My Hubby ROCKS!

Wow, three posts in one day. That is a record for me. I just got back from the track and had to post this. I finally got Bryan to take the track class and he had a great time. I hope to have him racing out there soon. Here's the proof:

Lander wanting another podium shot (with his mom's bike). Could this be a sign of things to come?

I suck at taking videos, but this one of Bryan riding high on the track doesn't suck too bad.

My Three Step Program to Coping with the Weather

So, after freezing my butt off racing PIR last night I woke up to what was it? Oh yeah, 45 degrees and rain. Last week PIR was a dumpfest as it poured during our entire race (it was actually kind of fun in a weird, demented sort of way). Seriously, it's June, or should I call it Junuary. The motivation to ride, yet again, the rain bike and wear all the necessary cold weather accouterments is starting to wane. As I rode to work, getting soaked I started to think about the stages of DENIAL I have been going through the last few months. I always think it's going to get better, and it doesn't. This pretty much sums it up:

April-Stage 1: The optimist/denial. I am not known for being an optimist so I can't figure out why I ever thought that things would improve. At this point I am in a perpetual state of thinking that tomorrow will be better. It's not.

May-Stage 2: Rage/Anger/Hatred. WTF? Yeah, I pretty much have a coronary when I see the weather report each day. I begin to consider moving to Arizona.

June-Stage 3: Submission/Abandonement of all Hope. Racing PIR in the rain pretty much pushed me into this phase, finally. I felt like I was going to be stuck in Stage 2 forever. I embrace the crappyness and learn to love it, or at least trick myself into thinking that. I long for nice days but do the training and work I need to even when the weather sucks.

Please sun, come back to play!

179

You may think that because it's the off season from bike racing that 179 signifies what my weight has escalated to since the race season ended. Ha, you are wrong. The competition shall cry when they find out that is not the truth. Actually 179 is the heart rate that I had to hit yesterday on my training ride when I was visciously chased by two dogs while riding on Washougal River Road. I pride myself in my ability to control my heart rate under any circumstance in my off season training but yesterday that became an impossibility when two barking dogs came tearing out of a driveway. The road I was on was flat to maybe slightly uphill, so I had a disadvantage. I had to sprint as hard as I could to get away from them, which is hard when you actually haven't sprinted in a few months. They were gaining on me and I could see a hill up ahead, I thought I was doomed. I can honestly say that sprinting when something is chasing you is a lot more interesting that sprinting for the finish line. I think it was one of my best sprints ever, even with the yelling and screaming at the dogs to try to scare them away (which didn't work). Needless too say, I think I have a good mental vision of what I need to sprint like to win a race. Maybe this was a good thing for me.

Honey, do you hear banjos?

About a month ago Bryan and I, armed with our GPS, went and did a little exploring on our mountain bikes in our new neighborhood (Washougal). We could have ridden the trails that we normally ride out here, but where would be the adventure in that? So, we found some roads and trails in Topo USA that looked interesting, downloaded them, and headed out for some dirt time. I can honestly say we ended up on a trail that I am pretty certain has never been biked on. In fact, it was really overgrown. There were a bunch of rocks covered by wet grass and leaves and it made riding really interesting. There was more than one time that I just hoped I took the best line and ended up with my front wheel sideways struggling to stay on the trail. It was FUN! The cool thing is that we found some cool streams and some pretty terrain. Here's the proof:

Bryan posing by a pine tree

The wash out I almost rode into. You can't tell, but it's about a 20 foot drop if you go off.

Some river we had to cross, of course I managed to get wet

The upper Washougal River

We found this critter sunning on our driveway when we got home. Lander and I had fun playing with it.

What Not to Do....

I am a total newbie to track racing and last Thursday I learned a very important lesson about gearing. My rental bike (yeah, I don't have a real bike yet, but this is what I am getting for next year) had on an 88 inch gear instead of the 82 inch gear that I was used to riding. For those of you that are not remotely interested in bikes that basically means that an 88 inch gear is harder and an 82 inch gear is easier. So, I thought to myself, I should try an 88 and see what it's like, I might be able to go faster. WRONG. First of all, I totally wore myself out in the 15 minute Madison trying to stay on top of the 88. During the omnium races I couldn't stay on top of it either. The women's field would slow down before the sprints and then it would take all the leg power I had to get on top of my gear when someone attacked. By the time I got going, the attack was gone and I was feeling like I was pedaling through sand. It was a painful, demoralizing night for me. I will definitely be going back to the 82 next week.

I will say that the Madison was a lot of fun. I taught (with my limited knowledge) Ryan Weaver how to Madison race before the racing started and we did the Madison race together. He did awesome for his first time, I was impressed. It's so cool to race with someone that is taller than me (hard for an amazon girl like myself), I had great acceleration when he would throw me in. I look forward to next week.

