First muddy CX race of the season! The tacky conditions from Day1 had transformed into a soup bowl overnight and guaranteed a different race on Day 2, despite the course being largely the same.

The start of our race was aggressive as we thundered down the wet pavement vying for the hole shot. I wasn’t really in contention since I started from the 2nd row, but did hit the hole shot line in 4th or 5th. Upon entering the grass we all squirted different directions as we tamed our speed and gained an appreciation of how our tires were going to handle the wet conditions.

From there I quickly slipped and slid my way back to the familiar 20th position, which is when then the real fun began. I mean, when you’re sucking and well out of podium contention you might as well race for fan appreciation!

The Stanley Run Up, where I earned marshmallows and GWs the day before, was completely unrideable today. It was all I could do to huff my mud laden bike and body up the hill, but that didn’t stop the fans from hollering, “Hey plaid, what’s your problem!? You rode it yesterday!”. I laughed, but was thinking, “Hey Wisco fans, what’s your problem!? How come you’re so stingy with your greenbacks on Sunday?” By my 4th and final lap I only had 1 soggy bill down my skin suit and was ready to wait for the 21st place rider to see if we could stage a mud wrestling match and charge admission. Then, from behind my mud caked glasses, I saw a fan dangling his arms over the course tape and yelling, “free hug hand up!!” Hope he didn’t think beggars could be choosers because I stopped and dished out the muddiest bear hug I have ever been part of. Thanks man, I needed that. Hope your jacket was machine washable.

Huge thanks to Glen and Kari who were all stars in the pits for us. Fresh bikes each lap were such a luxury!

And that was that, the end of our 2 week cross crusade. Big thanks to our home stays and all the great people we met along the way!

A picture from Day 1 (Podium Insight). Yes, I get that excited about marshmallows:

Mud from Day2 (velonews):

http://velonews.competitor.com/2011/09/news/exergy-brings-equal-prize-money-as-new-usgp-sponsor_192909

I finished in 20th position today, well out of the Exergy prize money…but I nabbed $3 in cash hand-ups from the lunatic fans on the Stanley Run Up (which was also dubbed the hillside strangler). After Lap1 I was out of the top 15, so my main goal became riding the run-ups. I couldn’t hop the ties, but was able to remount and ride it every lap…much to the delight of the fans who were not only offering cash hand ups but also marshmallows, cheese puffs and beer. I declined the beer (so not as to break UCI regs) but grabbed a marshmallow and threw it down the hatch. Four corners later I pulled the gooey plug from my mouth and pitched it in the trees, leaving marshmallow residue on my bare hands and shifters.

Apparently I also need some practice on cash hand-ups…I rode smack into a race stake grabbing my first greenback, then endo’d off my bike and gave up a couple positions. So worth it, I wouldn’t have made any more $ in 18th place!

Pepper had another solid race and was riding strong in the small lead group through the first few laps. I could hear the announcers getting excited “and who is this Harlton Pepper from Edmonton Canada up in this lead group turning heads”…”ladies and gentlemen, this Harlton from Edmonton is a rider to watch”….”holy moly where did this Harlton Pepper from Juventus cycling club come from”. It was entertaining for me to listen to as I was cramming marshmallows down my gullet and bills up my shorts, a couple minutes back. Unfortunately one of the greasy downhill 120′ corners got the better of Pepper’s bald clincher grifo on a few laps and she slipped back to 10th, only 1:14 down on Nash.

The course was great and it was so awesome to be back in the USGP atmosphere! 45 minutes before our start time it looked like we were in for a dry race. Then Mother Nature delivered a light dusting of unicorn tears which lasted about 60 minutes and made the course just greasy enough that it upped the technical and fun factor.

Tomorrow we race on the same course with a few modifications, looking forward to it! Pray for more unicorn tears!

Oh, and like an 8-year old who just received their allowance, I went straight to the gas station post-race and spent $3 on a coconut water:)

PS! I am now blogging from my phone!

