After a windy drive from Memphis, I arrived in Grapevine, TX around 4:30. I met up with a few of my teammates & we went to an Italian place near by for dinner. Afterward, it was back to the hotel for the first team meeting.

Nathan, the team manager, cut to the chase and let us know that in the grand scheme of things, our team is not much different from a pro team, and he expected us to act and ride accordingly. Camp is going to be a little bit like “tryouts” for the 2009 season- our performance this week will have a large impact on who goes where next season. Also, during this week, if anyone doesn’t perform as expected, it could mean an early end to his or her contract. He expects a lot from us, and I think it’s pretty awesome, because it’s going to insure that noone is there who shouldn’t be.

After the meeting, Some of us hung around in the conference room to work on our bikes- I had to swap out my worn rear tire for a new/old stock of Ryan’s, and others were assembling their bikes out of the flight cases. We discussed how the earlier lecture reminded us of some sort of reality TV show where people get eliminated after a series of challenges (hence the title of this post). Then Coryn got excited and rode ashley’s bike around the conference room…