neVenEvEneveNeveNeven

Antarctica and the UK

2012-01-20T03:38:00.002-07:00

King Penguins in the Falkland Islands

In December, I moved to Glasgow, Scotland, and I promise to start updating my blog again very soon...until then, you can check out the blog that I started for my boyfriend who moved to Antarctica at the end of November. All I can say is that he is having the most amazing experience ever! I'm so proud of him for going all in and taking the chance...it's paying off big time! :)

Check out the blog about Tim's adventures in Antarctica!

The Land of Cheese and Chocolate

2011-09-08T03:48:00.000-06:00

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

2011-06-27T18:10:00.006-06:00

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

2011-05-01T14:30:00.004-06:00

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...

2011-03-15T11:42:00.002-06:00

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

2011-02-13T23:23:00.002-07:00

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!

2011-01-25T09:14:00.003-07:00

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

2011-01-22T21:17:00.002-07:00

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...

2011-01-10T19:27:00.002-07:00

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. :)

2 Requirements

2010-11-25T15:10:00.003-07:00

To a successful blog...a camera and at least a little bit of free time. Until recently, I have had neither! I finally bought a new camera so I'm at 50%...just need a little bit of free time now to get back into update mode! :) Stay tuned...

Yoga on the Brain

2010-11-02T21:22:00.004-06:00

Well, 50+ yoga classes and over 150 hours of classroom time later, I am officially certified to teach yoga now! Yea!!!! If this silly PhD in Tissue Engineering doesn't work out for me...at least I have something that I love doing to fall back on! I can't wait to teach my first class!!!

Grandpa, You Are Missed

2010-10-25T22:21:00.005-06:00

Three years ago today, my Grandfather, and biggest role model lost a hard fought battle with leukemia. He taught me so many great lessons in life. I continue to miss him all of the time, and know that wherever he may be, he's looking on in support with his quite demeanor and slight smile.

Grandpa,
I MISS you and will always remember you! Thanks for being such an amazing man!!
Love,
Neven

Off the Deep End

2010-10-17T23:45:00.002-06:00

Sorry all...all couple of you who haven't bothered to take the link to my blog off of your bookmark toolbar!

2 big excuses for being such a slack:
1.) I lost my camera at MTB World's, and as such haven't had any cool pics to post
2.) I have been pretty darn busy ever since I got back from MTB World's. 40+ hrs a week in the lab, 10+ hrs a week taking and studying German, and 25+ hrs a week becoming a yoga instructor!!!!!! :)

It's damn exhausting, but it'll all be worth it in the end. I'll get back to some updates once I replace the camera and find the ladder out of the deep end!

Toenails Are Ready, It Must be Time to Go!

2010-08-26T21:02:00.005-06:00

This week has flown by trying to get the last of my 2010 training in, starting classes up again, and trying to keep my head about me with my research. I've succeeded at 2 of the 3...that's not too bad! :)

I'm all prepared and ready to head to Canada for World Champs! It's gonna be a good one...I've got a feeling! :)

I Used to Think Skunks Were Cute

2010-08-23T23:39:00.002-06:00

The full moon tonight was awesome!

Well, maybe it's only the cartoon skunks like Flower from Bambi that I think are cute because the one that just about sprayed me in our back garden tonight certainly isn't cute!! I mean, I didn't get a close look, but I'm willing to bet that it's NOT! Seriously, I came home from school and walked into the back garden and thought that the neighbors cat was standing there. Then I thought, "Wow, that's a big cat with a really big tail, and ohhhhhh shit! That's not a cat, and I'm right in the firing range! Get a move on!" haha I didn't get sprayed, luckily, but it has been stinking like skunk at our house quite a bit lately, and at least now we know why. Tonight the skunk decided to go through the compost bin, which is outside because the earwigs and fruit flies have taken it over! Spiders have taken over the house, too! I'm not really sure what's up, but before too long we're going to have more species than the Denver Zoo...not the San Diego Zoo, just the Denver Zoo.

27 Hr Visit from Molly

2010-08-15T20:58:00.002-06:00

Eldora Ski Resort from the Lookout Trail

I don't get to hang out with Molly very often, and we packed in just about as much fun as we possibly could in the 27 hrs that she got to spend in Boulder! Tapas at the Med, pints and nachos at the Mtn Sun, "Eat, Pray, Love", and mountain biking in Ned! Whirlwind!!!

Molly rocking the Ned Trails

Always having a giggle!

5 years old!

2010-08-10T23:32:00.004-06:00

Marshall's favourite colour is blue and he's into riding bike
right now, so this was what I got him for his bday! :)

5 years ago, my sis had my wonderful nephew Marshall. He's about the cutest and sweetest kid on the planet, and I wish I could spend more time with him. It's crazy to me that he just turned 5 on Sunday...time flies!

Anyway, life seems a bit boring right now with the only things really going on being training and school! Molly, one of my AMAZING and best friends is coming to town on Saturday, so hopefully we'll get up to some mischief worth blogging about! :)

Anxiety Levels at an All Time High!

2010-08-05T17:31:00.002-06:00

Life as I know it...

Well, the rockstar National Champ lifestyle came to a quick halt once I returned to school on the Monday after National Champs. I've pretty much been pulling all-nighters and working on school stuff like crazy for the past couple of weeks. Today I realized that my life has pretty much been reduced to a bunch of scribbling on a variety of coloured post-it notes. Thank you 3M for that great invention. I'd be totally lost without these things!

Training is going great, and I just finished up my travel plans for World Champs, so I'm pretty excited about that. Until the 28th of August, it'll pretty much be eat, train, eat, school, school, school, eat, sleep, REPEAT! :)

2010 4x National Champion!!!!

2010-07-19T19:24:00.014-06:00

4x Podium: Photo Credit Long Nguyen

Well, I'm not really sure how to start this post...I'm still trying to take it all in! When I started racing bikes in 2003 just as a fun thing to do on some of the summer weekends, I'm not sure that I dreamed that one day I would stand on the top of the podium as the Elite Women's 4x National Champion! As the years of racing went on and I got more and more serious about it, I did start to dream of one day standing on top of that podium box, and this past weekend, that dream became a reality!!!

2010 USA Nationals 4x at Sol Vista - presetned by iXS from Sick Lines on Vimeo.

Our MTB National Championships were held in Sol Vista, CO, and both the DH and 4x courses were super challenging! 4x has always been my favourite of the two events, and that's definitely where my heart and focus were this past weekend! We had several days and many hours to practice the course, and it changed a couple of times throughout the weekend due to some unsafe features in the course at the beginning.

Finishing straight...on my way to the victory!!
Photo Credit: Long Nguyen

I crashed in my qualifying run after pulling my foot out of my pedal over the double on the 3rd straight, so I was a bit disappointed about that. I still managed to qualify 2nd behind Melissa, though, so that was good for gate selection at least. After what seemed like endless practice on Saturday, we finally started racing around 7:30 with the Pro Men whittling down their field of 32 to the finals. Since there were only 4 of us racing, we did a lot of standing around and watching a lot of passing, sliding out, and crashing ensue before we got to race!

2010 US Nationals 4x Course - Sol Vista >>

Helmet Cam View of the course

It was finally our turn to get in the gate, and our first round was the finals, so it was all or nothing!! Melissa took lane 2, me in 3, and Jackie in 1. Cathy hurt her arm at the end of practice, so she wasn't able to race the finals with us. Melissa got a great gate, and mine was okay. Jackie and I started battling in the first off-camber, loose-as-shit first corner, and I knew that I had to get ahead of her before the end of the 2nd straight otherwise the night was gonna end poorly for me! I charged hard and dove into the berm before her and then got great backside on the doubles in the 3rd straight. Melissa took the outside line down the 3rd straight which had a great berm that set you up with a lot more exit speed for the 4th straight. I opted for the inside line with a sketchy, loose flat turn, as it was my only hope at getting past Melissa. I made it around the flag at the same time that Melissa came rocketing out of the berm and we collided into each other. I was able to keep it upright and went on to ride a conservative rest of the race to the bottom and the top of the podium!!!!!!

On my way out of the Conundrum heading for the top of the box!
Photo Credit: Eddie Clark

Me and Buhly after the race
Photo Credit: Jill Kintner

When I visualized how the race might play out in my head earlier in the day, a version of this scenario definitely came up, but I certainly didn't think it would happen like it did. I was so pleased to have accomplished such an amazing goal, and it felt so good to stand on top of that box in front of my "home town" crowd of Colorado folks!! Everyone else's excitement for me made it that much more special for me, too!!!

Maybe just a little bit excite about having won! ;)
Photo Credit: Eddie Clark

More Mountain Biking Videos >>

No footage of our race, but me on the podium going a little nuts at the end!

There haven't been too many people through this whole bike racing adventure who have really believed in me and my riding, but 3 people really come to my mind as 3 who have always believed in me and encouraged, taught, and supported me for so long...Joanna Petterson, Cody Wilderman, and Lisa Myklak. To these 3 people, I owe a huge THANK YOU!! I wish all three of you could have been there to share this with me!! :)

2010 Gravity Champs: Jill Kintner for DH and me for 4x

On to World Champs in Mont Saint Anne with my automatic nomination!!! Wahooooo! Now I just need to find some financial support to get there!!!

The Foxy Lady

2010-06-29T00:51:00.003-06:00

So damn cute!!

TJ got a new puppy a couple of weeks ago, and I got to hang out with her at the race this weekend...Hooch, short for Hoochie Mama. She is about the cutest, smartest, and most well behaved dog I have ever met! She looks like a little fox, his Foxy Lady!

Busy Busy

2010-06-25T07:56:00.003-06:00

I have so many pictures and stories from my recent European adventure...I promise I'll get them up here soon! Until then...sorry for no updates, I've been confined back to the dungeon doing research in the Engineering Center! :(

Life in the Village

2010-05-31T05:22:00.004-06:00

Secret Trail Group Ride with Jaymie's Amazing Friends

The Village

My great friend Jaymie Mart lives in a pretty darn cool place, Innerleithen, Scotland! I love, love, love getting to spend time with her there. It's a cute, quaint little village just south of Edinburgh that has amazing MTB trails all around it!

Sometimes Damion gets me confused with a lollipop...usually there is a camera involved when it happens!

Damion Smith made it round to the village because we're just too cool not to come hang out with on one of his only weekends off for the summer! :)

D teaching us some American Football drills...a bit pissed! haha

We had a great time riding bikes, learning to play hockey and shinty, reading from the good book, practicing American football drills, drinking with the local "famous" footballer, and generally getting up to a lot of ruckus!

Damion reading to us from the Good Book, Squash the O!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

2010-05-29T01:57:00.003-06:00

Can't ask for a much better view than a full rainbow at the top of a grueling MTB climb in beautiful Scotland!!! Life is good!

After very little sleep and nearly 20 hours of traveling, I arrived in Edinburgh where Jaymie had arranged for her friend Andy to pick my up at the airport. I walked through the arrival door and found him stood there waiting for me with a sign with my name on it with the Dirt School logo. I couldn't stop laughing...even though I already knew that my bike had not arrived! I could tell from the first instant that Andy and I were going to get on well!

I filled out the missing bag info and we were on our way to Innerleithen. We arrived in the village after endless laughter and giggles all the way from Edinburgh and promptly went to the pub for some food. After a nice greasy fish and chips lunch, we headed to Alpine Bikes to see about borrowing a rental bike for the day. They hooked me up with a nice Trek and we were off. I had no idea that Andy was taking me on an epic adventure of a ride, but between my jet lag and not so quick climbing abilities, our ride ended up being 4 hours! I was beat, but even though we got hailed and rained hard on, I had a great time and was so glad that we'd managed to get a ride in straight off of the plane!!

