Still Camera-less

I'm working on getting a new camera...until then, I'll try and keep this as entertaining as possible! :)

Check out the legislation that this Oregon congressman in trying to get through the halls of D.C. There's a survey at the top. If you've got 30 seconds...fill it out!! :)

Happy Tuesday!

Grad School

Unfortunately, this is how I feel about my PhD. :(

Secrets of a World Champ

So, Sabrina is in town for a couple of days before Interbike this week, and she convinced me to do hot yoga (Bikram Yoga) with her (40.5ºC is a LONG way from my favorite temp of 21º!!). Yesterday it was just "heated" power yoga, which kicked my butt, big time! This morning we went to the actual hot yoga class, and it was great (minus, the disgusting guy in class who was only wearing a banana hammock swim suit and nothing else! p.s. he was old, gross, and had a lot of hair in places nobody wanted to see!!!). I'm definitely out of yoga shape, but it's been really good to get back into it.

It's been nice having Sabrina in town to go to yoga, eat great Indian food, and ride with. Sometimes having a cool girl to hang out with is a very nice break from all of my guy friends (no offense boys, you guys are great, but shopping and painting your toenails probably isn't on the top of any of your lists!) :)

P.S. If you live in Boulder and want a free week of yoga classes, Core Power Yoga is free for 1 week with a local address.

School Retreat

Just got back from a school retreat up in the mountains at a dude ranch. While I wasn't psyched to have to leave for 3 days right after I had just gotten back, the place we were at was so peaceful and reminded me a bit of where I grew up. We got to do some hiking and general relaxing intermixed with all of the school activities that we had to do. Today we got to choose going on a horse back ride or learning to fly fish...that was an easy one for me! I've been wanting to learn to fly fish for a long time now, so I was psyched to have the opportunity and for free! The instructor kept telling me how good my technique was which made me really pleased! I didn't catch any fish, just one almost, but really I just wanted to learn how! Hopefully I can get my fly rod all set up and actually go on my own now!

Sorry, no pictures...my dumb ass left my camera in the castle that we visited in Austria on Monday. :(

World Cup Finals

Schladming, Austria

Good Beer, Good Times, and AMAZING Friends

Jaymie Mart: One of the best friends anyone could ever ask for!!

Well, I'm back getting school stuff going again, but wow, what a trip! I think I can easily say that of all the amazingly beautiful places I have been lucky enough to race at this year, Schladming, Austria takes the cake for the best!! It is strikingly beautiful, the food is great, and the people are awesome! I sure didn't want to get on a plane and come home yesterday. Ah well, the fun has to end sometime, I guess. You can't be on holiday forever!

Here are some picture highlights from the trip. Enjoy, and book your flight to visit! :)

We ate at this restaurant about 5 times. The Schnitzel was awesome, and the pizza was pretty good, too! :)

The "pre-pre-party" Van: Norco World Cup Racing

Fee got the local brewery (Schladminger) to donate a keg for our party...awesome!

Aaron Gwin and I (he's the next American hopefull, fast kid!!!)

Anita and me, the girls of Yeti

We decided that this poor puppy needed a glow stick collar

Sniper and Mio were well in by the time we got to the Intense party! :)

The boys from down under were also in fine form on Saturday night! Aaron Bashford and Mitch Delfs

Me and Fee on the top of the Mountain Karting mountain

Mountain Karting x3!! This was so much fun, even if the Karts were about to fall apart! 7 km drifting downhill!!

Schladming, Well Worth the Trip!!

About a 5 minute walk from our apartment :)

Our neighbor Donkey, Fredoline, i.e. Eore...the early riser!

This place is amazing! You'll have to take my word for it until I'm able to have internet long enough to upload some pics, but a quick summary:

Beautiful expansive mountains here
Lush green grass!!
Kitties running round all over the place
Blue Skys (mostly, pissed rain all last night, though, boo!!)
Our neighbor is a donkey, named Fredoline, that I've renamed Eore...he/she get's up at 6:00
The 4x track is short!! and super smooth...BMX!
The DH track is LONG and ROOTY! Glad I'm not racing it, I'd be stressed!
Mountain Karting is one of the most fun things I've done in a long time, and we've been 2x, going again on Sunday!
Fee rocks, she got the local brewery to donate a keg for us to have a party on Saturday!
I want to move to Europe! :)
Ummm, internet is hard to find, so I don't have too long.

More, with pics later! :)

Off to a Good Start!! :)

Got to the airport today after bfast with Jess and a couple of hours of work. One of the TSA guys carried my bike up to the ticket counter for me...you don't see that everyday! I'm sure he was on break, too! Got all checked in and didn't have to pay for my bike at all, a nice perk of flying around so much this summer, I guess! Nonstop flights are the way to go for sure. Denver to Munich was right around 10 hours. Took an Ambien 30 minutes after getting on the plane and only woke up to eat dinner and breakfast! Also, they managed to get all of my stuff here no problem since it was direct! I'm just waiting for Fee and her parents to come get me, and then we'll be heading out to Schladming later today! I can't wait. I've looking forward to this trip for awhile! I'll post pics once I'm on my own computer.

Sol Vista G3: MSC Gravity Finals

Cody got 3rd and I got 2nd in the Pro Gravity Overall for the Mountain States Cup!! Wahoo!

This past weekend was the final race in the MSC gravity series for the summer. We raced a G3 series race up in Sol Vista. The Sol Vista boys have built some really sweet tracks up there over the past 2 years! Their recent addition, Buc Nasty, is a legitimately challenging DH track. Unfortunately, it's not very long (winning pro men's time: ~2:15), but it has a lot of track packed into that short amount of time! One of the days we all raced chainless, and it was one of the most fun races I think I've ever done! Not being able to pedal sure teaches you a lot about how to pump corners and everything in between to get as much speed as you possibly can!

Cody and Jordan working on Wade's bikes

My goal for the weekend was to get a lot of DH riding in besides the race runs and to have a lot of fun! I wasn't in pin it to win it mode for sure, as I'm trying to get ready for going to Austria next weekend for the World Cup 4x finals in Schladming, Austria! I completely accomplished my goal, got 5th place in the GC for the weekend (by only 0.52 seconds!!) and moved up to 2nd in the Pro women's gravity overall for the MSC series (3 years in a row!!).

Me and Sage

I had a great weekend of riding and racing with all of my Team Toally Wired/Rocky Mountain Roastery teammates this weekend. This is the end of a good couple of seasons for our team. Next year we'll be doing our own things. I'll sure miss them as my teammates, but Cody and Jordan are probably two of my favorite guys in the world, so I'm sure we'll all be hanging out at the races next year regardless of teams/bike sponsors, etc...! :)

If only all boys were as stellar as these two...life would be good! :) xoxo

Back to the grind at school for 4 days, a collegiate DH race in Saturday, and then on the plane for 10.5 hours to Munich on Sunday! I can't wait!!! :)