The Land of Cheese and Chocolate

The Aare in Thun, Switzerland

Every year we go to some pretty amazing places to race our mountain bikes, and each time I go to new place, I think...this is even more beautiful than the last! It's funny how they can all seem even MORE beautiful, but most of the places we travel to are places where fairy tales are dreamt up and life just doesn't seem "normal".

A lovely view of the Alps from Bern

Mountains as picturesque, valleys as deep and narrow, and houses and people as cute and cliché as they sometimes are just make some of these places not seem real!

Wine, fields and mountains. I could get used to Switzerland!

Downtown Bern with the distant Alps

The Hosts with the Mosts: Adrian and Marika

Homemade Raclette dinner

Marika and me

Last week, we stayed with friends in the capital city, Bern. I have never been treated to such amazing and thoughtful hospitality as we were by our friends Adrian and Marika! Adrian took us dirt jumping and swimming whilst Marika took us site seeing and shopping! Bern is an amazing city! I'll definitely be heading back their in the future!

The beautiful Rose Garten in Bern

Currently, we are in Champéry, Switzerland for the 2011 Mountain Bike World Championships, and I am in awe every time I walk out of the door and look around.  It is truly, truly beautiful here!  The cows walk around with bells around their neck, all different pitches, which creates a symphony of bells on the hills of the countryside! It's pretty amazing!

A cow bell symphony in a picturesque Swiss setting

Not a bad place for World Champs

Jo Jo, me, and Lea...Go Team USA!

4x practice starts here at the World Champs tonight, so the sitting around and waiting will finally be worth all of the Pomp and Circumstance!

Crested Butte Race Report

Although I am not quite done with my PhD requirements, I decided to take a much needed break and head up to the Mountain States Cup “Wild Flower Rush” downhill and dual slalom race this past weekend. The race was a regional MSC race, but it was also the 4^th race in the ProGRT National Downhill Series, meaning added national talent in the race fields. Crested Butte provided a picture perfect race venue for the weekend, with nearly cloudless blue skies, perfect mid 70º temperatures, and amazing racecourses. On Friday we had a few hours to practice both the downhill course and the two slalom tracks. I hadn’t been on my Ellsworth Dare DH bike in a few months, so it was nice to get back on and let it rip down the rocky, rooted, winding DH track! The dual slalom course was, in just a couple of words loose and rough! I may have been better served with my Ellsworth Moment, but I elected to bring my Project Pink Ellsworth Specialist (it has a special place in my heart since being named “Pauline”, after my grandmother who is a breast cancer survivor). Riding a hard tail on a bumpy slalom track just means that I had to be that much more focused on the track and what was coming next! The MSC guys did a good job of making a challenging slalom track that was a ton of fun to race. I had a couple of really good rounds and a couple with a few mistakes, but in the end I was very pleased with a 4^th place finish in a very talented women’s field. Sunday brought more blue skies and the DH race. I gave the finals everything I had, which included tumbling through the rooty section of the course, putting me in 12^th place. I was happy with both of my finishes on the weekend, especially since there were several World Cup racers in attendance. I am happy to get my 2011 season off to a good start, just a preview of great things to come this season! Special thanks to my two title sponsors this year, Ellsworth Bicycles and Smile Generation.

Beautiful

Two reasons I really like riding with Chris Baddick...I really like his riding style and enjoy trying to stay on his wheel and he always brings his camera!

I've stolen this picture from him, as this was the sunset on the way back from our ride on Thursday. It was amazing, and I'm really going to miss evenings like this when I move from here!

The ride was also a lot of fun, even though we climbed for a mile at 15% grade, which would normally be bad enough, but I wanted to go "easy" on him, so I decided to leave my rotor totally bent so the wheel would barely turn...just to add to my hill climbing excitement and so he wouldn't feel like he had to "keep up"! haha Seriously, though, I'm not sure how my rotor got so bent (garage antics, I'm sure!), but I really can't believe that I didn't notice that it was so bent before we started descending!

Turns out...

Not much about slaving away in the lab trying to finish one's PhD is very worth blogging about! :( I try to think of fun, things to write about, but there just hasn't been much! I promise to enlighten you all with my oh so magical ramblings once there is!

Post Doc Interview

Well, my interview with the researcher at Cambridge went really well. I have a follow up interview on Tuesday and then hopefully a visit to Cambridge for real interview at the end of March! :)

I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that at least one of the two UK post doc options that are in the works will pan out!

I Got an Interview!

And it's in Cambridge!! (NO not Massachusetts! haha) I'm pretty excited that there are two pretty decent possibilities to post doc in the UK on the table right now. I'll interview with the professor at Cambridge in February and then I'll find out in April about the Whitaker Fellowship, which would allow me to go to the University of Glasgow! I would be pleased with either option at this point! :)

Orthopaedic Research Society

I headed down to Long Beach, CA last week to attend the Annual Meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society. It was a huge conference with about 3000 people including professors, PhD students, orthopedic surgeons, and medical device companies. It was a great opportunity for me to meet professors working in my field, especially those that had made the trip from the UK and Europe. I'm really hoping to finish up my PhD in the next 6-8 months, and then I'm hoping the cards fall into place such that I can move abroad to continue my career.

Fingers crossed!! :)

Me with my poster at the conference

One day...

maybe soon, maybe not, I'll get around to updating this space! I've got the pictures on the computer and the stories in my head, now I just have to find the time at this point. Maybe I'll find the time later this week, when I am in Long Beach for the Orthopedic Research Society conference. Sometimes getting away from home is a good catalyst for me to get the To-Do-List lingerers done. :)