Love Me, Love Me Not

My bike loves me, my bike loves me not. That was pretty much my racing story last week. In all fairness, is wasn't my bikes fault, just me having my usual problems and feeling icky. I did 4 races and they went good, bad, good, bad, exactly in that order.

Monday night I raced the short track MTB at PIR (good race #1) and had my best short track races this season (no flats) and the course was awesome. Okay, I actually only did 3 of the short track races, and I flatted on one and felt terrible on the other so I was really excited that everything came together for the final race. I did manage to crash on the first lap coming off the gravel pile and had to make up places, it was good motivation.

Wednesday night I raced the CMG crit (bad, bad race #1). My tactic the week before was to go hard from the start to string things out. Well, I did this again and it backfired on me. I actually wore myself out so much that when an attack went off 1/2 way through the race I got dropped from our lead group. I managed to come in off the back of the lead group, by myself, and totally disappointed in the fact that I totally sucked!

Thursday was velodrome night (good race #2) and I was excited to again try my hand at the Madison and then we were going to do a points race. I got paired with a more experienced rider for the Madison and after botching the first two exchanges managed to not completely suck for the rest of the 15 minute race. It was a lot of fun, but I was so tired that I really didn't know how I was going to do a points race. Luckily the points race was only 20 laps. At the first sprint I took some points and kept going and got a good gap on the field. I was really excited when Andrea (my fearless 6 Day diva) bridged up to me and we proceeded to work together and LAPPED THE FIELD. Lapping the field was a goal of mine at some point this season, so it was great to do it with Andrea. She beat me in the sprint, she is sprinting really well. We finished 1st and 2nd, it was great.

My bad, bad race #2 just happened to be the State Championship Time Trial. The thing that really sucked was that physically my body was toast, which meant that mentally I couldn't push myself. I tried. I pretty much realized in the first 10k of 40k that I was not going to have a good race, or even be able to race, and decided to roll it and just finish. The problem is that a) I still had 30k to ride and b) the last 20k is into a nasty headwind. I really wanted to cry and stop, but that was not an option since there was no where to go but back to the start/finish where the car was parked. I felt terrible, my time was 4 minutes slower than last year, and I was DFL.

I think I am going to go back to knitting as a past-time. Of course, I would probably find some way to screw that up as well.

Lazy!!!

As the summer wears on bike racing is becoming less and less appealing to me. This usually happens to me each season, but this season it has been worse, probably because I started racing earlier in the season and did a lot more racing. At this point I am feeling less than enthusiastic to ride my bike and my thoughts are starting to turn to Lander starting school, getting ready to move, tele skiing and starting my winter training.

This weekend our friend Phil from Utah was here to do the annual Pedal the Pinchot ride. This ride is awesome and somehow we forgot to take our camera, so no proof that we actually did it. I will say, that there are some spectacular views of the blast zone on the Southeast side of St. Helens on this ride. If you ever have the chance to do this ride, I highly recommend it. Lots of climbing, but you know what that means, lots of fun descending!

I was digging through iPhoto the other day and found some pictures from Utah that I missed. These are from our favorite ride, the Alpine Loop. Fun ride, 12 mile climb, nasty technical descent on the other side, oh so much fun!

Climbing

Still climbing

Seriously, enough with the climbing already!

Are we there yet?

Phil, Bryan and I at the top of the Loop, finally! We are smiling because we
get to go downhill for a very, very long time.

Me on the descent

A large avalanche debris field, I was the only one that thought this was cool

Here are some more picture of Lander, I think he spent more time in the pond than anywhere else.

Lander hiding behind the waterfall

Lander floating

Lander and his new swim goggles

Lander playing in the waterfall

Le Tour=Le Disappointment

This is ridiculous! I think I will just stick to reading Harry Potter at this point, it's much more interesting than all the blah, blah about so and so getting kicked out. What a bunch of LOSERS!

Six Day-Day Six

Today was the last day of the Six Day. Andrea and I have had so much fun and learned a ton about Madison racing. The best part was we were given "style" points for our matching hair ribbons each day. They made us race so much better. Andrea was so fun to race with. I look forward to many more Madison races with her. Our "B" group was so supportive of us coming out there and learning the Madison as we went. Thanks to everyone for your help and for your encouragement as we fumbled through the week.

The racing today began at 3:00, with some one day racing taking place between our races. The extra break was nice, but with some rain delays we ended up being at the track until 7:00 p.m.. Our first lap was an unknown distance. The roll the dice to determine laps and you don't know how many laps you are doing until they ring the bell for the final lap. Meg rolled off the front on the first lap and we got the bell on that lap. Everyone tried as hard as they could to catch her, but she came a cross the line first. It was a short race, for me it was over before I even figured out what was going on.

