Manuel Bustelo

Hello everybody,

Guanaride 07' has finished. Unfortunately I sustained a serious fall the very first day of the race, only two minutes after I started the steepest section of the downhill. Fortunately I ended up with nasty bruises and some cuts in my left leg and arm, but no broken bones. I got on my bike again that day and managed to finish the first stage.

Thanks to the kind assistance of the local Suunto dealer who took me to hospital immediately after I finished the stage, I was able to continuo racing all the remaining four stages. Although I was far from winning, I managed to improve my overall time by a good margin compared to the one of last year. It might have been the mummy look (due to the bandages that wrapped my arm and leg) that proved to make me faster.

Despite of the fact that it poured down in San Jose the week before the race, the northern region of Guanacaste remained dryer than last year. There was less mud on the way and less water on the rivers we crossed along 400 km ridden during five days. What remained constant is the heat (you literally sweat buckets while waiting on the starting line already at 7 am). It was also nice to find once again the astonishing Pacific coastline, wonderful nature, magnificent wildlife and kindness of the 'Ticos'.

As on last year, I used my valuable Suunto t6 and X9i to record the race logs. I can't wait to download the info into my training software and Google Earth. I particularly look forward to compare the t6 logs with the ones of last year to learn more about my improvement. This will be done soon, but before I am off to Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize and Guatemala to learn more about the landscape and culture of this wonderful region of the world.

Hasta la vista!
Manu