Not a question you expect while waiting at the Oversize luggage counter at LAX, with less than 50minutes to collect my bags, clear customs, transfer baggage, clear security again and then bus transfer to departure terminal to Santa Barbara.It turns out it WAS my seat and seat post. Why was it out of the box? It was soon revealed: a massive hole like I had never seen before in cardboard and cycle packaging.
But there was no time to delay. I had to get through customs: yes I have lollies, I am diabetic, nothing else, thanks - then onto the luggage transfer. While staff looked very concerned at potentially losing my seat on my flight, I was more pressed on stopping the chance of losing my seat from the box along with anything else. But what else was packed in the top corner of the bike box? I couldn't remember, other than that it fitted really well...thats right, it was all my spare OmniPod insulin pump supplies for the trip. Crap - are they out on the tarmac or stuck behind the gates of customs? What to do? Baggage services came to the rescue, providing tape for me to re-shape the box again, while another staff member filled out the form in the damage/lost goods claim.
As sketchy as the re-taped box appeared, I was over worrying as I handed it to the luggage guys and headed straight to security clearance and onto the departure terminal. The flight to Santa Barbara was in a tiny Melb-Wagga Wagga type plane and I missed the whole event due to passing out straight away, waking only as the plane touched down. On arrival I discover the box was not so lucky in getting across for departure. Another form to fill out.
Eric the TT1 mechanic picked me up and rescued me from the hunger pains. My vegetarian status hadn't been recorded on the Qantas flight, and with some weird meal timings I had spent most of the long haul flight starving. We found an awesome cafe and I reacquainted myself with a fish taco. Oh yeah, they are great.
Back at the airport to pick up the second mechanic, Doug, and just in time to witness the arrival of the next flight from LAX. In amongst this luggage was the reappearance of my bike, with the patches holding up quite well. Great!
Arrived at Buellton, rebuilt the bike, headed down to the local bike shop for a riding low down and then in the late arvo headed out for a quick spin. Oh my god - what awesome country! The road leaves town to wind its way along the santa rosa (?) valley, which is littered with post-autumn vineyards, their rusty leaves littering the base of brown stumps and guiding poles set amongst a large Strezlecki-type hill range, with its off-yellows and green from the mini-ti-tree type flora covering most of the upper areas. Every now and then a homestead or vine processing plant appeared, often with cream walls and terracotta tiled roofs. One such homestead was proudly labelled 'Rancho La Vina'. Very cool. The road was so bare of traffic I was soon assuming none existed. When one appeared, it would drive past me so slowly that it verged on being creepy, but it seemed that that was the actual pace of driving with or without sharing the road with a cyclist.
As the skies further up the valley towards the Pacific turned grey and the sun headed down I played it cautiously and turned round early in case of rain. Lucky I did - it turned dark so quickly I soon had lights on and arrived back to the hotel in total darkness - a process taking no longer than 20minutes.
The mechanics had been busy building bikes for next week, and it was great to see mine being one of the first - how exciting! It helps to arrive early I guess. Tomorrow will be a more formal fitting and hopefully some pictures.
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