Our second race was a Keirin. The only experience I have with a Keirin is this video I found on YouTube:


Okay, these guys have padding on. I knew our race wouldn't be like that, but I still had no idea what to do. I was in 4th position out of 5 while we were being paced by the motorbike. I knew that with Mike, Brian and Heather in front of me I really didn't have a chance so I just decided that rolling across in 4th was good enough for me. Andrea on the other hand had an awesome race and attacked on the final lap to take the win by several bike lengths. She is my hero.

Our Madison went awesome. We had some really solid exchanges and got our timing down pretty well. We did have a couple of botched exchanges and sometimes our timing got a little messed up when we had a sprint lap, but I was totally happy with how we finished. I think that Madison hurt the worst of all of them. My legs were definitely toast when we were done. Here are some pictures that Bryan took while we were racing:

Lander wishing me good luck before the unknown distance race

The Keirin

Me throwing Andrea in

Andrea giving me a super sling

Our B podium

Lander practicing for his future racing career

Six Day-Day Five

No sore legs today, thank goodness.

The weather has been threatening all week and today it finally caught up with us. The A's and B's got to do one mass start race each before it started to mist and Candi called the race. It's ironic how this week is historically the driest week of the year unless you schedule a track event that week.

We got to do a progressive points race, again, with a twist. It was 15 laps and Candi called it a "race for the mathematically challenged". And it was. Lap 1 was worth one point, 2 was two points, etc. etc.. When you got to 5 laps, the lap board went back to one and started counting up again for points. We did this 3 times, so you had to try to remember how many laps you had done. I tried to stay near the front and managed to get through the line first on one lap and then screwed myself over in the finish by going too high on the track in one corner and a bunch of people passed me. I tried to move up and wasn't sure if I should bother since I once again didn't know if the finish mattered or not (see, I really am clueless). Somehow I got 4th, what a miracle. I really need to figure out what I am doing.

B Race for the Mathmatically Challenged
1 Abers, Brian Team Rubicon 10
2 Murray, Mike Team Oregon 9
3 VanValkenburg, Heather Team Rubicon 8
4 Bihlmaier, Jeanie Specialized/River City Bicycles 7
5 Curl, Darien Team Rubicon 6
6 Charboneau, Emily 5
7 Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn Bike Central 4
8 Fisk, Andrea 3
9 Bjesse-Puffin, Amelia Bike Central 2
10 Mautner, Meg NoMad Sports Club 1


We are still 4th overall and totally happy with that. Most importantly, we are having fun and can't wait to do this next year.

Overall
1 Abers, Brian Team Rubicon 196 Bjesse-Puffin, Amelia Bike Central
2 Murray, Mike Team Oregon 167 Curl, Darien Team Rubicon
3 VanValkenburg, Heather Team Rubicon 102 -2 Charboneau
4 Fisk, Andrea 94 -6 Bihlmaier, Jeanie Specialized/RCB
5Mautner, Meg NoMad Sports Club 62 -14 Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn Bike Central

Six Day-Day Four

Tonight was pretty blah for me in the mass start races, but my awesome teammate kept the points rolling in. Andrea had a great 3rd place finish in the scratch race.

Scratch
1 Abers, Brian Team Rubicon 10
2 Murray, Mike Team Oregon 9
3 Fisk, Andrea 8
4 VanValkenburg, Heather Team Rubicon 7
5 Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn Bike Cental 6
6 Bjesse-Puffin, Amelia Bike Cental 5
7 Curl, Darien Team Rubicon 4
8 Bihlmaier, Jeanne Specialized/RCB 3
9 Charboneau, Emily 2
10 Mautner, Meg NoMad Sports Club 1

The progressive points race didn't go so well, but we were saving ourselves for the Madison.

Progressive Pts
1 Abers, Brian Team Rubicon 10
2 VanValkenburg, Heather Team Rubicon 9
3 Curl, Darien, Team Rubicon 8
4 Murray, Mike Team Oregon 7
5 Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn Bike Central 6
6 Bjesse-Puffin, Amecial Bike Central 5
7 Bihlmaier, Jeanne Specialized/RCB 4
8 Charboneau, Emily 3
9 Fisk, Andrea
10 Mautner, Meg NoMad Sports Club -1

Our Madison started off great with some interesting exchanges, but they were powerful enough to keep us with the 3 teams in front of us. It was awesome to be riding in a paceline than by yourself. There were some small gaps that opened during our exchanges, but nothing that we had a hard time closing. We were also going to listen for the bell laps and try to get some points. Our strategy was to keep the person that was on the track on for the spring instead of trying to exchange before the 200 meter line. We can't wing it good enough to do that yet. At one point we got in front of Heather and Emily and I was up with the Abers and Murray who were duking it out pretty hard. I knew I would stay there very long since we can't exchange as fast as they can. Then we had one really botched exchange and we are not quite sure how it happened. Heather and Emily passed us and we were in 4th, again. I will say we had some awesome exchanges and we can't hardly wait to race tomorrow to get to try it again. Once you have felt how it is to have everything go perfect you just can't wait to do it again.

