"Can I take your picture?"

You've got to be kidding me!

Our very own is in the Cervelo Test video.
Check out minute 4:30.

Training

Last night I met up with OC to pre-ride this weekend’s circuit course in East Union (south of Chaska). Finally back on my training bike after a serious overhaul, I didn’t feel so good and my performance was low. This will be a hard race. It’s a short-flat course with a large possibility for strong westerly winds—tailwind finish. A lot of girls showed huge improvement this past weekend. Should be interesting.

Duluth Classic

Bikes, crashes, drama, smack talk, collaboration, vendetta, victory, hugs, and laughing so hard your belly would hurt—was what this weekend was all about and more.

Friday

I loaded up my jeep with more crap then I ever thought I needed for a weekend of racing and met two of my teammates. We were taking an RV to Duluth—also known as the fun bus—with a 2.5 month old and Grandma. As always Points was running late (1.5 hours). When you call her and the first thing she says is “Girl” you know it’s not good. Thankfully we waited for her, because really…she’s too much fun, and traffic wasn’t as bad as we expected it on a holiday weekend. The first race was going to be a 16.2 mile time trial. There were 17 women in my categories, we were all going off every thirty seconds in alphabetical order based on your last name. I was the last one from my team to go off. Right after the first turn I passed the two girls in front of me. Alex—one of the girls stayed with me (remember her name), which was fine because I wanted a carrot and she was keeping at a pace I wanted to stay. On the third and final turn we hit a section of road that was horrible. The road dipped down and up every few feet making a sound like “cha-kunk, cha-kunk”. Not only is your seat hurting from the position you were in now you are on this horrible road grimacing every time you hit the bump. I could have done without.

Once I saw the town I kicked it up and whizzed past Alex finishing with a time of 43:59 putting me in 4th place. My teammate Kristi got 2nd place (43:17), but what seemed odd was the girl that got 1st place (38:14).

Long story short, she started 60 seconds behind Jackie and ended about 60 seconds in front of Jackie but was able to beat Jackie by 6 minutes. We discussed this for hours and hours about this issue, but since there was no chip timing and the officials are standing by the results we can’t prove that they are wrong. Doesn’t it seem odd that a Junior girl put in a TT time that would beat the Men’s Cat 1/2 time from last year? And don’t you think that if a girl can put in that time she wouldn’t have lost 15 seconds on a flat road race?

All races were based on overall time.

Saturday

9am road race with some hills.

I found out that I was close to capturing 3rd position—but equally close to slipping back to 5th. This was to be known as the quite day. Little to everyone’s knowledge this race was going to be filled with a lot of stupid riders and a crash in every field. Good thing I worked on my chattering skills over the winter—I had to use them many times during our race.

In our field many of the girls were getting angry with the girl that was sitting in 1st position. She would slip in between you and another rider that you were already pretty close to then would change positions for no reason. Her teammate would do the same—almost causing a crash within the first 2 miles. After the third turn I was rolling next to my teammate taking about when the hills were coming up—she said we already did them—not much of a hill if you asked me. We decided that we were bored and needed to spice up the ride and put in an attacks. She attacked and I followed but Alex (from the day before) saw her and went from the middle of the road all the way to white like in a diagonal direction cutting me off and almost caused me to go down due to her poor handling skills. I screamed so loud at her and told her to hold her wheel that anyone who has ridden with me would have been shocked.

After our attack another girl put in a counter attack. Now the race was starting to get fun! The tempo slowed down until 2 miles to the line—KOM (king of the mountain) points were on the line. What I thought was funny was that the KOM points should’ve been sprint points due to the location of the line and the terrain of the course. I chose to conserve my energy and go for the time bonus at the end.

We started the second loop and for some reason I was breathing hard. I was nervous about everything—the lack of riding skills the girls showed during the first lap, with all the girls pretty much together you never know what could happen and the anticipation of someone going to attack started to get to me. I was getting pushed over the centerline more times than I could count which concerned the official behind us to come up and give me a warning.

Part of the course I was talking with one of the girls. She made a comment and said “I hope the person behind me isn’t pissed off because I’m all over the road.” I later ended up behind her and as a joke told her to hold her line. Then moved up next to a teammate. Two minutes later that girl went for the water bottle hitting my teammate’s wheel, that I was next to, over compensated and hit my other teammate, Jen—taking her down. Jen finished the race but had to DNF the rest of the weekend. Of all people, we all wished Jen wouldn’t get hurt. She is new to racing and crashing could really freak out a new racer.

We took the final turn and the speed picked up. I have never been in a race that was so scary. Everyone was jocking for position, speeds were in the mid 30’s, a few attacks took place and was brought back. I was pushed outside the yellow line about 4 times by the same person—I made sure she knew that her handling skills sucked. If you’re going to endanger my ride then you’re going to hear about it from me.