Andy is a legend! He has more parlour bike tricks than anyone I know, and his patience with waiting for the slow girl abounds!! I'm pretty darn lucky that Jaymie has such amazing friends who are willing to spend the day entertaining a silly American girl they've never even met before! So, a big thanks to Andy for making sure my first day in Scotland was a really fantastic one. I can't wait for all of the adventures that are still to come...hopefully they will soon involve my own lovely pink Ellsworth Specialist, too!!

Jeff Co MTB Trails

2010-05-24T07:41:00.003-06:00

Jeff Co. has long been lauded as one of the more forward thinking counties in Colorado with regard to MTB trail access...at least in comparison to Boulder Co.! Today I headed down to Golden, in Jeff Co., because I really wanted to rip down the Enchanted Forest trail. I mean, I was actually looking forward to the climb to get to the top to be able to enjoy the super fun descent down Enchanted Forest! Unfortunately they haven't quite gotten it figured out yet! They have unidirectional trail access on odd numbered days of the month (which I think is great), but they have it so you can only ride UP the Enchanted Forest trail. I seriously don't know anyone who wants to ride up that trail! Dumb, dumb, dumb!

Adventures with Mom

2010-05-20T22:14:00.003-06:00

My Mom, an amazing lady

So, my Mom decided to come down and celebrate my birthday with me this week. It was going to be a quick trip, so I knew I had to plan to cram a lot in during a short amount of time, and we succeeded!

We got up early and headed to Lucile's for breakfast! I hadn't been there in WAY too long. After that, we spent a bit of time enjoying all of the flowers on Pearl St. before I decided it was time for a little exercise! I think my mom must think I'm always trying to kill her when she comes to visit as I always end up taking her on hikes that I don't think will be too bad and then they're always harder than I remember them being! My Mom is a trooper, though, after a few good rest breaks, we had a good hike enjoying the Boulder sun.

The storm that dumped some rain before our hike.

At the bottom of the 2nd Flatiron

After that, we headed to campus to go on a "Tree Walk" with the head CU groundskeeper. It was a lot of fun to get to hear what someone who has spent the last 25 years hanging out with the trees had to say about them. There are 5000 trees on campus with at least 50 different kinds! Who knew?!?

The second largest Redbud in CO

After that we headed out to fondue dinner, which is always fun. The only bad part is that you feel completely stuffed when you leave!

Stuffed but still found room for chocolate! :)

All in all, we had a great time in a short amount of visit time! Thanks for coming to visit Mom! :)

1st Pro Win!!!

2010-05-17T00:44:00.005-06:00

Jackie, Me, and Cathy: 4x Podium

I have been racing at Nathrop for 7 years, and none have been as sweet as this year! There are two 4x tracks and a dual slalom track with one of the most beautiful racing backdrops in the world, Mt. Princeton.

Jamis, Blake, Petr, and Erik: The Men's podium as definitely hard fought!

I haven't been able to train as much as I normally do by this time of the season because of school, so I went to the race with very few expectations. Dual slalom was on Saturday, and 4x was on Sunday. Dual slalom went okay, I ended up 2nd. On Sunday, we got started with the new to the US format of 4x, and it was great!

Me and Erik with Mt. Princeton behind us

We all did 3 randomly seated qualifying rounds and then we raced the normal 4x rounds. I won one of the qualifying rounds and Jackie won two of them. Once we got to the finals, I was in lane two, but I got a great snap out of the gate and got the hole shot. Jackie made some good attempts at passing, but I was able to hold her off till the finish line for my first Pro win ever! :) Pretty psyched!

Smiles all around!

A Little Scare

2010-05-14T11:15:00.003-06:00

So, I've had a cramp like pain in the top of my calf for a little over a month now. It didn't bother me at first since I get charlie horse cramps in my calves all of the time, but after quite some time I started to worry a little bit. When I was at the Doc to get some sleeping pills for my impending travels abroad, I casually mentioned it to the Doc, and she got a bit nervous and thought I should get an ultrasound to rule out Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). I just got back, and it turns out there isn't DVT (thankfully!!!), but there is a small clot in one of the more superficial veins. Hopefully it's not much to worry about, will go away on its own, and at least explains why I've been having pain for the past month! Fingers crossed that it doesn't become a bigger problem than it is!

My Grandma Knows What's Up!

2010-05-09T19:49:00.005-06:00

WAY better than an office chair!

Themes and Thoughts from today's ride:
1.) Endo to Elbow ):

It gets really flat really quickly once you leave the mountains!

2.) Sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses, even when there aren't any roses around.
3.) White Ranch is steep from the bottom lot, somehow I always seem to forget this!
4.) Rigid single speeders have at least 1 or 2 screws loose!

Said Utkatasana section

5.) There is a 100 ft. section on the Belcher Trail at White Ranch that should be called the Utkatasana (yoga: awkward pose) Trail. The section is flat, and still completely awkward and unridable to me! Ughhh!!!
6.) Any time spent on the bike, even if I'm feeling crappy, is better than even the best time working!

I really need to figure out why/how some days I feel absolutely great and other days I feel absolutely terrible!! Today was an absolutely terrible day, and I'd like have half a clue about why. Either way, even terrible days with bike rides are better than pretty great days without them!

One last thought...I spoke to my Grandmother today for Mother's Day, and she said something that really struck me. She told me to make sure to take advantage of every opportunity to travel and have as many fun adventures as I can as often as I can because you never know what's going to happen to you tomorrow! This is pretty much how I've chosen to live my life, but it was nice to hear it as wise advice from an amazing woman who has lived her life to the fullest and is 85 years old! Not to worry Grandma...I'll be going on as many adventures as I possibly can for the rest of my life!!! :)

I Like This Little Yoga Guy

2010-05-08T05:44:00.003-06:00

Yoga has helped me keep my sanity in the past few months! I LOVE it!! :)

Wednesday Wedding!

2010-05-07T03:08:00.006-06:00

Simple Beauty

Drinking out of the traditional Georgian Celebration Horn

My friend Tawnya decided that they should probably actually get married before they left for their honeymoon...so literally 3 hours before I took them to the bus stop to head to the airport for their honeymoon, they tied the knot! :)

The Beautiful Bride

It was super low key and lovely all at the same time. We headed up Flagstaff with flowers, a wedding cake, a marriage license, and the ceremonial Georgian Horn and champagne! We had a short little ceremony, signed the license, and then enjoyed the cake and champagne before rushing back to Boulder to get them to the bus!

Seriously, it was such a beautiful day to celebrate their love for each other. I'm so happy they wanted me to be a part of it all!

It's Official!!

Congrats Tawnya and Sasha!!

Sadly,

2010-04-28T21:51:00.002-06:00

I had to change the description of my blog. :(

Supercross and PA DH

2010-04-26T15:02:00.006-06:00

Seattle Supercross!

My friend Leana live just south of Seattle, so I made plans to hang out with her after my conference was done on Saturday. I knew she'd be game for some fun adventures in the limited time that I had in Seattle.

Me, Leana, and the Fremont Troll

She picked me up and had a game plan to show me the sites!! We had a great afternoon being tourists and eating yummy fish and chips before heading to Supercross that evening!!!

Not gonna lie, we felt sorta important! haha

I'd never been to Supercross before, so I was super psyched to get to watch the action first hand!! Sensory overload!!! On t.v., they pretty much just follow the leaders around the whole time, so you don't get to see much else of what is going on. When you're there in person, it's challenging to figure out what you want to watch, there is so much going on the whole time!! Leana has a friend who got is Industry passes, which meant, free, got to get into the pits, and go to sit in the industry reserved section. We ended up sitting next to Jake Weimer's parents which was awesome. Jake was leading the West Lites series and struggled a little in the race, so his parents were extra animated throughout the race. Then in the main event, my favorite rider, Kevin Windham had an amazing night. He took the win easily and almost lapped Chad Reed...one of my least favorite riders!!

Sunny Seattle Supercross

We headed back to Leana's house with plans to get up super early and head up to the ProGRT DH race up at Port Angeles. It sorta sucked being there and not getting to race, but it was a lot of fun to see friends that I haven't seen for a long time and cheer like crazy! The track looked awesome, it would have been a lot of fun to race!! All of the girls were riding really well, hitting all the big lines, too! I think I was most impressed with Mitch Ropelato, though, our young Junior pinner!! He came through the section where I was watching so much faster than anyone else I saw, it was awesome!! I think he ended up in 12th in a completely stacked with WC talent field! It'll be fun to see how he does at the World Cups!

The lovely ladies of DH! Jo Jo, Melissa, me, Anka, and Leana

We picked up Melissa at the race and brought her back to Leana's with us. It was great, along the way home, we stopped at a winery and did a wine tasting, had coffee and a lovely little shop overlooking the water and Canada, and then had a lovely evening sitting in the hot tub catching up on girl time! A big thanks to Leana for coordinating such a fun weekend! I can't wait for the racing season to begin! I miss all of my racing friends!!

Society for Biomaterials Conference

2010-04-23T11:02:00.001-06:00

I walked into the room that I'll be presenting in and counted 1250 seats!! There will by no means be that many people at my talk (probably 100-150), as there are 5 other talks going on at the same time as mine, but the room is overwhelming nonetheless!! There are two huge projection screens on either side of the presentation stage. I'm super nervous but also pretty excited to share my exciting research and get feedback from people who are the experts in this field!

It's been exhausting running from room to room to listen to all the different talks that I want to hear from people, but it's been a really great learning experience. Hopefully I'll get some ideas and feedback that will help me in the next year as I finish up my PhD!

Sick in the Head!

2010-04-18T21:18:00.005-06:00

The view from the top of Heil looking down the valley towards Hall...I LOVE CO!!

So, today I headed out to ride Picture Rock trail, just outside of Lyons. I have mixed feelings about this ride, as it's a trail that I've only ever ridden with someone who used to be a really good friend of mine, but I really love the trail. Today, I REALLY loved it! I haven't felt this good on my bike in I don't know how long...maybe since I was in Scotland last summer. I got to the top of the climb and thought, that's it...but I want more! I know, I know, I must have caught a serious bug or something because I NEVER love going uphill, but today I did, and I felt good doing it!! Considering how little I've been able to ride in the past couple of months, there must be something else going on! I guess maybe it was the cheesy grits that I had for breakfast, who knows...I really should try and figure it out, though!

View from the best cheese and bread eating spot on the trail!

Anyway, it was a great day on the bike. The only thing missing was a mid ride snack of bread and cheese and my favorite Picture Rock trail riding partner.

Seattle Bound

2010-04-18T03:26:00.004-06:00

On Wednesday I leave for Seattle to attend my first major conference in my field of study. I'll be going to the Society for Biomaterials conference. I'm a little nervous and pretty excited as I'll be giving a talk, not just a poster. I'm struggling a bit to get my presentation put together, so hopefully it turns out okay!

Exciting Things on the Research Front

2010-04-13T02:42:00.003-06:00

Before

So, I'm sure nobody else is going to be as excited about these pictures as I am. 1.) it's 2:30 in the morning, so I'm easily entertained at this point, and 2.) I have been trying to figure out a way to demonstrate exactly what these pictures show that my "gels" do for a really long time. I'm really glad I finally figured out a way to show other people what I have known for a long time to be going on! Wahoo!! Time for bed...it's been a 16 hour day!

After a 15% strain is applied

Love Hate

2010-04-10T18:30:00.003-06:00

Holly with a big smile even though she's sick as hell!

I have a love hate relationship with the Marshall Mesa trails in South Boulder. Lots of people hate on them, and they are always really crowded, but we sure had a good time riding there today. We set off as 4...me, Holly, Holly, and Collin. By the time that we got the trailhead from our house, Holly (my roomie) was coughing so bad. I think she may have strep throat! :( She decided to head home, and the other Holly, Collin and I put in some good miles on the trails, and with the only mishap being ANOTHER flat tyre for me, we had a great time riding!

i LOVE maps!

