Every Cloud has a silver lining...

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If I told you I was jetting off to Mexico for a few days to tear the arse off some new bikes you'd think it was all fun and games right?

Flying from Gatwick to Dallas Ft Worth airport, then on to Chihuahua airport in Mexico I was greeted by a nice 4hr journey through the mega bendy roads on the way down to Creel - the rural location for the Trek Remedy 2008 bike launch.

Creel is probably the driest place I've ever been - no matter how much water you take on board, your pee still hums of sugar puffs. My lips are cracked from the high altitude riding and my lungs are still on fire from the 'casual' rides at race pace. I haven't done much riding at altitude before, but you really notice how much it drains you - when you're out of breath it takes twice the time to recover- you simply can't gulp enough air in. And I shall never moan about riding in the mud and rain that we have in the UK again, as it's pretty easy to deal with. I couldn't believe how dry the air was here - the fact that you breathe in so much dust from the other riders makes drinking hard, and you need to drink all the time. Which is made harder still as you're out of breath all the time too!

Of course riding is the main reason Trek throw big launches like this as they really want you to ride the product - we've just had a three day pedalthon and I feel toasted, so as you could probably imagine, I really wasn't looking forward to another long journey of travel sweats and stinking airline passengers.

When our flight from Chihuahua was cancelled due to the plane leaking fuel my heart sank - but a couple of us managed to get redirected to Mexico City to transfer to Paris, then onwards to London from there. Except we missed our connection by minutes and I'm sat in a hotel room in Mexico City now - waiting for the next flight to Paris.

Fingers crossed eh?

You see my Editor believes that every cloud has a silver lining - and me being stranded is some kind of 'sign' that I should be doing some work. Except with the travel clam knocking at the door, I'm starting to wish I was back in the desert breathing in dust and scorpion shit rather than on my way to a 20hr journey. So I'm off to get in the queue with thousands of other moaning travellers.

I'm posting a full news story on the Trek Remedy launch and the amazing place we visited- so keep an eye out on BikeRadar. They'll also be all the tech low-down in MBUK...

Over and out amigos.

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