[Archaea]

Snippets from reports of friends there:

If you didn't make it out to the cross race the other night, you missed one of the most impressive bike races I have ever seen. There were 5000 people drinking and ringing cowbells watching the race, and Andy represented Allegiant well. The course was super hard, even according to super bad-ass, and new friend Christian Heule, who took 2nd. He is 6th in the world cup, and he thought it was grueling. Christian was staying at my house all week, and it was really cool being around a rider of that caliber. His level of discipline was unbelievable, and also really inspiring. Andy was a bit shocked at the pace, but I thought he was doing great all things considered. He eventually got pulled, but not before guys like Tony Cruz and Chris Horner did. There were 92 starters, and only about 30 finished.

another:

Thanks champ for the info and ditto on the cross experience and a big booyah on the crit, all three races were inspiring and a blast to watch, pream laps more than not, 5,000.00 from rock and republic with 2 laps to go made it insane!!!
Mario Chippo was cooler than cool in person; I’m not gay

PS Interbike was cool, but it's the same stuff, hot women hocking new bike stuff with weird people surrounding BMX booths.