Madison
1 Abers, Brian Team Rubicon 20 Bjesse-Puffin, Amelia Bike Central
2 Murray, mike Team Oregon 11 Curl, Darien Team Rubicon
3 VanValkenburg, Heather Team Rubicon 7 Charboneau, Emily
4 Bihlmaier, Jeannie Specialized/RCB 4 -2 Fisk, Andrea
5 Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn Bike Central 2 -3 Mautner, Meg NoMad Spots Club

Overall
1 Abers, Brian Team Rubicon 182 Bjesse-Puffin, Amelia Bike Central
2 Murray, Mike Team Oregon 153 Curl, Darien Team Rubicon
3 VanValkenburg, Heather Team Rubicon 93 -2 Charboneau
4 Fisk, Andrea 83 -6 Bihlmaier, Jeanne Specialized/RCB
5 Mautner, Meg NoMad Sports Club 55 -14 Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn Bike Central

Six Day-Day Three

Today my legs are doubly sore. It hurts to push on my quads with my fingers so a massage is out of the question. It also hurts to go up and down stairs so I relinquished myself to using the elevator at work a few times today. I feel so lazy.

Tonight went great for us. Andrea and I both survived through the Miss and Out and then we had a great race in the Tempo. We both got off the front with Emily and a on a few laps either one of us was taking points and on some laps both of us were taking points and we both had a strong finish. Going into the Madison we were leading in points, we were so excited.

B's Miss & out Pts Laps
1 Abers, Brian Team Rubicon 10
2 Murray, Mike Team Oregon 9
3 VanValkenburg, Heather Team Rubicon 8
4 Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn Bike Central 7
5 Curl, Darien Team Rubicon 6
6 Bihlmaier, Jeanne Specialized/River City Bicycles 5
7 Fisk, Andrea 4
8 Bjesse-Puffin, Amelia Bike Central 3
9 Charboneau, Emily 2
10 Mautner, Meg NoMad Sports Club 1

Tempo
1 Bihlmaier, Jeanne Specialized/River City Bicycles 10
2 Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn Bike Central 9
3 Curl, Darien Team Rubicon 8
4 Fisk, Andrea 7
5 Charboneau, Emily 6
6 Abers, Brian Team Rubicon 5
7 Bjesse-Puffin, Amelia Bike Central 4
8 Murray, Mike Team Oregon 3
9 VanValkenburg, Heather Team Rubicon 2
10 Mautner, Meg NoMad Sports Club 1 -1

The Madison went well, we kind of still were doing our own thing and not trying to stay with anyone in particular and stay out of the way. We had more successful exchanges so that equated to a good race to me. We are still sitting in 4th, but lost a couple more laps tonight. I thought that a good improvement over Monday because our Madison tonight was 30 minutes instead of 20 and we lost the same number of laps both nights. We must be slowly getting faster. Maybe tomorrow we will work on getting more points duing the sprints that occur every 5 minutes.

Madison 1 Abers, Brian Charboneau, Emily 30
2 Murray, Mike Curl, Darien 21
3 VanValkenburg, Heather Charboneau, Emily 7 -1
4 Bihlmaier, Jeanne Fisk, Andrea 4 -2
5 Mautner, Meg Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn 6 -4

Overall
1 Abers, Brian Bjesse-Puffin, Amelia 132
2 Murray, Mike Curl, Darien 114
3 VanValkenburg, Heather Charboneau, Emily 65 -2
4 Fisk, Andrea Bihlmaier, Jeanne 64 -4
5 Mautner, Meg Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn 40 -10

We are really close to Heather and Emily in points, if we could just get back a couple of laps in the mass start races we could duke it out with them for 3rd. That will never happen with Mike and Brian in our field, they are soooo strong. Can't wait for tomorrow.

Six Day-Day Two

My legs are so sore today. It must be the combination of a weird bike I have never ridden and using my muscles differently.

I had this great idea for Andrea and I to wear matching hair ribbons when we raced so I ran to the craft store to buy a different kind for each day. Steven said it was "so high school volleyball" but Andrea and I both agree that it makes a huge difference in our racing.

When I got to the track I was told that I have the Alpenrose record for getting the fastest warning in a race for my infraction 1.5 laps into the Madison last night. What can I say, I am an over-achiever.

Tonight we did a points race and point a lap race. I have no clue what to do, I don't even know how I got 3rd in the point a lap race. I am still learning about how some finish orders are important and when you need to get points during the race. At this point I just go hard when I feel good, that is my strategy.