We are privaleged to be staying with local racers Kari and Glen at their quaint acreage 10 miles south of Madison in Fitchburg. Kari scooped us and our 4 bikes from the Dane County airport on Monday evening after our full day of travel from Seattle via Denver.

First impressions of Madison and area: A healthy population of cyclists out and about, quiet black top country roads, dense foliage, lakes, corn fields, well kept farms and acreages, lots of silos, not-many-cows for the dairy state, and generally a good vibe. Madison is a city of ~200,00 and home to the University of Wisconsin and it’s 45,000 students. We were well chuffed for the week that lie ahead.

On Tuesday morning we enjoyed warm sunshine as we built and cleaned our bikes outside. By early afternoon we were ready to explore. There is a great network of paved pathways around Madison so we were able to ride the Capitol City trail all the way into town. We skirted cornfields, lakes, swamps, grasslands, rural subdivisions, flocks of fat Canadian geese, and black walnut trees (and rode over the squishy green fruits that house the nut….which of course piqued our interest as we’d never seen walnut trees before). Our first stop in Madison was Machinery Row bike shop where we met another local racer Alyssa who not only hooked us up with A+ service, but pointed us towards the Weary Traveler where we scoffed a spot of lunch and really enjoyed the eclectic atmosphere. With dusk imminent we set for home…dusk beat us there, but we made it.

Wednesday morning we took a different route into town and went back to Machinery Row to have our derailleur hangers straightened and kit me out with a new pair of mtb shoes. We rolled over to Mother Fools for coffee before pointing our bikes towards Badger Prairie park (home of the 2012 USA CX nationals). Naturally we deviated from the plan and rolled through campus, found singletrack between the pathway and a cemetery, and ended up on a ridge by a Fitchburg water tower. From there we could see at least three water towers in the distance and started tossing around ideas to ride cross country from water tower to water tower, reckoning it would be a good chapter in our Wisconsin book. We dumped down off the ridge onto a game trail and were riding through grass and hedge up to our elbows and seeing how far we could pedal before getting bogged down. We crossed a few sections of brush and then found a railway trail which took us in the direction of home.

Thursday we were up early and ripped out to Cam-Rock Park near Cambridge to ride with Glen, Kari and Alyssa. It was a small park with a fun little network of trails. We stopped for coffee at the Daily Grind in Cambridge and drove over to Sun Prairie to help with course set up. We were lucky enough to get an early course preview in exchange for a few hours work in tossing up banners.

Friday morning we spent a few more hours on the bikes and then made our way over to Sun Prairie for the official pre-ride in the afternoon. The course was packed with riders and all the team trailers and tents were set up, it was buzzing!

The course is great with good variety. Lots of corners, more than a few 180s, off camber sections, roots, gravel, pavement, loose sections, fast sections, a couple hairy corners at the bottom of descents, and one set of barriers at the top of a small rise…and of course, the legendary ‘hillside strangler’. The hill itself is innocent enough; fairly long but the incline is quite mild. The tricky part is the 90′ corner and three rail ties at the bottom…strategically positioned such that only a select few from any of the fields will be riding them tomorrow. Me…I plan (dread) running it if I’m in traffic, but the goal will be to run the ties and re-mount to ride the hill..

We go off at 2:45 both tomorrow and Sunday, stay tuned for a full race report! Then it’s home on Monday for 10 days to hopefully kick my sickness, acquire a costume and glow sticks for the Dark Knight, eat some pie for Keith Bayly’s birthday, then set sail for Fort Collins on Tuesday (October 11) for the next USGP.

RIP Old Reds
August 2009 – September 2011
Rescued from a reject bin in the bowels of a Winnipeg Bike shop, these fine Italian Lorica slippers spent 25 months in the line of duty. They truly were equal to every task: mountain biking, road riding, cyclocross’ing, cycle touring, bush wacking, hiking, snow riding, coffee shopp’ng, and just pure stylin. Replaced, but never forgotten:

Thursday was low key…built the bikes, went for coffee, ate a tasty dinner with Gina and Barry (they were really nice, btw), and watched an awesome bike movie from the 90s called “Tread”.  Top quote from the movie: “When something cool is done, it can’t be undone”.