2010-04-10T01:42:00.003-06:00

I love maps of all kinds! I thought this one was particularly interesting. Turns out I've really only lived in areas that most other people don't live...explains a lot, I suppose! :)

I ♥ Riding New Trails!

2010-04-04T22:42:00.009-06:00

New Fun Trails!

What a lovely day in CO!!

I had wanted to go ride Picture Rock trail this morning, but when Collin, Holly, and Andrew got to our house, they said it looked like it was snowing in Lyons...a quick call to Lyons confirmed. New plan stat! We decided to head South and decide where we were going along the way. Centennial Cone won out! I'd never ridden there before, so I was psyched to check it out.

It got a little snowy!

We didn't get to ride all of the trail due to some remaining snow and some Silly Elk that didn't get the memo that people want to ride their MTBs on the trails and that they should go eat somewhere else! haha Anyway, the bit of the trail that we got to ride was a ton of fun, and it was nice to get out on a proper trail, especially since the remainder of my day has been spent at school!

James and Collin...probably waiting on me!

Yay mountain bikes! :)

Erin Rocks!

2010-04-04T22:42:00.007-06:00

Ahhh, the Lemur

My friend Erin has some of her AMAZING pieces at a local shop (Topo Ranch), so we headed downtown for the First Friday Artwalk to check out the place and support her. They had some Boulder Beer and a band playing, so we all had a good time socializing and getting the night started. I had planned to go back to school afterward, but after 2 beers, I threw that terrible idea to the wind and decided to make a night of it!

LOVE her work!

The band

Check Her Work Out at Deadwilder Design

Kristin had come up from Denver, so we all went to dinner then headed out to the Downer and the Pub for the night. It was really nice to hang out with friends and get away from school for a little bit!

My lovely friends Erin and Kristin

Sun, Wind, and Goats

2010-03-31T01:03:00.004-06:00

Man, talk about service! Kashi and Sabrina changing my flat tyre for me!

Well, goatheads that is! My friend Sabrina just got to town for the next couple of weeks, so we took advantage of Boulder's 75º+ day and headed out for a nice easy ride on our MTBs. She and her bf, Kashi, just got to town yesterday, so I thought...this might be my only chance to keep up with two of the fastest people I've ever ridden with! We headed out to the trails around the Reservoir. As we were riding around near the Res, I was telling them to watch out for these horrible pesky pests called goatheads. They're terrible weeds that no matter how they land on the ground, there is always a spike poking up, just waiting for your tyre to roll over it! Well about 15 minutes after my speech on goatheads, guess who got a flat tyre?? Yup, the blabbermouth! Ha, ha. I have to say, I definitely had the fastest tyre changers that I've ever had. Okay, maybe the tyre change wasn't that fast, but Kashi and Sabrina certainly are! The tyre change was a bit amateur hour since I somehow (???) had a 29er spare tube instead of normal one, duhhh! I don't know how that happened. Anyway, we carried on straight into the hurricane force winds that were pelting rocks and water off the water at us and climbed up. I got back on my bike and thought, hmmm, my rear end feels a bit loose. haha Sure enough, flat tyre #2!! Uhhh, so, we ended up having to make the 29er tube work, since it was the only option. Pit stop #2 was faster, as we'd learned a lot on #1! Off we go again...for about 1o seconds, until my chain breaks!! :( Mind you, the wind at this point is howling, so hanging out messing with bikes isn't the most fun thing ever, but we were all still smiling! Once again, Kashi retired Pro World Cup Racer Turned Bike Mechanic sorted me out and we finally got back on track to brave the wind and head back to Kashi's friends house. His friend cooked us up a wonderful dinner and we had some good laughs into the evening, well Sabrina and I sat and giggled about nothing in particular the whole time and I think the boys were mostly just laughing at us! Regardless, even though the wind sucked, and goatheads and broken chains suck, we had a wonderful afternoon/evening. It's amazing how great people to be around can make even crappy situations fun or at least funny! :)

A Lil Party for Bobbi and Lil Mil

2010-03-27T19:30:00.004-06:00

Bobbi surrounded with goodies

My amazing friends Bobbi and Jon Watt are having a baby! They have nicknamed her Lil Mil for the Little "Milli" Watt. She of course won't be named Mil, but for now, it sure is cute! Her mother-in-law hosted a really nice shower for her today. She has a lot of really creative friends who showed up to help her celebrate.

Nadia was charged with the task of hanging all the clothes

For me, it was really nice to get to catch up with some bike racing friends that I haven't seen in awhile, including Miss Watt herself! Jon and Bobbi are gonna be great parents!!!!

4x Girls reunite! Riders Ready, Watch the Gate, Beep beep beep BEEEEEEEP :)
Me, Bobbi "Snap" Watt, Shannon Ambrose, and Nadia Steinbrecher

Time for a Wedding!

2010-03-27T16:51:00.006-06:00

Our New Bigger and Better Family

NOOOO, not mine!!! haha That requires two people who are in love! :) My dad met a truly amazing woman, Djaylan. Although they weren't super forthcoming with letting everyone know that they were planning on getting married when we were in Vegas, that was indeed their plan! Originally, I wasn't going to be able to go to the wedding as it was on Wednesday, and I was meant to go home on Tuesday. As luck would have it, though, Mother Nature really wanted me to be at the wedding!!! :) She had another one of her little shit fits and puked a bunch of snow in Denver on Tuesday afternoon (and night!). My flight got canceled, and I'm pretty sure I was the only person in the airport doing a little hallelujah dance!! So, after a couple of hours at the airport, I hopped on the shuttle back to our hotel just in time to join everyone for dinner.

My lovely sister Tori and me

Before I left my sister and I been talking about how much fun it would be to go to a Cirque du Soleli show, and once my flight got canceled, I thought...we can make it happen! I mean, we only had 2.5 hours to have dinner, sort tickets, and make it back down to the strip, but, I was determined! All 11 of us crammed into the 7 passenger mini van (Tori and I had cozy seats in the boot with the strollers and some luggage), and we headed down the strip. As we got closer to Treasure Island Casino, we made the "Let Us Out!" call at a red light, and a pseudo chinese fire drill ensued! I think we about gave my grandmother a heart attack, since we were in the middle of traffic, but it worked out perfectly! We got to the ticket box office and talked the woman into giving us a discount. We weren't prepared to pay $129 for tickets, but we decided $72 was doable, and we were only 1 minute late for the start. The show was awesome, and it was a lot of fun to get to hang out with my sister.

The Bride and Groom

Wednesday we got up and got ready for a wedding! The wedding was set for 1:00. We all got ready and headed to the Chapel. My dad, Djaylan, and my new little step sister, Monique arrived in style in the limo.

Monique, the Little Princess

Auntie Monique with her nephew Marshall

After a nice ceremony, we had a super photo taking session and then headed back to my uncle's condo for a little reception. I haven't seen my dad so happy in as long as I can remember! I couldn't be happier for him and Djaylan (and Monique!). I'm psyched to have a stepmom and a new little sister! Welcome to the family Djaylan and Monique! :)

Our New Lil Sis

Our Extended Family

Vegas Fun!

2010-03-23T18:50:00.007-06:00

The Doors were the theme of the light show in old downtown

Cutest kid ever!

Tor and me with our dad

And our Grandma

Well, I'll have to eat my words, as I never thought I'd have this much fun in Vegas! It's been a quick trip, but it's been nearly a complete family reunion getting to see aunts, uncles, my grandma, dad, and sister! We had a great time running around yesterday eating good food, seeing a light show, dancing, and swimming.

On our way to the top of the "Eiffel Tower"

Me and my Sis

Today, we went to the top of the "Eiffel Tower" and I played some Texas Hold 'Em with my dad
for 2 hours and won $70! Now I'm heading back home (in First Class, again!!!) to a bunch of snow...sigh!!!!!

Dad and Djaylan

Tori giving Marsh and Monique some dance lessons

Monique is quite the photographer!!

EDIT: Didn't make the flight, it got canceled, so the crazy Vegas story continues!

Lotsa Snow!

2010-03-19T23:47:00.002-06:00

It was 70ºF here on Wednesday, 60ºF on Thursday, and today we got a foot of snow. WTF?!? Mother Nature has issues! It did mean a good day of riding up at Eldora, though! There was a ton of snow...too bad I didn't get up there until 1:00. Had a great afternoon of riding with Akira, though!

St. Paddy's Day

2010-03-17T13:09:00.005-06:00

The makings of a good night!

I decided to get people together to enjoy this wonderful holiday! Abby decided that all of my favorite holidays are the ones that you get to dress up and drink on...pretty much! :)

My four leafed clover soda bread

Delish!!

I decided to cook up some corned beef lots of potatoes, carrots, and cabbage. I tried my hand at soda bread, but Abby's roommate Matt showed me up with a much better version! :) The food was great, and the consumption of many car bombs made the evening even better.

Matt, getting off to a good start!

Get it while it's hot!

Chris got to join us when we went to Pearl Street, as his 21st bday was the day before, so it was fun to finally get to all go out and have a good time downtown!

Several of the CU Cycling boys have "invested" in morph suits...hilarious!

Unfortunately they didn't wear them when we went downtown!

Training Secrets of the DH Samurai

2010-03-07T22:07:00.005-07:00

Lovely Mary Jane

The winter wonderland that was Winter Park on Monday (or so I'm told) was completely transformed into winter sunnyland by Saturday! TJ skied bumps ALL day (this is his samurai off season cross training secret!!), I dabbled in them here and there and stumbled down them when that was the only option! haha Great day on the slopes. It's been fun to watch TJ's bump skiing advance and progress throughout the season!

Sorry it's sideways, I can't figure out how to turn it...duhhhhhh!

Just starting to study for my German exam tomorrow...not sure where the hours in the day always seem to disappear to!

Paying the Piper

2010-03-04T14:24:00.003-07:00

The bad influences!! haha

Well, I was definitely running on fumes by the end of last week! I felt like I was starting to get sick around Thursday or so. Staying up till 3:00 after a night of drinking with Amy and Melissa on Friday, followed by waking up at 6:45 to spend the day skiing, followed by the bowling extravagansa to bid Jon farewell did me in! :(

Me and Rockstar Amy

It's been in the 50s for the past three days and I've struggled to just leave the house! I was determined to ride to school today (12 minutes) and now I can't stop hacking! Blahhhhhh!!! I need good health and nice weather to coincide...and soon! :)

March is Head Injury Awareness Month...

2010-03-02T09:41:00.001-07:00

I wonder if they need a mascot?!?

Jon's Getting the Hell Outta Boulder

2010-02-28T13:29:00.005-07:00

Lots of snow at WP...finally!

My friend Jon has been complaining about how much he hates Boulder for at least 2 or 3 years now. Well...he's getting his wish on Friday. He's leaving for Nuclear Engineering School for the Navy on Friday. We decided to have a little bit of a going away party for him this weekend.

TJ showing off his Rock n Roll Jonny custom jacket

We headed up to the slopes on Saturday for a great (and tiring!!) day at Winter Park. TJ had been talking about making a tribute to Jon "jacket" for a long time, and he finally did it, just in time for Jon's last ski day! The resemblance turned out really well! He got some really good points and stares out of it all day!

TJ, Jon, me, and Jeremy

The boys spent a lot longer in the bumps than I did!

After weaving our way home through the I-70 ridiculousness, we headed to Phil's for a little Supercross watching before heading out to Brunken Dowling (TJ's name for the drunken bowling shenanigans that were on the docket for the evening).

We had a good time bowling with high score competitions as well as highest speed competitions. Kevin took the W with some silly score over 200 after 5 strikes in a row, and TJ won the fastest throw, with no real compeition, with a 22.2 mph toss. I was pleased to break 100 and just happy that it didn't hurt my wrist too much to throw the bowling ball!