B's Points Race Pts Laps
1 Abers, Brian Team Rubicon 10
2 Murray, Mike Team Oregon 9
3 Charboneau, Emily 8
4 VanValkenburg, Heather Team Rubicon 7
5 Curl, Darien Team Rubicon 6
6 Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn Bike Central 5
7 Bihlmaier, Jeanie Specialized/River City Bicycles 4
8 Fisk, Andrea 3
9 Bjesse-Puffin, Amelia Bike Central 2
10 Mautner, Meg NoMad Sports Club 1 -1

Point a Lap
1 Abers, Brian Team Rubicon 10
2 Murray, Mike Team Oregon 9
3 Bihlmaier, Jeanie Specialized/River City Bicycles 8
4 Charboneau, Emily 7
5 Curl, Darien Team Rubicon 6
6 VanValkenburg, Heather Team Rubicon 5
7 Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn Bike Central 4
8 Bjesse-Puffin, Amelia Bike Central 3
9 Fisk, Andrea 2
10 Mautner, Meg NoMad Sports Club 1 -1

The Madison was better, we did some exchanges, missed some exchanges and I really started to get a feel for how you do this race. The biggest breakthrough for me was when I realized that I could sit on Heather's wheel until she exchanged with Emily and then jump on Emily's wheel and benefit from the acceleration. This lasted until we botched an exchange but were riding strong when our race was cut short due to rain. We are still in 4th overall and 2 laps down.

Madison
1 Abers, Brian Charboneau, Emily 14
2 Murray, Mike Curl, Darien 11
3 VanValkenburg, Heather Charboneau, Emily 6
4 Bihlmaier, Jeanie Fisk, Andrea 2
5 Mautner, Meg Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn -2

Six Day-Day One

Tonight I got to the track and spent a good 30 minutes re-aquainting myself with a fixed gear and riding on the track itself. I have done one pursuit this year on the track, but you only have one other person on the track and you are not sprinting, so it's really no comparison for what I have gotten myself into. Tonights races included a Madison pursuit to seed the teams into the "A" group (really fast) and "B" group (everyone else and us). This would be our competition for the rest of the week. After that we would do a 20 minute Madison.

For the pursuit Andrea and I decided to just practice riding up to each other and maybe touching hands as a form of an exchange to get used to the idea of the timing needed for an exchange. We had to do 4 exchanges in the 3k race so to make it easy we decided to exchange every 2 laps of so. We also wanted to time our exchanges so that we could do them on the flatter sections of the track and not on the banking. I could already tell that this kind of race was going to require a lot of thought on my part and that was before all the rules I had to remember for the mass start Madison. The pursuit went well and when the A and B groups were sorted out we were third. I am sure we looked really pathetic, but we are learning.

B
1 Abers, Brian Bjesse-Puffin, Amelia 4:37.02
2 Murray, Mike Curl, Darien 4:40.30
3 Fisk, Andrea Bihlmaier, Jeanie 4:54.55
4 VanValkenburg, Heather Charboneau, Emily 4:55.14
5 Mautner, Meg Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn 5:08.56

The mass start Madison was worrying me. I had read the Madison rules on the OBRA site and looked over Madison diagrams that Mike Murray had posted, but none of it really made a lot of sense until I actually did the race. I did break one rule, about 1.5 laps into the race when I went under and exchange (big, big no no) and I was lucky that I didn't cause a wreck. I will never do that again. Andrea and I did great and rode within our comfort level coming in two laps down from the leaders.

Madison B
1 Abers, Brian Bjesse-Puffin, Amelia Even 21
2 Murray, Mike Curl, Darien Even 9
3 VanValkenburg, Heather Charboneau, Emily -1 3
4 Fisk, Andrea Bihlmaier, Jeanie -2 7
5 Mautner, Meg Hughes-Godfrey, Lynn -2 4

After the races Steven and Jimmy stayed and worked with us on exchanges and we practiced for a while with exchanges, timing, riding in a paceline and exchanging. I felt 100 times more comfortable when I left the track and was really excited for the Madison on Tuesday.

Alpenrose Six Day

I had the chance to race with Andrea Fisk at the Woodland crit yesterday and we started throwing around the idea of racing the Six Day at the velodrome. I didn't know much about the race, but it's pretty simple. You race as a team of two each night for six days. Each night you do two mass start races and a Madison. Each night you get points for each race and the points carry over so that the team with the most points at the end of the week wins. I have maybe done 4 mass start races on the track in my life. Kind of intimidating, but I figured I could just hang out and not get in any trouble and not do anything stupid, like cause a wreck. The Madison is a beautiful race. It's pretty simple. One teammate races for a lap and then you switch. The switch is the tricky part, you have to hand sling your teammate that is coming in up to speed to keep up with the rest of the racers. Here's an example:



Neither Andrea or I had ever attempted this. There is no rule that you have to throw your teammate, you can just ride up to them, match speed, and then have them take off. The problem is, the throw really gives them an advantage to keep up with the other teams. So, I have until tomorrow to figure out our game plan. I guess this could be called my induction into track racing, sounds more like a trial by fire.