We had great plans for Friday:  Ride into Seattle (25 mile round trip), do an Underground Tour, have lunch and coffee on the waterfront and check out  bike boutiques.  On Friday morning my head cold was having a temper tantrum and I craved more sleep (pshhhh ‘Sleepless in Seattle’) so I went back to bed at 11 while Pepper rolled down to the waterfront.  I woke up in a daze at 5pm and scrambled to get ready.  Before I was thinking clearly I hopped on my bike and aimed for Seattle, figuring I would probably intercept Pepper somewhere along the way. Turns out Pepper thought I was down for the count and was already making her way back to the house as I was biking and bus’ing into Seattle.  So I did my own tour on the waterfront and rolled home under the cover of darkness.  It’s possible that I also ended up on the I-90 and had to jump a fence to get onto the bike path.  Gina and Barry live up on Cougar Mountain and I was feeling particularly soft when I reached the bottom, so I scoured the shopping plaza looking for a taxi to porter my ass up the 3 mile hill.  No taxis in the suburbs at 9pm on Friday so I chugged up and earned my beer.

Saturday was StarCrosed!  We raced at 430pm and arrived at the venue around 3pm with lots of time to sign on, change, spin a lap, drop our B Bikes off with our surrogate team for the weekend (Group Health), spin another half lap, miss our front row call ups, and screech into the back of the starting grid with 1 minute to spare.  Oops, so pro:)  The race went well…we both spent the first half of the lap working our way up to the lead groups but weren’t quite there when the initial selection happened.  Pepper finished an impressive 6th and I was 15th.  It was a fun course with two lengthy beach sections, the first of which was rideable and the second was a runner.  The ground was hard, bumpy and dry which made for a rough ride, and there weren’t any hills (to coast down), so it was a course heavy on power and not terribly demanding from a technical standpoint.

Sunday was Rapha Focus on the same course, but there had been considerable rain overnight so it rode quite differently.  My main focus (haha) of this race was not to miss call-ups, so I was nervously loitering around the start grid for 30 minutes before our race..needless to say we secured our front row positions.  As we were in the grid watching the mens race finish, a rider wiped out hard on the pavement corner in front of us leading into the finishing stretch…a bit of an ominous way to start the race.  Shortly thereafter, the gun went off for us and we both had good positioning entering the grass, guess that’s what happens when you don’t squander your front row position:)  I made the initial selection into the lead 5 for the first half a lap but it was short lived and I quickly drifted back and finished up in 11th…but not before I laid it down on the aforementioned corner on the last lap.  I took most of it on my right elbow and now the swelling in that elbow jiggles whenever I ride over bumps, so cool! (and it can’t be undone:)).  Pepper was a model of consistency and found herself in familiar company from the day prior and finished  up in 7th.  Mical rocked onto the podium in 2nd place between Nash and Mani, the Czech and French National Champs respectively…not bad company!

Huge thanks to Gina and Barry who not only opened their house up to us, loaned us their vehicles, and kept us entertained over the four days, but also hooked us up with Group Health.  Big thanks to Group Health who took care of us in the pits and cheered hard for us throughout the weekend.

Sunday night we packed the bikes for the 2nd last time of the trip and got ready to head to Madison, Wisconsin!  Which is where we are now…getting ready for the first USGP weekend!

We left Calgary last Monday and our first stop was Vegas for Cross Vegas, the biggest cross race in America!!  The race is known for being hot and dry, and this year the women’s field included many of the strongest riders from North America and also Katerina Nash (Czech National champ who regularly races in the USA), Caroline Mani (French National champ) and Joyce Vanderbeken (former Belgian National Champ). 

