Monday, April 27, 2009

How Could I Forget...

A bunch of happy, full kids on St. George's Day

That we celebrated St. George's Day last Thursday (April 23rd). While many people here are very familiar with St. Patty's Day (the patron saint of Ireland), the lesser known (in the US) patron saint of England is St. George. Since Chris is English and bears the namesake of said patron saint, we celebrated St. George's day in fine fashion...with a full English breakfast! The menu included sausage, bacon, fried eggs, sauteed mushrooms, baked beans, hashbrowns, friend tomatoes, and bread (fried of course, haha!). Once again Chris' cooking did not disappoint...it was delicious!

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Time Has Kicked Into Moving Too Fast Mode

This week flew by with loads of time on the roller coaster! School is a bit crazy right now as I am trying to get a lot of stuff sorted out before I leave...in 2 weeks! I can't wait. I'm really excited for the racing, to explore new places, and to get to hang out and ride with my friends and have awesome adventures for 2 months. I've never had the opportunity to do anything like this before, so I'm pretty excited about it. I'll try to keep a good update about the races and my travels as best I can!

Monday, April 20, 2009

Sea Otter: Sunny, Hot 2009 Version

:)

Chris, Peter, and I loaded up the car and headed up to Cali round 4:30 Wednesday morning! Ughhh! Off to a great start, I got a $90 speeding ticket in Vail. Boo!! Luckily this would be the only ticket or bad thing for the duration of the trip, so that was good! On a much better note...shortly after the ticket, we got to see a breathtaking rainbow intertwined with the already beautiful Glenwood Canyon. There was some strange precipitation and the sun was barely coming up, so it was a once in a million thing, I think. :) I love rainbows, btw, I'm sure that's why I thought it was so much cooler than the boys did!

California sunset with the lot of fancey steeds for the weekend

We had a fairly uneventful trip on Wednesday, seeing some nice sites through Utah, and some over-the-top obnoxious stuff in Vegas.

One of Vegas' best offerings...in my opinion: the fountains at the Bellagio Hotel

We ended up rolling into Monterrey round 1:00 Thursday morning. We all piled into the hotel room and promptly fell asleep!! I had early DH practice the next day, so we all had to be up pretty early to head up to registration and what not. I got some good practice in until I flated and watched the remainder of practice, and the boys got a good preride lap in on the XC course. That night we met up with Melissa for some tasty pasta in downtown Monterry.

Friday was another early start. Most of these early starts were my fault (I guess Chris contributed on Friday as well), so I felt bad dragging the boys out of bed early every day, but they got me back on Sunday! I had better practice on Friday and felt really good on my new Ellsworth Dare!! Not only is it a beautiful bike, but she rides really well, too! I spent the afternoon meeting folks and talking to interested people at the Ellsworth tent. The guys at Ellsworth ROCK!!! I had only spoken to the on the phone and through email before this weekend and thought they were great, but now I KNOW they're awesome!! I am so glad to be aboard their bikes and on their program this year! Project Pink is awesome and I'm really excited to be a part of it!!

Chris (in his sexy skinsuit that he wore around all afternoon!) and Peter waiting for the podium

Chris raced Super D on Friday as well, and a new pair of Crank Brothers Cobalt XC wheels were on the line! I sprinted over to where Chris said I'd be able to see part of his race to cheer him on, and boy was I ever glad that I did! The place I was watching was close to the start, so the whole group was still pretty much together coming down the fireroad in a dead sprint to a nearly 180ยบ turn, and Chris did not disappoint with his impressive riding skills. I wondered how he intended to maintain his speed through the corner as it was loose and there were loads of people...and he wasn't slowing down, at all!

Men's 19-29 Super D podium with the loot!

The next thing I knew, he had his left foot out and was sitting on his top tube and just drifted his rear through the corner passing 3-4 people in the process. It was SICK!! I was screaming so loud!! He ended up getting 3rd which meant he got to keep his sweet Crank Brothers wheels! After his Sea Otter poduim debut, we headed back to Monterey to get a little time in at the beach and take a little swim in the sea. It was chilly, but I was really just being a baby. It was definitely a tolerable temperature and quite fun! :)

The beach in Monterey

Saturday morning...you guessed it was on early start, AGAIN! It was dual slalom all day. I crashed in my qualifier and ended up having to race Melissa, so that sucked. She ended up winning on the day, so that was cool. She's had her eye on the Sea Otter Dual Slalom prize for awhile!

Sunday was the boys' XC race starting at 8:00 and my DH race. Chris woke up bright and early at 4:45 to eat his pre-race breakfast and to get all ready for the day. We got to the venue round 6:30, and it was already starting to feel really warm! The boys set off to get warmed up, and I headed round to get my bike, change the tire and get everything sorted for the day. I only got 1 practice run in as some guy binned it badly at the finish line of his practice run and there was a course delay for ever. My new bike was feeling good, but my head was done in and my legs were feeling tired from hiking up the hill for slalom all day the day before, so I didn't pedal nearly as hard as I would have needed to do have a good result. Ah well, in the end I had a good time getting used to my new bike and getting to know how great it feels to ride!

