joy of travel

When I was flying from Sydney to kuala lumpur yesterday I read an interesting article in national geographic about how the president of the united states travels around. I thought the logistics of organizing a cycling team to get us and all our staff and equipment to the otheraide of the world together and on time was an amazing feat, but our operation pales in comparison to the presidents. I traveled quite nice this last flight as I had an entire row to myself and I could lay down for a nice sleep. And I was even on a 747 like air force one. But if it breaks down I’m stuck somewhere for a while, as was the case with one of my teammates on the way here. Appearantly the president has a back up duplicate air force one as well. Must be nice. The president travels with 600 to 800 people to any given place. We don’t have 150 secret service men, but we do have 8 to 10 staff at a race with us. The us taxpayers pay for 600 hotel rooms wherever they go! And the race organization takes care of our rooms. They even have an extra 747 or two to carry these people, and a couple cargo planes that carry all the luggage and the presidential Limo. And a spare presidential limo. At this race there’s a big box truck with all our extra stuff and bike bags, and we have a driver in a little Volkswagen van that takes us and our gear to the start.
Just thought traveling for sport was a little hectic, couldn’t imagine arranging presidential travel!
I’m off to the tour langkawi team presentation. Check out Cyclingnews later for some photos.
Thanks for checking in!