Today we took a quick trip to the LA Velodrome so Heather could get some track time in before the USA Cycling Talent Pool Qualifier event (.pdf) next week. We flew out standby which is always sketchy and it almost started out on the wrong foot. As they were doing the final boarding at the gate in Boise, we hadn’t been called yet and saw that there were other standby passengers with distressed looks on their faces.
We learned that a United flight had been cancelled so many paying passengers filled the Delta flight, which looked wide open the night before. After waiting through most of boarding we finally get called up but were told that there was only one seat available! We had to decide whether we’d split up and figured that If I didn’t make it to Salt Lake City, i wouldn’t make it to LA in time, so Heather should just go. She got her boarding pass and waited before boarding, since they were still making final headcount. Luckily, there was yet one more seat still open, which I then received. Whew…that was close!
The flight from SLC to Los Angeles was not as exciting and we got into LAX and rented a car and headed to the velodrome. I guess they were having a game at the Home Depot Event Center as the Goodyear blimp was hovering about. Since the velodrome building is a multi-use facility there were some boys volleyball matches going on the infield. The infield is surrounded by floor to ceiling netting so balls don’t make their way onto the track. But with all the people, the inside temperature was much warmer than during Elite Track Nationals.
I helped Heather with her bike prep and then she practiced a few pursuit starts and flying 8-laps using different gears. I timed her laps using old-school technology: my Polar Accurex heart rate monitor and a clipboard. Then we switched to her drop bars and she practiced the first 2 laps of the mass-start test. Between warm-up/cool-downs, resting and gear changes, all of this ended up taking the entirety of our track time and we ended up leaving without me getting a chance to get on the “boards” for a few tests of my own. Ever since our first trip I wanted to do a mock pursuit and a kilo, just to see what kind of times I could achieve. But that has to wait for another time.
It was a good thing I didn’t try to squeeze in a quick ride because as it was we got to the terminal only 45 minutes before our flight. The kiosk wouldn’t print a tag for our one and only checked bag and the Delta representative told us we were exactly one minute too late to check it! But then he filled out a bunch of forms and put on a “late check” tag on it and told us we weren’t guaranteed that it would make it. That was fine as there wasn’t anything in there that was needed right away. It was mostly tools, chainrings and cogs which Heather wouldn’t need until next week. We could always pick it up at the airport tomorrow. That flight was open and we made it on with no problems. While waiting on the plane at the gate, I did see our bag go on, so we didn’t have to worry about that anymore.
But when we got to the gate in Salt Lake for our Boise flight, we noticed there were no unclaimed seats on the standby list and there were quite a few standbys on the list! The situation looked glum and we talked about getting a room since that was the last flight of the day. We hung around while they finished boarding and had already accepted the fact that we’d probably be staying in a hotel. But at the last minute they called us both up! Only one other standby passenger made it on after us. Again, we barely made this one by the skin of our teeth! But we were extremely glad we did; we had been up since 5 AM and got home at 11:15 PM. It was a very long day!