DH race on Sunday on my new Ellsworth Dare (photo credit: Rick Adams)

I got back to the car after my race run and found a VERY sick boy...Chris. By now it was getting really hot, and he had gotten really sick during his race, throwing up all of his breakfast and gatorade and ultimately fainting at some point. He was trying to cool off with the air con in the car, but I don't think it was working very well. It was awful, I just wanted to try and help him to feel better, but when someone feels like that, there's really not much you can do. I got the bikes all sorted and packed away and went to go run the sponsor errands I had left till the last day in the hopes we'd get out of there in a timely fashion that afternoon! Peter ended up getting 6th place in his race, which was AWESOME, and we got out of the venue at a pretty decent time to start our 20+ hour drive home.

Luckily the drive home was pretty uneventful, albeit not painless! We came home through Reno and Wyoming which ended up being faster, which was nice. All in all, it was a really good trip filled with some really great memories that I'll be holding onto for quite some time to come! Sorry for the lengthy post, sometimes I get a little bit carried away! :)

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

It's Only Tuesday?!?!

So, every year before Sea Otter, I "conveniently" schedule the biggest presentation that I have to give all year RIGHT before I leave for the race. I'm not sure why I do it this way. It always seems to make sense in January when I'm planning the semester out! It makes me a bit crazy, though, during this week, so I'll be glad to get in the car tomorrow morning at 4 a.m.!!!! Yea for 20 hours in the car!! At least I've got great boys to keep me company!

My roommate James is a lifesaver/rockstar/superstar/fill in the blank! I finally got my headset for the DH bike yesterday and he got it all built up for me last night so I could try and get a few runs in on it this afternoon before packing it up to head out tomorrow. More updates on that once I've gotten a chance to ride it! :)

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Efficiency at It's Finest

Part I:
TJ with lots of extra leg room! haha

Quite the process to get ready to drive

Got to check out two models of efficiency yesterday, a super efficient car, and riding at the velodrome. My friend TJ has been working on an ultra efficient car for his senior design project for mechanical engineering.

100s of hours of design and machining have gone into this manifold!

The boys getting interviewed by Channel 9 news

They are headed out to California for a competition for their car this next week. They had it out doing some test runs yesterday so I stopped by to check it out. While it's not the model of safety or ultimate comfort, it's really damn efficient. They have a special way of driving it (boost and coast method) that also allows them to maximize the efficiency. I know TJ has put countless hours of hardwork into this project, so it was cool to see the finished project! Good luck next week guys! :)

Part II:
Chris and James chasing each other round the track

Track riding is one of the most efficient generes of bike riding/racing. One of the CU Cycling star members put together a free track lesson at Boulder's newest cycling addition, a "143 m" velodrome (Boulder Indoor Cycling). We learned last night that it's probably actually only 128 m or so, but whatever. It's steeeeeeep!

Katie O'Block and Bryan Alders on the STEEP part!

Chris is so fast he's see through! :)

It was a little daunting at first to think that you could actually ride at that steep of an angle with sliding right off, but it actually wasn't that hard. AND it was sooooooo much fun!! I was pretty spent from a long week by the time that we got there, so I didn't have as much energy as I would have liked to have had, but it was still a good experience, and something I'll definitely give a go at again. There were a few people in the group who picked it up right away and rocked on the timed lap sprints, namely Shep, Chris, and Alders!!

The fast boys pacing lining about the stayers line

I think that everyone had fun, though, so hopefully we might be able to send a full team to collegiate track nats next year!

James and Pipes taking a break

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Is it Friday Yet???


For the most part, this week has really sucked, and I'm quite ready for it to be over and move on to next week. I'm beginning to feel like the snowball rolling down the hill is verging on being out of control in the next couple of weeks. School is crazy as I try and get stuff done in the next 32 days (no, I'm not counting them down at all on little sticky notes, haha!). Training this week has been a bit up and down, but I am feeling good for next week's DH sprint-fest! It'll be a little crazy trying to get everything together before we leave at 4:00 (in the a.m. on Wednesday), but I'm excited to get to California and meet everyone from Ellsworth and do a little bike racing! Oh, and boys are dumb, it turns out. This is a lesson I've learned many times before, but I still keep trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'll learn one of these days!

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Quickest Way to Fix a Completely Shit Day...

The Pink Panther, ready to pounce!!

Take your new bike for a ride! :) Then go to Happy Hour...3x. Then to bed!

Monday, April 06, 2009

Mother Nature is Confused

The Snow is Beautiful...in WINTER!!! Go away already!

Apparently she is confusing January with April, and it sort of sucks! We had an amazing day of snowboarding up at Eldora on Saturday with a lot of powder when we got there and then powder filling in tracks throughout the day. Good times.

Ah, sketchy sand on the road for the decent! Nice.

Bike training, however, hasn't been so great with all of the snow and cold in the past couple of weeks. Today, though, I decided that I had to get a ride in, cold or not! Well, it was cold, and, as it turns out, snowing. Oh well. I climbed a bit of the way up Sunshine and then thought better of it, as I knew I was going to freeze on the way down (I was right!). I did some hill repeat intervals at the bottom and then headed closer to home to do some super duper sprint intervals. I wasn't too cold by the time that I got home, but I don't think I could have stayed out too much longer. Hopefully it'll warm up this week and dry things out, as I want to ride my new bikes!!!!!!


Crazy Sideways Icicles at the Bottom of Sunshine Canyon

Just a side note...it's a darn good thing that snowboarding was so good on Saturday, because the rest of my weekend was pretty awful, so it's good to know that 5 hours of an amazing outdoor adventure can come pretty close to evening out the other 43 hours that sucked. :)