The Crew

Regan and I decided that we'd much rather that someone we didn't like so much was leaving instead of Jon, but alas, he needs to start a new chapter in his life! We're gonna miss him, that's for sure! Good luck Jonny Boy...Rock n Roll! :)

Travel Grant

2010-02-28T12:52:00.003-07:00

I'm going to my first research conference in Seattle at the end of April. I'm pretty excited that I finally get to give a presentation about my research. The conference is the Society for Biomaterials, so it should be very relative to my research! I applied for a graduate travel grant from a general graduate program on campus, and I'm pretty excited to have gotten it, so it'll be nice to have someone other than my adviser paying for the conference expenses.

Eldora at it's Finest

2010-02-24T20:34:00.003-07:00

Okay, not really, but Matt and I had a pretty good day on the slopes followed by and excellent lunch at the Kathmandu House buffet! Sweet Potato Masala...need I say more?!?! :)

Stem Cells Doing Their Jobs, Finally!

2010-02-18T16:17:00.002-07:00

It's been a long time in the process of trying to get my stem cells to differentiate into osteoblasts (bone cells) and start producing bone matrix, but I think I've finally figured out how to do it in my tissue engineering system...

Stem cells differentiated into bone cells producing osteonectin (red)

I still need to do a few more studies to verify a few more things, but things are looking good on the bone side of things for my PhD project...now I just need to get the cartilage side of things to start working!! In hindsight, I can't believe I picked a project trying to engineer three different types of tissue...ONE is hard enough! haha I am always up for a good challenge, though, so...hopefully it all works out well in the end!

Outlet?!?

2010-02-17T18:04:00.003-07:00

This past month (I had surgery a month ago!!) has been a bit of a struggle. My normal outlet for dealing with stress, school, heartbreak, lack of understanding, etc...is exercise, and I just haven't been able to do that like I normally do, and the timing of not being able to exercise has been additionally poor given all of the other stuff going on! :( I really thought this whole wrist surgery thing was gonna be "no big deal". Well, I was wrong! I still have a lot of pain in my hand/wrist/forearm and the scar tissue prohibits me from utilizing my wrist in any sort of normal fashion, which makes yoga a real struggle! Achhhh!

I really hate running, I mean, really hate it, but it might come down to that! ha After reading Born to Run, though, I at least feel slightly inspired to give it a go. If you're looking for a great book to read, give it go. You won't be disappointed. :)

Not Much of Interest These Days

2010-02-16T10:28:00.003-07:00

I've just been killing myself at school, rehabbing my wrist, and studying German ALL of the time. A bit boring, I know, but that's what happens when wrist surgery takes away all of my fun adventures! :( Hopefully it will be getting up to speed soon! I had PT yesterday and yoga went a little bit better last night, so...fingers crossed that it will be back to feeling good very soon!!!

Until then, I'll just be LOVING the Olympics and HATING NBC's coverage of it. I wonder if they know that there are competitors other than North Americans?!?!

World Nutella Day!!!

2010-02-05T22:25:00.006-07:00

So good! :) Luckily my week got better as it went on!

Montana Getaway

2010-02-02T16:27:00.002-07:00

Had a wonderful time visiting my sister and my nephew last weekend. Got to see 6 bald eagles and was witness to a couple of amazing sunsets, too! Was nice to catch up with my family.

Healing Up!

2010-01-27T12:53:00.001-07:00

Getting better every day!

Slacking!

2010-01-26T12:22:00.002-07:00

Sorry for lack of, well, NO updates as of late. Between wrist surgery, taking a proper German course and trying to be a progress making PhD student, I haven't been very motivated to take pictures or write. Hopefully I'll have something to motivate me soon! :)

Nagging Injury Started Screaming Instead of Whispering

2010-01-20T22:30:00.000-07:00

I have had a recurrent ganglian cyst in my wrist for the past couple of years. Last week it started impinging on a nerve that was cutting of feeling in my hand and arm. Time to get it cut out!! I had wrist surgery on Monday, so it's not feeling so hot right now, but hopefully once it gets healed up, it'll feel better than ever! :)

Cutest Kid Ever!

2010-01-07T16:33:00.004-07:00

I don't get to spend very much time with my nephew, but when I do, I am constantly reminded of how cute and fun to be around he is!

Already a Proficient Hiker

Can Never Start Fishing Too Young!

My Favourite One

Last Day of 2009, First Day on the Slopes

2009-12-31T23:48:00.003-07:00

Me and my roommate Holly

Jon, TJ, Amanda, and Jeremy

We headed up to WP for the first day on the slopes...on the last day of the year! We got a good crew together and got fresh tracks on a slope that opened for the first time at Mary Jane. It ended up being a pretty rough run for me...flat ground and waist deep powder with sniper rocks and logs all came together to present a HUGE struggle for me on my snowboard! Other than that struggle, the day was great!

So much white fluff!

I did a lot of unburying this thing!

I had a couple of options for New Years plans...in the end I chose a quite night hanging out by myself with my book curled up in bed. Hopefully I'm not setting myself up for a lot of lonely nights in 2010 with my welcoming in of the new year! :)

Christmas Come and Gone

2009-12-28T10:15:00.005-07:00

My friend Jaymie Mart was in the country over from Scotland. She flew into Phoenix, and she and Melissa went to Vegas to ride and do a little dancing for the weekend. After that I flew down to Phoenix to hang out for a couple of days before Jaymie and I flew back to CO at the end of the week.

We had a great time and quite a laugh in Phoenix. We ate a lot of really good food, drank a lot of wine, road mountain bikes, and laughed our asses off for 3 days straight! On Thursday Jaymie and I flew back to Denver and headed into Boulder. I had school work that I had to do, so after a little last minute shopping, we spent some time in my lab, and then headed home for a relaxing Christmas Eve evening.

Super steak dinner!

On Christmas Day, we slept in, had a nice breakfast and then attempted to go XC skiing up at Eldora...when we got there it was 6ºF and the wind was blowing so hard that the windchill was nearly -30ºF! We made the executive decision that it wouldn't be much fun, so we went to the coffee shop and enjoyed some hot apple cider instead, definitely the right option! We came home and made a wonderful salmon dinner and learned how to knit! It was the most relaxing and stressfree Christmas I think I might have ever had! :)

We did finally go XC skiing. We rented some touring skis and skied out to Brainard Lake just North of Nederland. It was a beautiful day, and it was much warmer, sunnier, and much less windy than the day before!!

Such a lovely snow angel

Jaymie flew back to Phoenix yesterday after we indulged ourselves at Lucile's for breakfast! It was really fun to have her come to visit and spend Christmas here in CO!

Now it's time to get back to work! I've got tons of school stuff to do this week, am helping TJ move out of his apartment, and want to try and get some skiing in as well!

Jon's Navy Commissioning

2009-12-19T15:24:00.003-07:00

Jon getting his Officer's stripes unveiled

Jeremy, "Sir Jon", and me

My friend Jon has been in Navy ROTC for the past couple of years of college, and after graduation on Thursday, he got commissioned into the Navy yesterday. The ceremony was really cool. I'm really glad I was able to go.

TJ, Jon, and Jeremy

Jon, TJ, and Phil...the grads!

All of the newly commissioned graduates had to throw down $200 towards on open bar tab at a bar last night. Needless to say, we all had a great time and enjoyed some great beer. Thanks Jon, and good luck with your Naval adventures!!

Graduation...Unfortunately Not Mine

2009-12-17T23:02:00.002-07:00

I had several friends who graduated tonight. I went to their graduation ceremony, and it was inspiring to want to get done! haha TJ and Jon both graduated with their engineering degrees tonight, and my friend Garrett got his PhD. I'm really hoping that I'll be walking across that stage this time next year! :)

Adventures in the Kitchen!

2009-12-16T00:24:00.003-07:00

Well, in light of all of the work that I need to be doing at school, I decided to spend the better part of Saturday screwing around in the kitchen! I found a webpage that described making hot chocolate on a stick and thought, what a great idea. Well, as it turns out, it wasn't quite as easy as I thought it might be, but they did turn out pretty good, in the end. :)

Montana is a Special Place

2009-11-29T21:14:00.001-07:00

My dad forwarded me this email. Craziness!!

A couple from Montana were out riding on the range, he with his rifle and she (fortunately) with her camera. Their dogs always followed them, but on this occasion a Mountain Lion decided that he wanted to stalk the dogs...(you'll see the dogs in the background watching). Very, very, bad decision on the cat's part.

The guy got off the mule with his rifle and decided to shoot in the air to scare away the lion, but before he could get off a shot the lion charged in and decided he wanted a piece of the dogs.

With that, the mule took off and decided HE wanted a piece of that lion. That's when all hell broke loose for the lion.

As the lion approached the dogs, the mule snatched him up by the tail and started whirling him around. Banging its head on the ground on every pass. Then he dropped it, stomped on it and held it to the ground by the throat.

The mule then got down on his knees and bit the thing all over a couple of dozen times to make sure it was dead, then whipped it into the air again, walked back over to the couple (that were stunned in silence) and stood there ready to continue his ride as if nothing had just happened.

Fortunately, even though the hunter didn't get off a shot, his wife got off these four pictures.

Injured Reserve

2009-11-28T21:19:00.001-07:00

Ah, Thanksgiving was filled with lots and lots of food and a night of great dancing on Club Beta in Denver. Unfortunately, I messed my knee up pretty good, and it's been smarting ever since! :( Hopefully it'll feel better tomorrow...just in time for snow and wet trails again. Ah well, such is life. I guess I need to be in the lab anyway.

T's Suggestion on How to Deal with a Sucky Guy

2009-11-26T16:09:00.002-07:00

So, I was talking to one of my friends about how much guys suck right now, and she suggested sending this. I'll refrain from doing that, but I'll post it here, as I thought it was hilarious!

Happy Turkey Day!!

2009-11-26T01:55:00.002-07:00

We've got big cooking plans, riding plans, yoga plans, and the late night clubbing plans!! Oh, and I have to take samples at school for 2 hours. That part sucks, but everything else is bound to be great! :)

Have a great day celebrating things that we are thankful for!

OR: Weddings, Volcanos, and Guns

2009-11-11T12:28:00.009-07:00

I headed out to Oregon at the end of Oregon to go to my friend Molly's wedding and to visit my Dad for the weekend. I got to Portland on Friday night and my dad and I found a hole-in-the-wall BBQ place that looked like it should have been somewhere in the deep south...not Portland, OR. It was great!

Molly and our dinner table crew

A lil Sass!

Saturday morning, my dad and I drove down to Ashland, OR. Molly's wedding was at her parent's farm in this super cool southern Oregon town. My friend Molly is one of the most vibrant and stunning people that I know. Whenever she comes to visit me, boys always ask about her long after her departure! Flip is a lucky guy to have snatched her off of the market! She was a beautiful bride, and the wedding was absolutely amazing. The weather was awesome and her parent's farm is a lovely place to celebrate a wedding! I'm so glad I was able to make the trip out there to share with them in their special day! :)

Stunning Crater Lake

Me and my dad

On Sunday, my dad and I headed up to Crater Lake and Bend to do a little of the touristy stuff. Crater Lake is an amazing geological landscape. The lake formed when a volcano essentially imploded on itself thousands of years ago. The lake formed over many, many years of collecting rain and snowfall. Apparently, it's the purest high alpine lake in the world. Anyway, it was really beautiful! After that, we headed up to Bend for dinner and a couple of beers from the Deschutes Brewery. Mmmmmmm!!

My dad's revolver

Super old revolver from an old family friend

My dad's black powder gun

I grew up in Montana and Wyoming, and as such, hunting and guns were part of my upbringing. In fact, the first time that I ever "skipped school" was in Kindergarten. My mom dropped me off at school, and a little while later my dad picked me up and took me pheasant hunting! It was great, so many years later, it is still vivid in my memory. As such, my dad owns quite a few guns ranging from random modern guns to a black powder gun that he put together from a kit to really old ones that he's inherited. We spent the better part of Monday afternoon checking them out and trying to track down some missing clips for a couple of them. It is always fun to get to spend time with my dad when he can share something he really enjoys with me!

