending from Texas up towards Virginia. It looked like we would make it out of Atlanta just before it hit us.

Looking over Cuba on the way home.

The gate agent called my seat assignment and I boarded the plane and took off without incident. I was lucky and got to sit in the exit row and ended up sitting next to an off duty flight attendant. She and I started talking about the planes and her job and some of the crazy stories and crap flight attendants have to deal with. After talking for about 2 hours I looked out the window and saw what I thought looked like a coastline. I’ve always enjoyed geography and have been pretty good at it, but I couldn’t figure out what I was looking at. The lady on the other side of me had an Ipad and opened the flight tracker. It turns out that in order to avoid the big storm we left Atlanta and headed south over Florida towards Cuba and across the Gulf of Mexico. I was looking at the Texas coastline! This minor detour added a thousand miles to our journey and was going to make me miss my flight out of SLC. I landed 30 minutes after my connecting flight took off and was met at the gate by Delta gate agents. Lucky for me, they gave me a hotel and some vouchers for food. I went to the hotel and finally was able to call Ruth and let her know what was going on. I managed to talk to her for 15 minutes before her birthday was officially over. I talked to Ruth for an hour or so and then went to sleep.

I awoke early Monday morning and headed for the airport to continue this miserable journey home. I made it onto my flight in the very back row, on the very last seat, but was excited to be heading home. I found out the day before about the Southwest plane that had a hole rip in the fuselage and was trying to sleep when I heard a big woooosh noise. I probably would have jumped out of my seat if I hadn’t been buckled in. I finally realized that I just heard the lavatory flush behind me and needed to go back to sleep. We landed nice and smooth at SeaTac and I grabbed my luggage and my bike at the baggage claim and took a taxi to the nearest Uhaul to rent a truck to get home. Now I just need to figure out a vehicle and get some sleep before Port Angeles in 4 days!