We spent Monday building bikes and getting the gluing process started on my tubulars…I hadn’t had a chance to glue them before I left, but I figured with the dry heat in Vegas I would be ok.  We found an awesome Raw Food Cafe close to our hotel and chowed down before hitting the pillows for a comatose 11hour sleep.  Tuesday morning we finished gluing tubulars and then headed out for a road ride on the knobby tires with 30psi.  Our destination was Red Rock Canyon which turned out to be a scenic 3ish hour ride.  At one of the look-out points on the side of the road we posed for a photo with a sweet Philippine man who was so excited to see us on bikes because he has a bike back home in the Philippines..haha.

Tuesday night was another comatose 11 hour sleep…I was slowly getting caught up from the 11 hour shifts I’d been pulling in the office since getting home from Europe.  Wednesday morning we woke to rain.  WTF, it doesn’t rain in Vegas!?  The dry heat was replaced with muggy heat, and the race venue (which happened to be a retention area) was soggy.  The course was re-routed to higher ground and we were in for a damp Cross Vegas.  We had a relaxing day, finished cabling my bike and rolled down to the course.

The race itself was amazing, such an incredible atmosphere with the Expo area and all the spectators.  The course wasn’t overly technical, but there was a set of uphill barriers and a couple sets of uphill stairs which kept things interesting.   Pepper and I had second row call ups which put us in good position for the hard and fast start.  About halfway through the first lap there was the first split of 6 riders off the front which both Pepper and Mical were in while I dangled a few positions back.  I eventually settled into 20ish and had a decent ride, lacking snap in the legs but getting more comfortable on the bike and tubulars with each lap.  Pepper had an amazing ride and finished up in 8th!  Mical had an early mechanical and clawed back into an impressive 15th place.

After the race we watched the mens race where Schooler had an awesome ride to finish 15th!  Go Alberta Cross!

We rode back to the hotel around 11pm and set to packing our bikes for the early flight to Seattle on Thursday morning.  I was starving so I trotted over to the Burger King which was in the same parking lot as our hotel.  Unfortunately the restaurant was closed but the Drive-Thru was open!  Unfortunately they ignore you in the Drive-Thru if you’re not driving…so I struck a cash deal with the man driving a burnt out Buick to get me a couple boxes of fries with his whoppers.  I got the fries, but he kept the change. Price of doing business I guess!
And now we’re in Seattle for StarCrossed ( last night) and Rapha Cross (today)!

June was…a long time ago, and also rainy and full of racing.  After Mount Hood I raced two mountain bike races.  I loved being back on the dirt, but those 26″ wheels were cramping my 700c style for 2011, so I sold my mtb.  Next up was Banff Bike Fest where 6 of us united in Provincial colors to score some podiums and tell triathlon jokes all weekend (two of the team members were Iron Man athletes who threatened to use bento boxes and Camelbaks for the crit).  After BBF I nursed a head cold for three days and hopped on a plane for Toronto to race the Road and Criterium Nationals.  Huge thanks to Rich and Shelly (AMEC hook up from our Burlington office) who hosted Pepper and I for the week.

Team Alberta Banff Bike Fest '11. Photo: Kevin Gibson

Then came July,  which started off with 10 days of training in Calgary followed by a flight to Belgium to race for three weeks with a National Development Project.  We spent the first couple days at the team base in Tielt-Winge then drove to France for back-to-back stage races (four days each):   Tour de Bretagne Feminin and Tour du Limousin en feminin.  From France we went back to Belgium for a few days and raced the post-Tour Herentals Crit.  Our final weekend of racing was in Germany where we did another post-tour crit and a UCI 1.1 Road Race.  All in all an amazing experience to be racing in Europe and having nothing on my agenda except riding hard, making it to the next meal or massage, and having fun.  They race hard and fast and feisty over there, and I loved it.  I came home with all my skin and teeth in tact, and feeling fresh for CX Season!

Team at house in Tielt-Winge, Belgium

 

Team Presentation at Tour de Bretagne Feminin, Stage 1

 

Limousin, Stage 1

 

 

Recon of Limousin TT course

 

 

Post-Tour Herentals Crit. Cobbles!