Elkhorn

All I have to say is that it was a fun race, but I am glad it is over. Due to waning interest and health issues my endurance is shot, so just getting through all the stages of Elkhorn was good enough for me.

Slip 'n' Slide

Saturday I decided that it would be totally awesome if I went mountain biking in the pouring rain and the track races had been canceled. I don't know what made me think that riding in the rain here would be fun. It was fun, and painful.

Most of my mtn. biking experience has been in Utah, where it's dry and it doesn't rain a whole lot during the riding season. Things are really dry in Utah, so when they get wet, the water gets absorbed quickly and it's usually not too terrible to ride in. Here in the PacNW it's totally different. It is so wet here most of the time that a slimy biofilm covers pretty much everything that can't move on its own volition and the soil has a lot of clay in it. Rain makes things go from moderately slippery to "What the, how did I end up on the ground so fast" slippery. This is exactly how my ride went. Multiple crashes on a not too technical trail close to my house, I usually tear through it when it's dry. That was not the case. Of course, every time I crashed, it was in front of some other random trail user. There weren't that many people out there, why was my timing so bad? It's me, my timing is always bad. My favorite crash occurred when I was riding over a root that I happened to hit one degree less from perpendicular. This caused my front wheel and entire bike to literally fly out from underneath me and all of a sudden I was on the ground sliding on my butt across wet, packed clay. It kind of reminded me of one of the finishes of the Giro. I was fine, my bike was fine, but I was totally embarrassed when I heard some guys ask me if I was ok. At least someone got a good laugh. I collected myself and and hopped back on my bike and decided that I had done enough ego damage for one day and headed home. I was also pretty certain that I had toasted my team kit. I was completely covered in pine needles and mud. Why go to a spa for a mud treatment? Just go ride your bike in the mud for a couple of hours. Here's the damage:

The bike caked with pine needles

The shorts and jersey plastered with dirt

Me caked with dirt, notice I am smiling

It was a great ride. There really is something fun about riding in the rain and coming home completely covered in mud. After I cleaned off my bike I turned the hose on myself so that I had some chance of removing most of the mud and pine needles before I went inside to shower. Miraculously, my kit came completely clean and looks brand new. I love these kits!

Mt. Hood Re-cap

This is a compilation of all my posts for Team Bike Hugger. Heather, this is for you :)

Stage 1 Pre-ride

On Monday Suz, Leah, Dana and I met up in the afternoon to pre-ride the TT course for stage 1. It was great to meet Dana and Leah since we had not met before and they are AWESOME. I can't wait to race with them. After pre-riding the course on our TT bikes we jumped on the road bikes to practice taking bottle feeds from our support car that would be in the race caravan. We practiced dropping back to the car, getting rid of empty bottles and taking new bottles. When you get new bottles you get to hang on for a few seconds before Eric lets go and take a "pull" so you can get a tiny break before you have to move back up to the peleton. It was lot's of fun. Here's some pictures that Eric took on our pre-ride

Dana

Lea

Suz, Dana, Jeanie (I am the tall amazon girl) and Lea at Panorama Point

Heading out on the TT course

Stage 1

Since I am behind schedule on blogging (today was Stage 3 and I have yet to post on Stage 1), I will do a short synopsis with some great pictures that Eric took. Suz made us all proud and took 2nd in the stage.

Trish, Lise, Lea and Jeanie warming-up

Trish warming up with Hood in the background

Suz getting ready to kick some bootay!

Suz on the podium in 2nd place, great job!

Stage 2-Rattlesnakes, Illness and Hottness

Today was HOT! At the start of stage 2 I was excited, the finish was slightly downhill and was geared for sprinters. I am a sprinter. What I wasn't excited for was the 1 mile hill in the middle of the course that we did 3 times. That hill had queen of the mountains points on every lap so the pace was going to pick-up very quickly. Oh yeah, did I mention it was hot? I had a feeling that I might be playing catch-up on the downhill sections to get back to the main group when they ramped up the pace on the hill. After the first of 3 laps I was able to catch back on, but I never felt quite right on the 2nd lap. On the second lap, everything fell apart for me. I ended up running over a dead rattlesnake, running over road kill is something I really try to avoid. After that I got sick and had to pull over to the side of the road and, well you don't want all the details. In short, the great attention I had been paying to staying hydrated and eating all went out the window, or should I say, onto the side of the road. After this lovely event my legs decided to leave the building and I was left to suffer through the last lap with legs that had no intention of co-operating with me.. The good thing is I was able to chase back onto the main group and stay with them to the bottom of the climb, again. I also got shot of the back, again because my legs were no where to be found. I caught some girls and we worked to the finish line.

Our team did great yesterday, despite me having nothing in me to help. Suz did great on the climbs despite the fact that she had 4 mechanicals during the race. The story is really a great one and I will let her tell it. You could not believe what happened in one race. Lea had a great sprint at the end and came in 7th. Trish had a small fall in some gravel and had some great road rash (pictures to be posted soon). It was a great day for the team and I only hope that tomorrow I don't get sick and run over dead snakes!