All in all, my trip to OR was great! I love that state...it's just too bad that it rains so damn much there!

Halloween!!

2009-11-01T11:38:00.002-07:00

Sarah, me, TJ, Jon, and Abby

Halloween if my favorite holiday, and Pearl Street in Boulder is CRAZY on Halloween!!! Last year I was on crutches, so it sucked. This year I was ready to make up for lost time! Friday night I got stuck at school, which sucked, but Saturday night was go time! I had wanted to be Pippi Longstockings for Halloween for a long time, and with a haircut appointment lined up for the Monday after Halloween, I needed to do it before the long locks went bye bye!

Pippi and the Nondescript Native American Squaw :)

I convinced Abby to go out with Matt, Sarah, and I, and we had a great time! I ended up breaking the key for my bike lock off whilst trying to get my bike off the top of my car to ride home for the night...bummer! Luckily, Matt and Sarah let me crash at their place so I didn't have to sleep in my car or walk home! Overall, we had a lot of fun and saw some great costumes out for the night!

2009 Collegiate MTB Nationals

2009-10-23T15:19:00.005-06:00

Another one is in the books. We headed out to Northstar at Tahoe for Collegiate MTB Nats. We had an entourage of people heading out to race and support the racers, 20 total people!! James, Peter, and Andy left on Tuesday evening and started driving our bikes out to the race. They pinned it out to NV and ended up getting there before we did! It was great, they got all checked into the condos and started getting our bikes all built up. The rest of us rolled in around 8:00 after some tasty dinner at In 'N Out. After a quick trip to the grocery store, we were pretty much all setup to have a great weekend!!

Thursday was XC preriding and DH track walking day. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately for me, one of the XC girls sucks and bailed on waiting to preride the course with one of our late arriving girls so I decided to preride the course with Katie on my 4x bike. Although it probably wasn't the most ideal thing for me for to be riding XC with a road cassette on my bike (lots of standing during climbs) at a bike race that I wanted to do really well at, in the end, I was really glad that I got to go. The course was one of the most fun XC race tracks I've ever ridden!

Our club president, Jamie, cooked up some pasta for us all for dinner on Thursday night, and I think we all felt ready to kick off another great Nationals race. The XC race went off early on Friday morning, and although we had a few issues with crappy call ups and some mechanicals we got off to a decent start. At the end of the day, we were 3rd overall to FLC and Lees McCrae, with CSU and a Cal State school close on our heels.

CU Cycling '09 Nationals Team (mostly)

Saturday was a big day ST in the morning and 4x in the afternoon. Blake got our first podium spot in ST and set the stage nicely for 4x in the afternoon. Given that the XC kids were done racing, they got on board with helping to support the gravity racers. We all did our qualifying runs for 4x, and things were looking pretty good. We had 6 of our 7 racers that qualified to race. Even though the race course was way less than ideal, there was some good racing that took place, and in the end we ended up with 2 podium spots. With a less than ideal gate start and a course with little passing opportunities I ended up in 2nd place...honestly a little disappointing, but hey, at least I didn't crash! :)

Racing 4x at Nats

Joey also had a really great day of racing and found his way to the podium in 3rd, on his DH bike no less! At the end of the day, the team found ourselves sitting solidly in 3rd place, but a bit surprisingly...within striking distance of Lees McCrae!!! When we first headed out to Nationals, I was honestly a little bit worried that we might be in danger of not being able to stay in the top 3, so it was pretty exciting to be sitting in a position to maybe move into 2nd with some good DH results the next day.

We all dragged oursleves out of bed early Sunday morning to head up for our DH qualifying runs. The course was in great condition, and everyone put in some solid qualifying runs. It was going to take some super solid efforts from all of us, but beating Lees McCrae was on the radar screen!! Deidre, Brittany, and I headed up to the top of the mountain to get warmed up. I didn't have a spectacular run, by any means, but I didn't crash, and I can't really say why I was so slow, but I ended up in 7th. Luckily Deidre had a great run and got a podium spot, 5th. Next up were the boys, and they decided to run the fastest qualifiers first so people wouldn't be catching some of the slow guys going for the omnium. Joey came across the line WAY ahead of the guy who qualified in first, and nobody even came close to knocking him off the top of the podium! Michael also had a great race and was on the podium in 4th!

The boys all put in a very solid effort and we ended up winning the boy's DH! So, in the end, we put in the efforts that we needed to (boy's DH-1st and girl's DH-2nd), and we just needed Lees McCrae to have a bad men's DH experience....our fingers were crossed! I spent a little bit of time trying to work out the numbers in my head to figure out if we'd made up the difference and finally gave up because it was too complicated without a pen and pencil! haha We headed to awards ceremony, not knowing the results, and found out that we had actually done it!! Lees McCrae's DH boys ended up in 7th, and we ended up sailing past them for 2nd!!

Overall, we had some really good performances from several different people, which makes for a fun team experience. Coordinating all of that for 20 people was a ton of work, and it would have been nice, for at least one year to be able to just be at the race, as a racer, not as a racer, team directory, and nationals coordinator, but so is life, and it's not in the cards for me! Ah well. Collegiate racing was a mixed experience for me. I'm glad that I did it, I met some great people (and some not so great ones, unfortunately), and hopefully I've helped develop some good stuff at CU Cycling that will carry on long past when I've gone!

Denver, Late Night

2009-10-19T17:56:00.005-06:00

Matt, Sarah, and I at Club Beta

Matt, Sarah, and I headed down to Denver to see DJ Armin van Buuren at Club Beta. I'd never been to Club Beta before, so I was pretty excited for a night of dancing.

DJ Armin van Buuren

Interesting Art at Club Beta

We had a great time dancing but knew that we had to get back to the bus station by 1:04 to get on the last bus to Boulder. To be fair, we were on it. We had a plan. I took the coat check tickets and was gonna meet Matt and Sarah at the door with all of our coats 5 minutes later...that's about where everything broke down. I waited and waited at the door, inside the club whilst Sarah and Matt were stuck outside yelling my name, as we were all watching the clock tick closer and closer to bus leaving time. Sarah and Matt decided to run to the bus, and I decided to wait, thinking that I didn't want to leave them without their coats. Long story short, I missed the bus and ended up spending ALL night in Denver with only my driver's license, credit card, and bus pass in my pocket. Blahh!! I headed back to the bus station to wait it out until the 5:00 bus back to Boulder only to find the bus station locked, apparently they don't want all the bums (myself included) sleeping in the bus station every night. Bummer! At least I was going to be warm with all three coats in tow! I ended up walking around 16th Street Mall for quite awhile and finally found a 7-11 that was open. I bought some highly intelligent (hahaha) mags to read and found a 24 hour coffee shop. It's amazing, really, how slowly time passes when you just really want to sleep...in your own bed! I ate some food...one potato at a time and watched the clock tick closer and closer to 5:00. I made it back to the bus station and found a few other Club Beta misser outers waiting for the bus back to Boulder along with morning commuters, it was a good mix. haha Anyway, I made it home in time for a couple of hours of sleep before getting back on the bus and heading to the airport to fly to Reno for Collegiate Nats. Ahhhh, a good story anyway! :)

Injury Article

2009-10-12T09:26:00.001-06:00

Here's an article that I did an interview for about being injured and coping with not being able to ride.

CU Cycling Washes the Mud Off

2009-10-11T09:34:00.006-06:00

Current and Ex CU Cycling Presidents

Most of the time you will find the members of CU Cycling chamois clad, covered in mud, or dressed as dinosaurs/robots/cowboys/Indians/etc... Last night we decided to have a cocktail party theme, and most people actually pulled out their smart clothes and showed up in style! It was a lot of fun!! We had an empty warehouse for a location, a sweet DJ, 5 gallons of Cosmopolitans, 2 kegs of beers, and smiles all around!

We did a little smart clothes shopping earlier in the day!

Me, Flora, and Merilee who knew Karl was so photogenic?!?

Me and James...Once again, I have yet to capture a picture of James where he's not pulling a face!

Andrew had his eyes closed or was out of sorts in every photo he made it into!

Exhibit B: Andrew and the girls of CU Cycling

Abby and Tanesha...the Vic's Coffee Girls

Sarah and me

Things that Make me Smile

2009-10-03T12:52:00.003-06:00

All things British...well most things anyway!

Beautiful trees that turn red in the fall

Colorado singletrack...even if the sun isn't shining!

Our New Little Projects

2009-09-25T21:47:00.007-06:00

I LOVE the $1 bins at Target. I have gotten loads of stuff for people from these bins...rarely stuff for myself, which is a good thing! Anyway, I found these little pumpkin and sweet basil "kits", so I got some for Holly and a couple for me. They're awesome, you open up the package and there is a little "puck" of dirt inside and some seeds. You add a cup of water to the dirt puck in the baggie, stir it up, and presto...insta potting soil. Add the seeds, go to Austria for 10 days, then come home to pumpkin plants and basil plants growing like mad!! I've got a couple of tiny flower pots projects as well, but they haven't started growing yet.

Ahhhhh, Autumn is here. Life slows down a little bit, and the simple little pleasures bring me great joy!! (Keep your fingers crossed that I don't kill them all, hahaha!) :)

Steep Learning Curve

2009-09-13T15:27:00.004-06:00

Tammy sent over these pics...a little more out and a little less up would have worked out better! haha Thanks to my sweet Kali skate lid for keeping my noggin safe, though!

An Amazing Day...Stopped in its Tracks!

2009-09-12T07:27:00.007-06:00

Looking down from St. Mary's Glacier

Chris is moving back to England on Wednesday, and I am leaving for Austria on Monday. A few weeks ago, he had promised me a day that we could just hang out together and not call and text other people all day (i.e. Mia, etc...). Friday was the day, and I was really looking forward to it!

We got off to a good start with breakfast at a place called Snooze in Denver. The food was amazing and plentiful, and the atmosphere was unique. It's very city-ish compared to some of our Boulder breakfast favorites. With our stuffed bellies, we headed off from there for the next adventure. Chris didn't know what any of the plans were for the day, other than we were planning to MTB at Buffalo Creek in the afternoon. After a few wrong exits (in no way intentionally trying to keep Chris confused as to where we were going) we were on our way up I-70.

I had heard a lot about St. Mary's Glacier, and you pass the St. Mary's/Alice exit sign every time you head west on I-70 from Denver, but I had never taken the time to go check it out. After a game of "You Can Only Step on Rocks-No Dirt" on the 0.75 mile hike up to the glacier from the road, we were treated to a really amazing little gem of a place here in CO.

The game ended up tied at 1-1 in the end

There is a small lake that sits at the base of the glacier, and the vegetation in the area is diverse and beautiful! The glacier is not large and will probably be gone in the not so distant future, unfortunately.

The St. Mary's Glacier Lake

We hiked up to the edge of the glacier and enjoyed sitting watching the water drip off and form a little stream down the hillside.

The melting glacier

Chris loves to swim in bodies of water (the really cold ones are his favorite!), and he decided we'd be swimming in this glacially fed high alpine lake. We didn't have our swim suits with us, so we hiked around to a mostly out of sight part of the lake and did a little skinny dipping. Man was the water cold! It took a little bit of your breath away with every breath you tried to take. After our brief stint swimming, we decided that drip drying and then sunning ourselves like lizards on the perfect sunning rock would be a fantastic idea. Long after we were dry, we continued to enjoy the sun/beautiful lake/overall amazing place and decided not to go MTBing and just enjoy the afternoon at the glacier instead.

Scoping out the fishies

Funny, funny!

