So from France it was back to Offenburg Germany where my 27th birthday was speant. It was a pretty quite day but enjoyable much the same. I went out for a ride with some friends and we did just under 100kms with a climb up a local hill to 1000 high meters just for good measure. I pulled up pretty saw from the France race so it was nice to just go slow and roll the legs over. That night I went to Alex and Bernd's house for a sensatinal dinner and a few quite beers. It was a good way so to spend my birthday. Good ride, good food and good company. The next day was a bit of an early start with us leaving the house at 5am to get to the Frankfurt Airport for the flight to Sweden. So thats where you find me now, in Sweden the day after the 6th World Cup Marathon round. Im not here to race and in fact I dont even have my bike with me. Im here to support the team and yesterday was a day of ups and downs. Anna Enocsson was the local hero and had won this race in the past 3 years but with this year being a World Cup round it was never going to be easy especially with her Ghost team mate Ester Suss coming off a sensational win in France of over 15mins. But none of that got in the way of Anna's plans for win no 4. She went out hard from the start and at feed zone no 1 I could no belive that she was already 2 mins ahead of the pack. She never let up the pace and went on to win by some 8 mins. The Swede's were pretty happy as one of their cross country riders had won the mens. Ester spent most of the day riding in 2nd place but things went a bit wrong around the 80km mark when her headsteam came loose and she didnt have tools to tighten it. By the last feed zone she had slipped into 4th and had a tough chase in the last 10kms after geting the tools at the technical zone. She managed to get back to 3rd but the current series leader Daniela Louise finished strong and retained her leaders jersy. Anna Baylis unforunatly crashed after 15kms and now has a broken arm just above the wrist. Its a big shame with the World champs next week but hopefully after a few weeks rest she can get back to training and make her asult in Australia for the Commonweath games selection races. Jorg flatted once again continueing his run of bad luck in races. Im suggesting he needs to make the change to tubeless as things just arnt working for him at the moment. So last night was the event pasta party and luckily for us it was just accross from our army dorm accomocation that we find ourselves in. The food was awersome and the beers went down pretty smoothly. The Swedish are an amusing bunch. They have a great sense of humor and are very nice. There are some quirky things about this place. It seems they make the best of everything. 2 examples of this are their distances and thier currency. When a Swede says they are 30 miles away its not as close as it sounds. A Swedish mile is 10kms long. So things sound alot closer than they are. Then a Swedish Krona is about 10 Aussie cents so eveybody here is a millionair. Its a bit of a shock at the supermarket when $2453 comes up on the register. Gee I hope that the right amount in Aussie dollars comes off my visa. Tonight we are headed out Elk spotting. An Elk is pretty much a Swedish mouse and we are hoping to see a few out in the woods. We are also hoping not to hit one of these 1 ton beasts when we are driving along the back roads as roumors have it they do some damage to the front of the car. Tomorrow its off to Norway for the team to begin its preperation for the World Champs race. Im hoping to hire a bike for the week so I can get in a few kms between team chors. Im also going to be the team chef with meat cooking support to come form Anna E's Boyfirend. With any luck I dont make them all sick before their biggest race of the year....