New Balance Tour Grinds To A Hault

This may well be the longest day of my life, and it's only 8:30. The tour has had its ups and downs so far but nothing could prepare us for what has happened over the last 5 days. A brief recap will get everyone up to date. We spent 3 days of nearly constant driving and landed in beautiful Boulder, CO late Thursday evening (May 27th). The only fun thing to report was a spirited baseball contest between the Kansas City Royals and the Detroit Tigers in K.C.

On Friday we dropped off our 16 foot utility trailer, hopped in the Ryder Van disguised as a New Balance delivery truck, and headed off to Denver (1/2 hour away) to chill with my boy Shawn who is from West Hartford. We hung out in downtown, peoplewatched along the 16th street walking mall, hit the ESPN zone (my favorite overprised arcade) for a few basketball and football battles, and then a couple pubs for some beers. Shawn lives 5 minutes walk from downtown so we went back to his place and hung out on his porch shooting the shit for a while. We decided not to grab the laptop computer that was offered to us from an area dumpster by a ragged looking but friendly enough gentleman.

My permanent companion Boom and I fell in love with the friendly, clean, laid back mile high town and it's residents and couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to live in such a place. Too bad the Rockies weren't in town.

Back in Boulder we had a couple event days at a local running shoe store. This was our first real set up and it took an hour to get things straight. It was cold, rainy and windy as hell and by this time I had caught Booms cold and we were both miserable. Perfect time for our bosses to come to liven up the scene and scare us with threats of curious New Balance execs stopping by at any moment. NOTE: The New Balance reps, execs and bigwigs are to the man the most chill and cool people you could imagine despite our bosses repeated warnings to be at 150 percent or something like that. On top of my already sneezy, drippy condition I wrenched my back lifting some crap ass fan that we don't even use most of the time but have to move all around from the front of the trailer to the back. I thought I was going on the DL (disabled list) after the first day! I couldn't help wondering if taking this damn tour was a big mistake.



Monday we were up at 5 am to head to University of Colorado for setup for our first big race event called the Bolder Boulder. As most of you know 5 am is a pretty normal bed time for Boom and I but we're forcibly becoming morning people on this friggin tour. This race attracts 50,000 runners and almost as many spectators so we were preparing for a bum rush at our site. Before even the Kenyan team could cross the finish line we had a promotional fiasco that caused for much panic and embarassment for the tenderfoot promotional team. Boom went back to the hotel to grab some stuff our sleepy asses forgot and in the meantime our boss locked the door to the trailer, trapping our try on sneaker collection inside, and in effect haulting the most important part of the whole damn production. Boom was sent all over town by race detours while all of the NB folks sat around with us handing out free socks and explaining how things usually go. Once he returned with the only set of keys the day flew by as we were swamped with families of racers explaining all their foot woes to our attentive ears. NOTE TO TEAM: Get duplicate keys made.



Tuesday we get a much needed day off. We hang out in downtown Boulder, eat burritos at Illegal Pete's, buy some CD's and just watch the people on Pearl St. Boom falls hard in love with the town and the joke of the day is after every cool thing we see he asks me incredulously "WHy??? Why don't I live here???" As the sun is setting we drive up into the mountains to the Flat Irons that everyone around town is bangin on about. We drive up and up and catch some breathtaking views of snowcapped mountains and a great view of Boulder. We see a bear scurrying across the road and a mess of deer as well. After snapping a few pics we agree that this is the type of day that make all of the early mornings, painful workdays, and nitpicking bosses worth the trouble. Later on we go out to eat on "The Hill" with Booms boy Joe and call it a night. Another town dominated.



Wished a teary eyed goodbye to Boulder and hit the road headed for Portland, OR. I thought Wyoming would never end. Crashed for the night in Burley, ID. Drove all day again Thursday (June 3rd). Went through the most beautiful state in the union (Utah) and on into Oregon. We're pushing this van to the limit dragging a thousand sneakers in a giant trailer up and down giant mountains and suddenly the van starts making noises that a van normaly doesn't make. Being the mechanicaly inclined individuals that we are we decide to pull over to let the van rest. Every good van needs a nice rest once in a while right? We walked around and took some scenic pictures. I walked a little further into the brush and caught a nice view (not to mention whiff) of a dead horse. It was not a pretty sight my friends I assure you. Boom's curiosity got the best of him and he had to take a gander at it as well, all but assuring the tour to be cursed.



We got about 20 more miles and the normal noises of the noisy ass diesel van and the not so normal noises of the noisy ass diesel van began to blurr into one. We would drive for a bit, hear a peculiar grinding noise, look quizicaly at each other, shrug our shoulders and press on. There was absolutely nowhere to stop anyhow as we were right across the Oregon border and in the middle of nowhere. We stopped for gas at the very next exit (miles and miles) and tried to get the attendent to help us diagnose the problem. By this time our rear axl was smoking, we were leaking some kind of fluids, and the van sounded like metal shop class. No mechanic on duty and 20 miles to the next town but we have no choice but try to make it. We get about 50 yards onto the highway and it becomes clear that we won't be continuing any further. At the gas station all of the remaining fluid left our van leaving us with a grinded up locked down rear end. 1-800 Ryder to the rescue.



We wait on the side of the road with lightning storms raging on the horizon for the wrecker to arrive. Out of the night comes our knight in shining armor Heath of Superior Towing. He drags our van onto the flatbed, hitches our trailer on the back and we travel the 25 minutes back to a little town called Baker City, OR. Our nightmare was just begining.



Heath is a rock solid dute. Check this out....he's from North Carolina and he only moved here because his ex wife moved here with their kids and he couldn't stand to be away from them. He hates it here but he doesn't sound bitter about it, in fact he's kind of good natured and funny about it. QUOTE: "Folks are not all there around here I don't think, I mean there's a town down the street called Durkee!!! You can't be all there if you live in a town called Durkee!!"

The garage is a 5 minute walk from our Best Western so I head over to get the news. We had fully expected to have the thing fixed and be back on the road in time to arrive at our weekend events in Portland and Seattle. Heath set us straight right quick. He informed us that the problem is serious and we could expect to stay in town for at least a couple days (it's been four so far). We tried every possible thing in the world to get the hell out of town. Our best plan was to rent another van or truck, carry on to our events and come back through town to pick up our van on the way out. Believe it or not what put the kaybash on that was 5/16ths of a god damn inch! U-Haul is the only truck rental place for 100 miles in any direction and their trailer hitches use 2 inch balls on their hithces and we need 2 5/16. No way to change it (welded on), no way to adapt it....we're effing stuck! When I called Heath to tell him that U-Haul had a different size I said that we'd be stucki in town for 5 days. He responded immediately with "I've been here for 5 MONTHS and I don't like it." He's a silly dute.

Our office back in Boston, after insisting we make it to Portland, finally threw in the towel and tell us to enjoy a few off days. We'll try our best.