We decided to take the much less traveled (okay, prolly not traveled by many people at all) route around the other side of the lake and back to the glacier. This adventure was great, we did some super easy rock climbing, some scrambling, and some sweet bush whacking to finally arrive again at the glacier.

All along the way, we took our time and "stopped to smell the coffee". We enjoyed the amazing views, the wonderful mountain air, the fact that there was hardly anyone else up there, and most importantly, each others company.

Cool "waves" formed in the melting glacier

Not thinking that it would be possible to be hungry again anytime before Christmas after our morning adventure at Snooze, we were both a little surprised that we were starting to feel hungry. We also (stupidly) hadn't brought water with us, so decided to head back to the car, albeit via a path less traveled (in hind sight, it was probably on private, no trespassing land, but...we'd been picking up litter all day, so they shouldn't complain at all!!). It was really nice to sit and enjoy some bread, cheese, and a fruity Roobios drink in the sun...then the phone rang. :(

Apparently Chris had lied to Mia and told her that he was going bike riding with James and me, not spending the day with me, sans James. I'm not sure how the convo on the phone went, but the ultimate ending was to cut our day short and race home for him to console Mia (who he had forgotten to mention to me is now his gf, great!). In the end, 3.5 hours later, we did end up going to dinner at Sherpa's (original plan), one of my favorite places in Boulder. Unfortunately, my patience with the bullshit had run too thin and my tolerance for the ridiculousness was gone and left me completely unable to put on a smile and try to enjoy the rest of the evening. :( I couldn't even really enjoy my lamb tikka masala, as those damn salty drops kept falling out of my eyes. Annoying at best! Needless to say, I had no desire to have us do any of the rest of the fun things I had wanted to do for the day, as it seemed like a moot point by then.

Pictures can be very deceiving, as it turns out!

So, what started out as a wonderful and amazing day finished off with more heartache and stupid antics than I ever want to deal with again. One can only take so much, as it turns out. My capacity for it all is (I think) amazingly large, but it has finally reached full up!!

That's all folks, sorry for the sad ending to an otherwise amazing day! Enjoy St. Mary's Glacier, if you're ever in the area, it is WELL worth it!!

Seriously??

2009-09-11T22:56:00.003-06:00

Ah man, I was so looking forward to going to Schladming, Austria on Monday for the MTB World Cup Finals. Apparently Mother Nature got wind of how I've been feeling lately and decided that it would be the weather forecast for the ENTIRE WEEK! Unlucky! Guess I'll be taking the mudders!

Back in the Swing of It, Sort of

2009-09-03T17:09:00.003-06:00

I've just been at school full time for the past two weeks...not gonna lie, it's not quite as exciting as traveling the world and racing my bikes! Ah, well, you gotta pay the piper at some point, I guess. It's been a pretty long and trying week, and I'm ready to wrap it up and put her in the books. I'll be racing the gravity Mountain States Cup finals this weekend up at Sol Vista. I'm hoping they put a good DH course together, and I'm excited to race the 4x track again. Should be a good weekend!

If you're up round 2:30 a.m. check out the 4x World Champs down in Australia LIVE!! :)

Eddie, I Mean Rusty, Rocks!

2009-09-02T23:40:00.002-06:00

Check out Eddie Clark's article about the Slope Sistair comp last weekend. (There is a pretty cool photo of me on the wall ride!) I met Eddie a long time ago, back in the day when he worked for IBM. I haven't hung out with him at all since then, so it was nice to get to spend the weekend hanging out with him. Thanks for taking great photos and doing a great job writing up the weekend!

Now Tweeting

2009-09-01T19:22:00.002-06:00

As if I don't have enough ways to procrastinate during the day!!!

Breath of Fresh Air

2009-08-31T09:44:00.005-06:00

Sweet wall ride that I fell off of the day before... :(

August has been a pretty rough month for me due to not getting selected for the World's team, not getting a research grant I was really counting on, a trip to the hospital to make sure my head is okay after landing on it hard whilst racing, and a lot of really complicated emotional stuff. This past weekend was the breath of fresh that I have needed for quite some time!

Tammy KILLED it all weekend!

After canceling my ticket to Australia which was supposed to leave on Friday night, I suddenly had the weekend free and decided to head out to Grand Junction to participate in the Slope Sistair III slopestyle and jump jam weekend. I wasn't able to get out there until Saturday morning, but as soon as I got there, I could tell the vibe in the air was great! There were some amazing freeride superstars there like Darcy Turenne, Tammy Donahugh, Stephanie Nychka, and Katie Hayes. Needless to say I was a little bit intimidated, but I was ready to be motivated to get back into dirt jumping and inspired by the talent and experience around me! I was not disappointed! All weekend, all of the girls were great! We all encouraged each other and pushed each other to learn new stuff or pull old trick out and dust them off!

Me and Darcy hammin' it up!

I'm so glad I made the 4 hour drive out there, even if it was only for 2 days. It was definitely worth it! Thanks to all of the girls for the encouragement, laughs, and fun!

Hanging out at the Ranch after the comps

Jackie at Freeride Foundation has a much better write up of the weekend than I have provided...check it out! :)

Check It

2009-08-26T19:27:00.002-06:00

I did an interview with Susan Greenwood...UK's Guradian Writer/Rider Extrordinare! It's on her blog, PedalFeet. Check it out. She's hilarious and gets to go on loads of bike related adventures for work! :) Oh ya, google her name, she did a sweet ride across America tour a few years back as well!

Change of Plans

2009-08-26T12:20:00.003-06:00

So, USA Cycling decided they would only be taking the current and former World Champions to World Champs in Australia this year. Big time bummer for me, especially since I already had a ticket to go. :( I don't understand their logic sometimes, but that's a topic for another time. I'm tired of talking about it at the moment! haha

ANYWAY, by not going to Australia on Friday, I now have this coming up weekend free, and there is a sweet riding/comp weekend going down at the Ranch in Grand Junction. It's the Slopestyle Sistair weekend. I've never done a slopestyle event and haven't really been spending a lot of time on the dirt jumps lately, but what the hell! It's gonna be a fun race with a sweet lineup of girls to ride with all weekend!

Super Yellowstone National Park Roadtrip Adventure

2009-08-24T06:31:00.015-06:00

At Mammoth in front of the terraces

Wow, what a trip! I can honestly say that last week was one of the BEST weeks, traveling with a wonderful person, I've had in a really long time! Chris and I had one fun filled adventure traveling through WY/Yellowstone National Park/MT!

Chris on (well off of) the Popo Agie Trail in Sinks Canyon, WY

Popo Agie Falls

On Monday we headed out pretty early and made our way to Lander, WY where we pulled the bikes out and did a nice little XC ride up to the Popo Agie Falls in Sinks Canyon. It was a really nice break on our way to Jackson Hole.

Just outside Dubois, WY

The Grand Tetons (with an anvil cloud)

From Lander, we headed up through Dubois and over the Jackson Hole. The drive from Dubois to Jackson is amazingly beautiful! I LOVE the Grand Tetons!! We stayed with my long time friend Brian Lenz in Jackson and enjoyed some pub food and some good beer before crashing at his super spacious studio apartment.

Ferrin's Trail with the Grands in the background...amazing!!

Classic :) On our way back from the Ferrin's Trail in Jackson

We got up on Tuesday and after a filling brekkie at Jedediah's, we headed up Cache Creek to do a little riding on Snow King Mountain. We hit up a trail called Ferrin's which had a good grade for climbing and a super fun descent from the top! The only bad part of the ride was me getting stung in the face by some bug on the road on the way back! It hurt when it happened, but the aftermath for the following three days is what really sucked! My eye got so swollen it looked like Chris had punched me. haha After our daily dose of single track, we got going and headed up to through Grand Teton National Park and into Yellowstone National Park.

Swollen left eye...thanks for punching me Chris! haha

Thermophilic bacteria and sulphur create the vibrant colors

Our first stop was at West Thumb. We got out to stretch our legs a little bit and get Chris introduced to some of the cool geothermal activity in the park. Also...we learned about how crowded Yellowstone can be and how the hoards of tourists can be a little overwhelming!

Natural Bridge in YNP

Flip Flop Scrambling

I think we might have been the "attraction" for them

After that, we stopped at the Natural Bridge. I don't think most people visit this pretty cool rock formation, as it's a bit "off the road". We rode our bikes out there and hiked around a bit. After that, we decided to head up to Norris to see if we could find camping. Everyone said you had to have reservations, but we drove up at 7:30 and found a spot, no problem! Chris whipped up a wonderful dinner (as usual!) and we enjoyed the $2.99 German Chocolate Cake that we bought on special in Jackson for desert. We had some noisy and very fat neighbors that were traveling with 8 little dogs. They were strange, to say the least! The coolest part about this night, though was that we were awoken in the middle of the night to a symphony of wolves howling! It was really coo, and slightly eerie to hear them. It was almost as if two different groups of them were talking to each other! I guess if you don't get to see the wolves...getting to hear them singing a tune is the next best thing!

The Artist's Paint Pot area

Wednesday morning we headed down to the Artist's Paint Pots. We got there pretty early and the road from Norris to Madison was closed beyond this turn off, so as a result, we had the place nearly to ourselves. There is an amazing boiling mud pot here that is very cool and pictures can't do justice to!

Chris' sweet find!

Chris had spotted something cool along the river on our way there, so on the way back, we stopped off and checked out a really neat thermal feature that we were able to walk through the river and right up to. I'm not sure this is how they intend for you to enjoy this feature of the park, but we thought it was great! From there, we headed up to Mammoth, on the north side of the park. There are some hot springs that you're allowed to sit in just north of town. The Boiling River dumps into the very chilly Gallatin River creating some of the best hot springs I've ever been to! After soaking ourselves to prune status, we checked out the terraces that Mammoth is famous for. They are very surreal, with some having amazing colors and others being "dried up" and looking like ice sculptures.

This canyon, near Tower, is pretty spectacular

Lower Falls of Yellowstone Canyon, 309 feet high

From there we headed back south along the west side of the park, stopping to enjoy different sites along the way. We stopped off to check out the Upper and Lower Falls. These are both pretty spectacular water falls with the lower one being 300+ feet high. We took the 328 metal stairs route down the the lower vantage point to enjoy the view. We definitely broke a sweat as we hiked out! After that we were lucky enough to see a grizzly bear cub! The poor thing was being harassed by tourons left and right. We weren't able to grab a photo, unfortunately, but I've never seen a bear in the park before, so Chris was pretty lucky to have gotten to see one! From there, we enjoyed a few more mud pot/sulphur cauldron sites along the way to Old Faithful.

Old Faithful is a bit of a Superhighway in Yellowstone. I think it's one of the most famous sites to see whilst there, albeit not the coolest, in my opinion, but regardless, I think it's a must see, if you're there! We got there about 45 minutes before the next geyser was set to go off, so we joined the throngs of people sitting around waiting for the show. Chris got some good pics of the action, and before the show was over, we bailed to avoid the mass chaos of people! We concluded our Yellowstone tour and headed out of the park to West Yellowstone to camp for the evening. On our way out of the park, we also were lucky enough to see a bald eagle chilling near the river. All in all, Chris got to see (and hear) a lot of cool stuff that most people are never lucky enough to see, and I think we were able to enjoy a few of the many beautiful sites in the park mostly sans super-crowds!

Old Faithful

We stayed just north of West for the night and got up and headed to the bike shop in town to get some beta on where some good rides might be. We headed out of town towards ID and drove to the top of the pass. From here we jumped on the Continental Divide Trail and started climbing. The trail was a bit rough due to heavy horse traffic (apparently whilst muddy!)

FUN, FUN trail riding in West Yellowstone

We didn't really know where we were going or wanting to go, but we just kept climbing through beautiful high alpine meadows full of amazing wild flowers. At one point, another trail crossed our path so we jumped on it and it started descending on a super fun and challenging trail. We ran into a dude ranch group on horses and found out we could keep descending on fun trails all the way back to the highway! It was so much fun and all we had to do was climb back up the pass on the road to get back to the car. All in a days work of chasing single track adventures! :) On to Butte, MT to visit my sister.