 

 

Provisions at EuroStar Grocery store in Tielt-Winge

 

 More on CX season in a post soon!

 

…But I was, along with my Alberta travel buddies Pepper and Mark.  Pepper was a relatively easy sell;  I did my part by dropping hints all spring about how fun it would be to race Hood, and she did her part by intentionally playing dumb about how much climbing there would be (me on the other hand, I was sincerely dumb about how much climbing there would be).  Mark is a new character to this blog:  22-year old white male, relatively new to the cycling game after crossing over from running, Calgary bike courier, proud new owner of a late 90s Ford Explorer, very allergic to cats (found that out later), never really camped (found that out later too), but a total gunner and game for anything, so he was an easy pick.  At 7bells on Wednesday (uhh..June 1) morning, Mark pulls into the driveway with a big school-boy grin (as usual) and a round of coffees.  He hops out of his vehicle and nonchalantly starts groping around under the dash…

“uhh hey Mark, what’s that!?”  We get the big school boy-grin and a good story.  It turns out a simple wheel alignment the day before had turned into a broken ignition core and an 11th hour jimmy rig to get the vehicle road-trip ready.  So when Mark was groping under the dash he was actually popping off the dash panel, extracting the ignition box-thing, sliding some magic switch and doing a few other tricks.  It didn’t look dodgy at all.  20-minutes of tetris-inspired packing had all four bikes, camping gear, copious wheels and the three of us into the Ford.  Hotwired’er up and hit the road!

7 hours later and we’re pulling into the Duty Free shop to grab some cigars for Mark’s dad.  Walking out, Mark feels compelled to tell us how nervous he gets around border guards.  He quickly assures us that he doesn’t have anything to hide, then giggles nervously and admits that his heart is already racing.  Thinking out loud, he decides to leave his vehicle running while we’re at the border so that they don’t see him pulling his dodgy dashboard maneuver.   As we near the line, there is one cranky looking border guard waiting for us and Mark starts to sweat “Crap, I had this old bugger when we came through for Walla Walla, he gave me so much guff for having cigars from Duty Free”.   We roll up to the line and the old dude thrusts his snout in the Explorer.  To my surprise, Mark starts fumbling around under the dash trying to kill the engine as his white baggie of cigars starts sliding off his lap.  The old yank hollers “whoa whoa whoa, what’the’hellllll are you doing under there????”  Mark swallows the lump in his throat and squeaks out, “Shutting off my vehicle sir, you have to do it manually, I have licence and registration Sir, this is my vehicle…”   Momentarily appeased, the cantankerous guard demands our passports and drills me on my full name before getting back to picking on Mark.  “What du’ya do for a living?”.  Mark takes another gulp and respectfully replies, “I’m a bike courier sir, I deliver packages.  (pause). on my bike.”  Poor Mark was sweating bullets by this point.  A few more minutes of grilling and we are on our way.  I burst into laughter immediately and Mark pleaded with me to ‘at least wait until we are out of earshot.’

Next stop was Clint and Patty’s farm near Waitsburg where we hung our hats for the night.  They told us to ‘come back anytime’ and it turns out they actually meant it!  In all of our ranting to Mark about how great Clint and Patty were, we forgot to mention that they have several inside cats.  Ooops.   Thursday midday we rolled into Hood River and pitched our tents along the river and beside a big rock (which was too big for skipping but pretty perfect for jumping off):

That evening the racing began with the Panorama Point Prologue.   The course was 3 miles long and consisted of a small climb off the start, a long gradual descent, then a spiraling finish climb up to the view point.  Most importantly, there was a start ramp…my first one!  As we unloaded the vehicle I couldn’t help but notice that my skinsuit hadn’t made the trip.  Baggy jersey it was! Pepper finished up in 20th and I was appropriately back in 39th out of 50.