Everything happened so fast and somehow I got out front and was sprinting to the line. Kristy was on my tail yelling at me to go faster. Then at the last second a girl came up on my right side and took the win, Kristy got second, I got third. I was so pissed! I wanted to win a road race—at least once.

I later talked to the official behind us and said if the girl that won was the girl that popped a tire and was brought back to the group drafting behind his car he would owe us a case a beer. I later found out—he owed us a case of beer. It was predetermined that you could get help back to the group if you have a popped tire.

Sunday

This was going to be the hardest day.

We rolled up to the race and the first thing you could see was “the hill”. Holy Crap was that a nasty hill. Good thing we had 4 hours to look at that thing and contemplate our insanity level. Once the course was open I rolled about half way up to check out how steep it truly was—not too bad, but when your racing it was going to be hard.

The first time up was neutral—because they don’t end a race at the bottom of the hill! After the first turn my team started attacking. We attacked about 4-5 times during the first loop. One of the girls said, “this is not going to be a easy race.” Nope!

At the bottom of the hill I told Jackie “ride your own race and have fun.” We both knew that she wouldn’t be able to stay with the group up the hill. About ¾ of the way up I was out of gears and started to fall off the back. Once at the top I jumped back into the big wheel and took off down the decent. I could have picked up a few feet if I didn’t have to slow down on the turn, but I was still confident that I could still catch-up. On the second roller I started to doubt my ability to get back on to the group. They were so close, but I just couldn’t get them. My heart rate was in the 170-180’s since the bottom of the hill. I dropped my head in defeat until the official in the car behind me pulled up next to me and gave me a bit of encouragement letting me know that they are slowing down. I looked up and could see my teammate Kristy looking back and noticing I was struggling to get back onto the group, she moved up to the front and slowed the group down until I could catch on. Once on, the group started a drafting rotation. I sat in the back for a few turns then jumped in and started to help out. I couldn’t believe I was able to recover so quickly and to still be strong.

Kristy was stilling in 2nd position and the leader was in our lead group of 9.

The second time up the hill was a mirror of the first. I fell off the back and struggled to get back on. I got back on in about the same area. Once on the group I was able to catch my breath a little faster then I started to yell “we dropped the leader! She’s off the back! Let’s go!!” It was like putting a match under the group everyone started yelling “Push harder. Don’t slow down. We need to time on her before the hill.” All eight of us were working together like clockwork. One girl fell off the back since she was cramping—we were down to 7 girls.

On one of the stretches I was behind Alex who pulled off to the side a bit to take a drink of water, but wasn’t able to put the bottle back into the cage correctly thus dropping right in my line. There was nothing I could do the water bottle was still in motion. I wanted to go right but that wouldn’t get me anywhere other than a good road rash. I had no choice. I held on tight and rolled over the bottle hopping not to roll over the top part of the bottle. Luckily I had a little experience on rolling over odd shaped objects and was able to keep myself upright while the bottle exploded due to my impact and it still having water in it.

We started to approach the hill and my left thigh and my right calf started to cramp up on me. Kristy pulled back and I told her just to go. I won’t be able to accelerate and that I was just going to finish. Knowing that I would lose 3rd position. The official pulled up to me while I was climbing the hill and gave me some positive feedback on my race performance before he took off. I got 7th place.

When I finished I found Kristy on the side of the road. We were both tired but running on adrenaline. We must have hugged 3 times, almost tears, excited that we had time on the leader. Now we waited.

We were able to take away 2:40 on the leader. Amy came up the hill, everyone was yelling at her like she was the first one up the hill. A few seconds later Jackie came up the hill sprinting like she was going for the win. All the girls did awesome!

Monday

The night before I thought I would celebrate—which was a dumb mistake. I won’t get into it because basically I’m embarrassed. I know better but I decided to let my hair down and I paid for it on Sunday.

No hangover, but moving slowly I was done with all this racing, and being stressed out on my performance that I just wanted to go home but I had one more race to do—a crit.

Overall the crit wasn’t that bad. There was one downhill turn that looked scarier than it really was, a windy section that wasn’t an issue, and a hill that was harder to get to the top then the big hill the day before. My heart rate stayed low but my legs were done. At one point I saw we had 12 laps left—which meant I had to drag my butt up that damn hill 12 more times. The next time I looked I was down to 6. Somewhere around lap 4 or 5 I dropped a chain right at the steepest part of the hill. I got it back on, clipped in and was able to start moving. Some guy came out and gave me a push. The next time around I asked him for another push up the hill. Hell, if you’re not going to be in the lead group—have fun!

I finished overall in 5th place. Kristy took home the hardware—or should I say a bike tire—for 2nd place overall (but we know she was the real winner).