Stage 3-More Hotness

My dream for slightly cooler weather did not come true. They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words, then today pretty much went like this:

Need I say more? This is pretty much how Dana and I felt after today. There were some attacks on the climb on lap 2 of 3 and the pace ramped up hard and I went out the back, then Dana and Trish. I really wish I could have caught up with them, it would have made my ride so much more enjoyable. Lea and Lisa did a great job of chasing the attacks for Suz, I could hear all of this over my race radio, I just wish I could have been there to help. I ended up finishing the race with some girls from other teams and had fun on the long descent each lap so it was a hard day, but a good one.

Tomorrow is the long time trial and I will be rolling it (not riding hard) to recover and save myself for the crit on Sunday. I am looking forward to a small break from pain of racing. Tomorrow will be a nice ride to spin the legs out and take in some food while I ride. Only 3 more days of racing.

Rolling in the Hotness

More hotness today, I am actually starting to get a really good tan and I don't look like the pale Northwest person that I am.

I really like time trials, even when they are painful. I like time trials even more when I get to "roll" them. Today was the least stressful race I have had in a long time. Rolling the TT means I get to ride the TT at a decent pace and not blow myself up in the hopes that I will have some legs left over for the massive stage on Saturday and the crit on Sunday. So basically I got to take the scenic tour of the course, which is really beautiful. It was nice to not have to stress out before the race, worry about warming up and wondering if my one inch long ponytail was "aero". I did choose to ride my TT bike because I generally believe that any time spent on the TT bike is good training and I will feel less guilty about not riding my TT bike next week considering I have been on it 3 times this week already. I had fun thanking the volunteers at the corners and telling the girls who passed me "good job" as they went by.

Later this evening Eric was looking at my road bike and discovered that my brakes were so close to my rims that the brakes were actually rubbing when I would stand up to pedal. Hmm, maybe the last two days wouldn't have been so painful if I hadn't been expending so much energy on the climbs. Maybe there is a good excuse for why I have been sucking the last two days. I can only hope that tomorrow I will be climbing like a rock star now that Eric has fixed my bike up nicely. Well, I am off to bed so I can be well rested for the 90 miles and 9200 feet of climbing that will be the hell I am in tomorrow. There will be some interesting tactics going on with the teams that are defending the leaders jersey and the teams that want control of the leaders jersey. It will be an interesting stage.

Stage 5-The Real 89 Mile Time Trial in the Hotness

It was hot, again. The absolute best part about stage 5 was the first 5 kilometers. It was a screaming fast descent down to where the first climb started. I was actually in the front on the descent, which was probably the most time I have spent on the front of the pack the whole race. One of the Aaron's girls commented to me at the bottom that we didn't need to push it on the descent since it was a long race. I don't think she could figure out that as an amazon woman I weigh 30 pounds more than she does and that I tend to go downhill really fast without any effort.

Once we started climbing I moved up to the front of the pack and was actually feeling pretty good and able to keep my position. Climbing up to the first QOM Aaron's got on the front and started to slowly ramp up the pace. I new that my time with the main group was numbered at this point and that I would eventually fall off and have to catch back on after the descent. I soon found myself out the back of the group with some girls behind me and some girls ahead of me. This is where my 80 mile individual time trial started. I caught up to two girls that were in front of me and we climbed well together. I felt great climbing, my wheel issues were worked out and I could tell that I had more power now that my wheels weren't rubbing. I can climb at a steady pace, I just can't accelerate on climbs, so I just paced myself. Jill from Bend Bike and Sport and I dropped the Velo Bella girl that was with us on the climb, I felt bad, but what can you do? I then ended up dropping Jill on the descent on the other side. I was hoping that she could stay on my wheel, but it didn't happen. I passed Nicole Evans (Lipton) towards the bottom of the hill and chatted with her a bit, she was having mechanical problems. I was hoping to have found the race caravan by now, so I was still by myself chasing the back of the caravan. Soon I could see the caravan in the distance. I pushed as hard as I could to catch on and managed to get into the caravan right after the first feed zone. As I went past Eric I grabbed a second bottle and a short rest and made my way into the field. The unfortunate thing for me was that I managed to catch on right before this short, steep climb that can be best described as a wall. I was able to move up in the field, hand my extra bottle off to a teammate and then immediately got shot off the back on the wall when Aaron's launched a monster attack. Thus began the second part of my time trial. I caught a couple more girls and rode with them to the second QOM, down the descent, but lost them when we started climbing again. I was actually feeling pretty good and they wanted to ride a bit slower and chat so I was on my own again. This lasted for a while until I ran into Sal Collura from OBRA and Laura Brown from my group. Sal eventually had to drop back because of a mechanical. So Laura and I rode together for a while. We passed some more girls that couldn't stay with us and rode with Heather Clark from Bend Bike and Sport. I stayed with them until the last push up to the ski resort. I wanted to quit, I wanted to cry, but I managed to finish. I hope that the crit goes good tomorrow. It's only 50 minutes, but it is going to hurt.