Butte, is apparently one of the oldest towns in the west, with its roots in mining. There have been several open pit mines in Butte with the most famous (and disastrous) one being the Berkley mine. They have made a complete mess of the hillside in Butte and depending on how things progress are slated to contaminate a whole watershed with heavy metals withing the next 10 years! Not so cool! It was really nice to catch up with my sister and her family. My nephew is so cute! I don't get to see him nearly enough!

We headed down to my cousin's in Bozeman to do a bit more fun single track hunting. Julie took us out to the Leverage trail south of town and put the hurt on! Well, it put the hurt on me anyway. Chris has a stout 37-32 on his bike right now, and he pedaled up the hill seemingly effortlessly, whilst I was in the back wheezing like a fat kid with asthma in my granny ring! :( Once we got to the top, though, it was well worth it! The descent on that trail was super fun, flowy and fast!

To finish out the grand tour, we stopped in Laurel, MT to have lunch with my Grandma and then headed down to Powell, WY to visit my parents for the night. They made us a nice steak dinner to cap off Chris' Wild West Adventure! The ride home was full of construction, speeding tickets and tears, so 6 outta 7 nearly perfect days made up the best week I've had in a long, long time! Thanks for being so fun to travel with Chris!

I think Chris had fun seeing the MT/WY sites and getting ride in new places.

Yellowstone National Park Road Trippin'

2009-08-15T12:42:00.003-06:00

Chris and I are headed out on a super Yellowstone National Park adventure on Monday. He's trying to fit as much fun as he can in before he heads back to the UK in the middle of September.

First we're heading up to Jackson Hole to visit my friend Brian, then up to Yellowstone for a couple of days. From there we're planning to get some good XC riding done in West Yellowstone, MT before heading up to visit my sister in Butte, MT (maybe a stop off at Lewis and Clark Caverns...still TBD). After the quick visit with my sister and family, we'll head down to Bozeman, MT to do some riding and stay with my cousin. We'll make a quick stop off to say hi to my Grandma en route to my parents house in WY for a day and then the painful drive back home from there. It'll be a whirlwind trip with loads of scenery, hopefully some great riding and some quick visits to the fam. Should be fun! :) Hopefully we'll have some good picture updates along the way. Chris has become a bit of a professional panoramic view photographer!

Snowmass MSC race

2009-08-10T10:06:00.004-06:00

Getting the scoop on the fast lines from Jared

I headed down to the Snowmass MSC race on Friday morning. On the way out of town, I managed to meet up with my friends Michael and James Ontiveros and ended up "kidnapping" Michael for the ride to Aspen. I haven't seen him in way too long, as he's been solving crazy math problems at NYU for his final year of school! :) It was really good to catch up with him!

I got to the mountain in time to get in a DH run before 4x practice started. I felt really good on the bumpy loose course! 4x practice was awesome on my new hard tail!! I LOVE it! I spent a lot of time just doing gates and getting my snap timing back. It's felt a bit sluggish at the World Cups lately, but I think I got it all sorted on Friday!

Saturday morning saw a couple of good DH runs before 4x practice and qualies. The beginning of practice was great. I was hitting all of the lines that I wanted and getting all of the jumps very smoothly...it deteriorated as the two hours went on. :( Needless to say the end of practice was much more representative of my qualy run than the beginning, unfortunately. I qualified 3rd.

We had a little bit more practice time before racing that evening, and I got everything dialed in again and was ready to go! I really wanted the Colorado State Championships jersey! First round was me, Darian and Marty Renn, straight outta retirement! :) I was in lane 2 and got a pretty crappy gate, but I was still in the lead. Apparently I hit the double at the end of the 2nd straight with more speed than I had in practice, and I overshot it a bit (or so I'm told) and didn't quite make the miniature berm that I needed to be in. I guess I tried to turn anyway and ended up knifing my front wheel and planting my head firmly into the ground. I guess I got up and finished the race and then started walking back up the hill before I "came to". I don't remember all of that, it's just what everyone has told he happened. :( End of the night and weekend for me. 2nd concussion in as many weeks = not so good. Chris convinced me that it would probably be a good idea to go get checked out, since it is my brain we're talking about. Everything checked out ok, so that's good. I still have a headache today, but hopefully it'll all be ok soon!

In much better news, Chris is the Cat 1 19-29 Colorado State XC Champion, and James is the 19-29 Super D Colorado State Champion. I would've really liked to have made it 3 for 3 for State Champs jerseys at our house, but...I guess it wasn't in the cards. Oh well. I felt like I was riding really well all weekend, which I haven't felt for quite a while, so that's good for something, I suppose. Gonna take some time to relax and just train hard for the next couple of weeks before Australia! :)

Ahhhh, Boulder

2009-08-04T20:11:00.009-06:00

Only in Boulder: The "You're Speeding" Reminder...On the Bike Path!!!

I've been away from Boulder for most of the summer, so I've forgotten a lot of funny and quirky things about Boulder that you probably don't see in too many other places! Boulder is a great place to live, in fact I'm not sure where else in the states I'd ever want to live. It's good to be home, but throughout my summer travels, I think that I've realized that once I finish my PhD (hopefully sooner than later!!!) it is probably time for me to move on from here. I'm not sure where to, as there are so many possibilities! :)

PT Cruisers SUCK!!

2009-08-04T20:11:00.007-06:00

Like I said, PT Cruisers SUCK!!!

This is the third time that I've gotten stuck with a PT cruiser for my race rental vehicle. I hate them! This time it was extra sucky! We came back from practice on Friday and realized we had a flat tyre. Booo. It was just an inconvenience that I didn't want to deal with. Well, we got on getting the spare put on. Melissa was working on getting the lug nuts off, and suddenly one of them sheared off! Ugghhh. Someone had cross threaded it. At this point, some photog guy must have decided that we needed help, so he came over and finished off putting the spare on for us. He proceeded to shear off another lug nut, so at that point, we only had 3 left. Luckily, they were in a triangle pattern, so safer than all next to each other, I guess.

Well, I spent a long time on Saturday morning trying to get Thrifty in Canada to give us a different car and or get the situation fixed for us. They were of no help. All of the garages around were only open until noon on Saturday, but as it turns out, it didn't matter, as the parts that we needed were only available from a dealer...which are not open on Saturdays. Our friend fixed the flat for us, and we left the switching back process until Sunday morning.

SOOOO lucky they had this setup at their house!

Sunday morning comes along, and we're all super hung over and not looking forward to putting the newly repaired tyre back on. Luckily, our friends had another house guest, Sam, who was super psyched to help out. Sam took charge of getting the situation sorted. Well, turns out whoever the idiot was that put those wheels on before us had cross threaded most of the lug nuts. Same sheared off another. Now we were down to 40%. Not okay. Luckily (AGAIN) our friend Gab has a full on garage lift at their house. I came out of the house from getting packed and they had the whole PT Piece of Shit Cruiser up on the lift with the two front wheels completely dismantled. They were "borrowing" a stem/lug nut combo from the other wheel for the janky one. Well, lucky for us they're so car savy, and they got it all sorted and we were on our way to Burlington, VT for our flight, fully prepared to have it out with Thrifty once we got there.

Unfortunately, we had a bit of an epic journey back to the states! When we got to the border crossing, they decided to harass the hell out of us and keep us there for 45 minutes asking all sorts of questions about what we were doing in canada, how we were funding the trip, what we had to declare, etc... the ONLY things we had to declare were two chocolate bars that Melissa had bought, so we thought it was pretty strange that they were bugging us so much. They spent 15 minutes searching the car and then came in and asked loads of questions about what had happened to the car...the whole sheared off lug nuts/wheel problem.

I explained the whole situation to them and then they continued asking questions about whether the spare had been out of our possesion, where we had gotten it fixed, etc...In fact, they asked the same questions several times (a little slow on the uptake, I guess!). In the end, they finally let us go after giving us a lecture about it being unsafe to drive like that. Thanks, we already know that! ha In the end we got to the airport pretty late, but our flights were delayed anyway, so it was ok!

We couldn't figure out why they were bothering us so much, but after we left we decided that they must have thought we were trying to smuggle drugs across the border. Idiots! Wouldn't they figure that if we were going to try and do that we wouldn't rock up with missing lug nuts, no hub cap on the wheel, a spare tyre that was a bit dangly, and me with a lost driver's license?!?

In the end it was a pretty funny story, but during it all it was a huge hassle, and we were so lucky that our friends were so savy and got us all sorted. Otherwise we'd have been sitting in Bromont for who knows how long trying to get all of that sorted out!

On to Bromont

2009-07-29T08:33:00.003-06:00

It's hard to get a good picture of the waterfall. Believe me, though. It's impressive!

Melissa and I headed out of Mont Sainte Anne to Bromont. Along the way we stopped at the highest waterfall in Canada (not the BIGGEST, that'd be Niagra, but it's the highest). It's just outside of Quebec City, and it's pretty impressive!

From there we headed to our friend's house in Bromont..."The Paradise B&B". This is what we named their amazing house on Mount Brome. They are wonderful hosts with a house that made it really nice to "come home" after practice and racing!

Ahh, heavenly!

One of the best parts of Bromont is the Musee du Chocalat! I'm not the biggest fan of chocolate, but this place not only has amazing chocolate, it has wonderful and pretty darn inexpensive food! We ate there three times. haha :)

Cool Jenga-like Building in Montreal

Old Town Montreal...sometimes I wish I could just lie down in the middle of the street and throw a tantrum, haha!

We all headed into Montreal for dinner one night and Gab and Claudine gave us the short version of the grand tour of the city. It's a cool place! Apparently the night life is awesome, so we'll have to go back some time when we can actually check it out!

I was having a really bad week with some personal stuff at the beginning of the week and just couldn't get my head on straight to ride my bike. After walking the DH course and realizing that I didn't remember half of what I'd just walked down because I was thinking of other things, I decided it would be in my best interest to NOT race down the gnarly off camber rock slab course, especially since it was forecasted to rain, a lot!

The 4x track in Bromont is super fun and really long! The first straight is FAST!! It seems like this is the moral of all of my stories, but I didn't have a good qualifier...gonna work on this for World's, for sure!!! I ended up with Melissa, Mio, and Joanna in the first heat. Jo got a good gate and pushed me way far to the left on the track, leaving me with little in the way of options. Coming into the rock garden, I found myself in no mans land where I had never ridden before...and for good reason! The rocks were HUGE! After that mishap, I was way behind and just finished out the heat and went on to cheering. The highlight of the 4x racing that evening was the young American National Champ, Mitch Ropelato! I've gotten to know this kid fairly well at the races this summer, and he's not only a super talented, fast ripper, but he's a super nice kid, too! It's gonna be a lot of fun to watch him race 4x and DH at World Champs!!

After the racing was over, we all washed the mud out of our hair and got a bit dolled up and headed to the party with the hopes that it would be better than it had been the year before! It didn't disappoint! There was a lot of dancing, some beer drinking, some French-German lessons (haha), and a lost driver's license (well, stolen, actually, but that's just semantics when you don't have it the next day!). Good times, good times!

Mont Sainte Anne World Cup

2009-07-27T07:53:00.003-06:00

Melissa, Me, Darian, and Jackie reping the USA!!

Mont Sainte Anne puts on one of the best World Cup races all season. I think the venue and racing is better at Fort William, but Gestev (the race promoter) is doing something right!!! All race promoters should come to this race and take notes!