Why Do Animals Love Me?

When I am on my bike I seem to be a magnet for dogs and other traumatic experiences with animals, I am not sure why. Maybe I should stop wearing fruity smelling lotion, or carrying half eaten Clif Bars in my jersey. Whatever the reason I have had my fair share of quite humorous encounters with dogs and other animals while biking.

I remember when I lived in Utah I was biking home from work one day. I lived in some hills and there was a really decent climb up to my house. As I was enjoying the pain of slowly going uphill a small and fluffy dog decided that he needed to make my life more miserable by trying to bite my ankles as I rode up the hill. The thing that really sucked was the fact that I couldn't pedal any faster than the dogs 3 inch legs could run. I was pretty much stuck with this "If I could punt you like a football I would" dog trying to take a piece of my achilles tendon home for dinner. I am not sure how I accomplished the feat of unclipping and taking a shot at the dog with my shoe, but I managed to make some contact, although minimal, with the dogs face and he promptly left me alone.

My second great encounter with animals came on fine summer day when my husband and I were mountain biking on Sheep Creek trail in Utah. For some reason, I never imagined that I might actually encounter an animal such as a sheep on such named trail. I mean they name trails after weird things all the time. Well, I was wrong. This was actually a trail that was guarded by a herd on unruly sheep. My problem was I was on the wrong end of an angry herd of sheep that my husband had stirred into hysteria. Bryan had ridden up past the herd of sheep that were taking up most of the fire road we were on. As soon as he got past they got all stirred up and mob mentality took over and they turned and started stampeding in my direction. I was mortified. I had heard of mtn. bikers injured by cougar attacks or falls from great heights, I was not going to be the 6:00 news story of "biker trampled by 50 angry sheep"! Luckily I had an escape route up a sidehill to my right. I managed to get off my bike and drag it up the hill with me and avoid the stampede. Once the dust cleared I found my husband practically rolling on the ground laughing. I was secretly hoping that he would fall on the ground laughing, and roll right through some sheep crap! That would have made my day.

Last Saturday I had my latest urban adventure with a quadraped. It's a nice afternoon and I am headed to my friend Joe's house to hook up for a ride. As I round a corner see a huge labradore come out from behind a bush and nail my front wheel, behind him is a little pug following obediently. As I am laying on the ground trying to figure out if I broke anything a) on my body, or b) on my bike, I can't seem to get the pug out of my lap. He seems to think that this is a great place to sit, or maybe he wants me to pet him, who knows. Meanwhile the lab is starting to sniff the road rash on my right arm that is now starting to bleed. I eye him suspiciously, he looks like he is about to start licking it. I landed on my tail bone really hard and can't figure out if I can stand up yet. The owner comes out and mumbles something about how he's seen worse road rash and I think "So your dogs have taken someone else out? Maybe you should think twice about letting them run around your neighborhood." He was nice enough to get me a paper towel so I didn't drip blood the rest of the way to Joe's. After some spiffy bandaging, courtesy of Joe, and 4 Ibuprophen (aka Trail Candy) I was good to go and managed to ride 3.5 hours before the drugs wore off and I had to go home to get more. The next morning hurt worse: sore neck, sore left quad, sore tail bone and aching arm.

Post-clean-up road rash

My brand new Fizik saddle :(

It's almost been a week and I am feeling pretty good. I did go mountain biking today and I realized that mountain biking with bruised tail bone is probably not the best idea as I had quite a bit of pain when I hit the bumpy sections. At least I feel okay on my road bike and I won't have to ride with an inflatable doughnut duct taped to my seat.

Mt. Hood Cycling Classic Preview

Over the last couple of weeks I have pre-ridden a couple of the stages for the upcoming Mt. Hood Cycling Classic. The race is going to be brutal, so I am glad to have had the chance to enjoy the scenery on two of the stages. I am sure that I won't even know that it's there come race day (which is next Tuesday by the way). Here are some photos I took along the way.

Stage 5 (87 Miles/9200 feet of climbing)

Bryan climbing to KOM #1

Going up to KOM #3

Mt. Hood getting socked in

Me knackered in the Mt. Hood Meadows parking lot
I only thought I felt this way after skiing, apparently not!

Time Trial Course (18.5 miles/1950 feet of climbing)

Nice view of the Gorge

The path the TT course finishes on

Part of the Mosier Tunnels

The other part of the Mosier Tunnels

Nice view of the Gorge and Mt. Adams in the distance

As you can see, the race is going to have some beautiful scenery. I can't wait!