The 4x track is awesome! Phil rebuilt the course trying to get it all sorted out for World Champs next year, and he made massive really good improvements. I had so much fun riding the track! I got a flat tyre in qualies, which was a real bummer, but that's how it goes. In the first round racing I had a gate of 3 with Fee and Mio. I entered one of the berms faster than I had previously trying to anticipate anywhere to pass and the next thing I knew... I was on my head with the wind completely knocked out of me! It took me 2-3 minutes to sort my breathing out. :( I got up, with my broken and bouncing around peak and finished...just because the jumps were so much fun that I wanted to ride them again!

The DH track is gnarly!! It is long, fast, bumpy, some tech stuff in the woods and some jumps. I had a hard time holding on! I was feeling good in the upper woods section until the very end. I crashed and just couldn't get it back together after that. It was fun to get on that track, though. I've walked it when I've been in MSA doing 4x in the past and have always wanted to give it a go, so I'm glad I raced!

US National Champs

2009-07-21T05:28:00.003-06:00

Ummmmm, this sign was on the course well after the 50 foot gap jump...maybe they need to order some more signs! haha

The National Champs ended up being pretty disappointing for me. My tailbone was still pretty unstable and healing up, but I decided to race anyway. It's not very often that the National Champs race is only 2.5 hours away!

I headed up to Sol Vista on Wednesday afternoon to get some course walks in before practice started on Thursday. The DH track was fresh cut...not even cut in some spots. There were huge doubles at the end of the course that used up a lot of valuable elevation real estate. The 4x track was pretty long and was raw! I'm not even going to go into the "Pro" start gate/first straight, as once I got there I saw it and instantly realized that it was dumb. I'm not trying to take the piss at the Sol Vista boys for their effort in progressing the sport, but it is 4x racing, and whether they like it or not, gate starts are and should have an importance in the race. A good course is one that is designed in such a way that just because you have a good gate start, it doesn't guarantee that you'll win the race.

Anyway...I rode pretty tenatively all weekend, and it showed! :( I qualified really poorly for 4x but then I had some really good gates and was riding really well until Jackie jumped into me on a section of the course that was only wide enough for 1 person, not too. We both went down, and my bike was pretty well jacked when I got up and tried to ride it after all of that. Bummer. DH was fun to ride, but I had no intentions of doing the big jumps...wasn't feeling it, so that pretty much wrote me out of the equation to do well. I ended up crashing and breaking my brake in the finals for a DNF. I hate DNFing!

That's all.

The Label Goes on the Outside!

2009-07-10T20:31:00.003-06:00

You know, sometimes I try and multitask when I really need to focus my attention. One would think that after many, many years of getting dressed in the morning, you might be able to, at least mentally, multitask whilst putting clothes on. Turns out, I can't. At least once a week, I manage to put my underwear, pants, panties, knickers, whatever the hell you want to call them, on inside out. At least I have a giggle to myself every time I realize that I've done it again. Ah, well, that's probably too much information for most of you, but sometimes you've just got to share those little pieces of personal comedy. :)

There and Back Again

2009-07-10T07:29:00.002-06:00

Well, I returned to Boulder, albeit an hour after we were supposed to get here, via British Airways on Tuesday evening. I've never had such a lucky check-in experience as I did at the London Heathrow airport. My friend Bernard dropped me off with all of my stuff, after I spent the whole morning complaining about how I couldn't get to all fit into my bags and boxes (got it all to fit in the end!) and that I was going to get charged so much in excess baggage fees (both bags were at least 27 kgs and I had two bikes, neither of which were 23 kgs, either). I'm not going to lie, I did do a quick sweep of my options of people to check-in with, and the guy I chose did look like the one to be most easily charmed with a big smile! haha I rolled up to his counter with the biggest smile I could muster and was as polite as I could be. In the end, I didn't pay for anything that was overweight, nor did I pay for either of my bikes! Not bad, not bad. It gets better though! I mention to the guy about my sore bum and that I've gotten stuck with a middle seat, and I wonder if he could possibly find me a window seat for the 10 hour flight home. He says he'll see what he can do, but the flight is full, so no promises. In the end, the guy got me upgraded to business class, and when I got on the plane a family wanted to all be next to each other, so I got the window seat that I wanted, too! It was a good day at the airport. I haven't been able to say that very many times!! :)

I've been back for a couple of days now (actually wish I'd never left, though!!), and I'm just trying to get my life all sorted out with school stuff, bike stuff (new hardtail arrived in my absence...more on that soon. it's sweet!), new tyre sponsor, going to Dr's to figure out my broken bum and whether I can race next week, etc...Not a lot to write home about, but I'll have a couple of updates in the near future!

R & R in Morzine, France

2009-06-26T04:54:00.003-06:00

Breathtaking!

Hmmm, the drive isn't so bad when these are your views!

On our way to Morzine from the WC in Slovenia, we stopped off at Lake Garda in Italy. It was such a cute little Italian town, and there is a cool castle that sits on the edge of the lake. We headed into the castle to have a look around (albeit and abridged look since I was hobbling around on crutches) and breakfast. It was a nice stop over on the way to the French Alps!

The lake "moat" around the castle on Lake Garda

Hop A Long Cassidy, Fee, and Jo, enjoying a little bit of history

The birds were ruthless, they'd come straight at your food!

The day's gelato...before anyone started digging into it

We arrived in Morzine...a MTB's paradise, and I am so lucky as to get to sit on my broken bum the whole time we're here! :( They have a very nice Olympic size swimming pool that I can use for a euro a day, so it's not so bad, I guess. It's a really beautiful place here, so "having" to stay here to heal up isn't so bad, I suppose. :) We're staying at a chalet fun by FlowMTB. I'll post more on them later, they're awesome!!!

There are little castles everywhere!

The history of these places is so rich.

Jo Jo helping to pass the time on the road :)

Downgraded: Cheerleader Status at Maribor WC :(

2009-06-23T14:39:00.004-06:00

:( Fractured Sacrum

Gotta love Dr.'s reports...especially in Slovenian! :(

Well, we made it safe and sound to Maribor just in time for a massive hail and rain storm! Unfortunately I've lost a bunch of pictures that I took whilst in Maribor, so no hail storm or race pictures. :(

Anyway, we walked the track on Wednesday and it looked like it was going to be so much fun to race. There were a few more roots than I love, but I was prepared to deal with them for the fun that all of the turns, berms, and jumps had to offer! :)

Thursday, we all head up for 4x practice in the afternoon, and I was having a great time. The course was FAST, flowing in some parts, awkward in others, big jumps, and definitely challenging. I was following Jo Jo getting sorted on the course when things went suddenly wrong! The first straight was a bit awkward and super fast! I've really been working hard to use my brakes less, and to my credit, I didn't use them at all...ummm, ooops. Well, in the end, I ended up going way past where I had planned on landing and not far enough to clear the last log feature, so down I went!! HARD!!! A couple of people that I know saw the crash and said it was a good one! I crawled (couldn't walk!) off of the course and sat on the sidelines for about 15 minutes. I knew something was pretty wrong in my low back, pelvis region, but I didn't want people to fuss about over me, and just sitting there watching practice meant that I could prolong the reality of being injured...again!

Off to the hospital I went. I got some x-rays and a CT scan with the final verdict being a fractured sacrum (part of the pelvis). After a bout of fainting and some puking, we decided it'd be best if I stayed the night in the luxurious Maribor hospital. Yea!!! :( They were pretty full of for the night, so they chucked the bed that I was on into the middle of a room with four really OLD ladies in it. Needless to say, I didn't get the best sleep of my life that night! Fee and Jo Jo came around to retrieve me the next day in between DH and 4x practice. Boy was I glad to see them. They sent me off with crutches and a perscription to get a bunch of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) injections at the pharmacy. I hate needles, and the thought of having to give myself an injection every day was horrible!

Anyway, back to the race that had barely even begun!

4x qualies were on Friday night in the dry dust! Saturday night the heavans opened up and it started pissing down the rain! DH practice on Saturday was epic (or so I was told), and then they ended up postponing qualies till the next day b/c thunder and lightening kept closing the lift down. The rain stopped and muddy, muddy 4x finals ensued! It was fun to watch the racing with some pretty good passing taking place during the heats! Melissa ended up in 2nd on the night which was awesome!!!

Sunday morning everyone got up bright and early for 7:00 am DH practice and 9:30 qualies. That morning's qualies were the most exciting I've ever watched! My friend Bernard Kerr had an amazing run and qualified 11th!! The boy has been riding out of his mind the last couple of weeks! Racing was slated for later that afternoon, and it was so warm and dry that most people traded in their mud spikes for regular tires in the end. Sabrina held on for her 4th win in a row, which was awesome!! Unfortunatley Bernie had a crash in his finals, as he was on pace to put in a really good run. He still ended up 44th with his best DH finish yet!

Hanging out with Sabrina was the best part of the evening.
Tiny bars full of loads of drunk people aren't the best place to
have any sort of conversation! :( Ah well!

The afterparty in Maribor always sucks, and I was certianly not looking forward to it this year being on crutches. It's always down in the town, which is a fair distance from the race venue (and where everyone is staying). We hopped on a bus to head downtown and about 5 minutes into the ride, a baseball sized rock (from who knows where) came sailing through the window, throwing glass all over the place, including into Jo's arm, making it bleed! We all say, a bit in disbelief that that had really just taken place. We sat around for about 20 minutes before the police and another bus showed up to take us on our merry way. This trip has held a lot of "firsts" for me, and that was definitely one of them. Hopefully it's also a last, as that was really scary, and if the rock had hit anyone, it definitely would have taken them out!

Our bus window post "stoning"

Anneke getting a little extra training in and biding
the time until the replacement bus showed up

Oh, and as predicted, the party sucked, especially since I was just sat around trying not to get pushed over by all of the rowdy drunk DHers crammed into way too small of a place for everyone!

Eurochamps

2009-06-12T12:16:00.009-06:00

Bernard Kerr on top of the box: 2009 European Champion.
Not bad, not bad!

European Champs is a really big race, similar to World Champs, but just with the 12 European Country Federations bringing their contingencies of racers. I had several friends racing for the Great Britain, French, and Swiss teams. I spent most of Saturday driving shuttles for people up to the lift, as it was a silly uphill ride from the bottom of the course back to the lift. They had their qualifying runs and the opening ceremonies on Saturday. My friends Bernard Kerr and Sabrina both qualified first with conservative but fast runs!

Sabrina and Floriane at the Opening Ceremonies...man those girls are fast!

Fee and Bernie rocking the GB colors

This guy is a legend! He was in Schladming rocking

around on this bike all weekend last year, too!

Bernie and Harry qualied 1,2 for the day! Nice!!

Emi was so, so sick before her race run. Still a trooper, though!

Racing was slated for Sunday starting at 10:30. Bernie ended up killing it and won the Junior class by 3.5 seconds, which would have put him in 5th in elites! Unfortunately Sabrina had a huge crash and didn’t finish well. The French girls took over the podium again with Floriane Pugin taking the win followed by Emmeline Ragot and Celine Gros. Fee ended up in 6th for the day.

Me and Sabrina kicking back and enjoying the
mounatin views, rivers, and lakes!

The next day we headed out for a beautiful XC ride up one of the next valleys up. We rode past a ski jump training facility on our way up to the bottom of the snow pack. We had so much fun on the way down doing cutties in the scree just playing around. It’s a lot of fun riding with girls with such phenomenal skills!!!

XC ride up to the bottom of the snow pack up another
canyon in Kranjska Gora on Monday

On our way to Maribor, we stopped off in beautiful Bled, Slovenia. This place is COOL!!! There is a beautiful lake in the middle of town that has an island in the middle with a cool church on it. We hired a row boat to go to the island, but about 2 minutes into the adventure, Fee, Jo, and I decided we'd like to swim to the island, so we made Paul row the rest of the way there. It was such refreshing mountain water and it was nice to get a little bit of exercise as well!

Jo cracking the whip on my less than stellar rowing effort

Time for some swimming!

There's a cool castle on the lake cliff side as well!