Stage 1 Columbia Hills Road Race, Friday morning:  After a stellar slumber in our tents by the roaring river, we were up early to get to Mark’s 9am race start.  Maybe not early enough because it was 8:50 when he pedaled away from the vehicle to spin the legs before his first-ever Cat 2 race.  By 8:51 he was back at the vehicle in a moderate panic because his cleat wasn’t engaging in his pedal.  Pepper jumped into action and had a new cleat bolted to his shoe by 8:53 and he was off.  Four hours later and we’re on the start-line for our race when I hear a soft thud by my foot.  To my absolute horror I look down and see a yellow brake pad chilling out on the pavement which has undeniably ejected from my bike.  As the commissaire is announcing that the race will start in 1 minute, I snatch the pad from the pavement and ram it back in the brake block.  Pepper and I look at each other very seriously (rare) and she solemnly assures me, “It will be fine.  Just don’t roll backwards and the pad will stay in.  (pause) unless it rattles out.”  I nod my head persuasively (as if that will help the situation) as the gun goes off.  The pace started out civil and I was liking my pack positioning as we snaked up the hill.  A few switchbacks from the top and suddenly I wasn’t so pleased with my pack positioning as I drifted back through the pack and right off the back.  I negotiatiated with my legs to latch back on as we were almost to the top and I knew the descent would feel better.  No dice, so I found some friends to ride the rest of the race with and finished up in 37th place while Pepper put in a strong race to finish 17th. Poor Pepper spent the whole race thinking I had bailed on a descent due to a brake malfunction, but really the brake was the least of my problems on the day.

Stage 2 Trout Lake Time Trial, Saturday morning.  It was a  beautiful 10mile course on rolling farmland at the base of Mount Adams.  I really liked this course as there were several rollers and corners which kept things entertaining.  Of course they also necessitated me to continually be out of my ‘aero position’ and on the shifters with my baggy jersey billowing in the wind.  Despite finishing up in 39th (model of consistency?) and a full 4:44 behind Clara Hughes’ winning time of 23:09, I was fairly content with this ride.   One of these days I’ll put everything together for a TT.  Pepper was also a model of consistency to finish up in 20th place.  Mark raced fast too and then dropped a tiny screw in the grass (that’s Mount Adams under his arm):

Stage 3 Hood River Criterium, Saturday Evening:  We were very excited for the course which suited us cyclocrossers:  Uphill start followed by a sharp right hander, a descent which included a left hand curve followed by a sharp right hander that spun us around 120 degrees and onto a long flat straight stretch, a tight right hander up a hill, another right hander uphill, a short descent and a left hander back uphill to the finish.  Pepper and I grabbed good positioning off the start and and were near the front when a few girls went off the front on Lap2.  Pepper bridged up and nobody followed, so myself and a few others did the same.   There were 7 of us initially, but a crash on Lap3 whittled us down to 5 (the crash took out 3 riders but one rider was able to take her free lap and jump back into the race on Lap4).  We instantly had a sizeable gap on the pack  and it kept growing each lap until we eventually caught the pack on Lap 20ish.  I couldn’t believe it, we had lapped the pack!  Now I know how a dog must feel when he finally catches his tail.  Anyway, Pepper ended up finishing 3rd overall and I was 5th. We had to laugh afterwards that the two of us came all the way to Mount Hood and ended up in the same break.  The tech guide claimed that there were 60feet of climbing per lap (which I believe), and by my best guess we did 30 laps, which equals 1800feet of climbing. in a 45 minute crit!

Stage 4, Three Summits Road Race on Sunday.  70 miles, 8500feet of climbing on the flanks of Mount Hood, 3 major summits, narrow single lane forest service roads with winding twisting descents and climbs….!   This race was nothing short of amazing.  We started out with a very long descent (20+km), onto some flatroads and then up to our first summit.  At 1km from the KOM, Pepper and I found ourselves dropped and it was a push for the next 2km to the feedzone.  I missed getting a bottle going through the feedzone, but shortly thereafter a neutral feed van pulled up beside us with a dude passing bottles out the sliding door.  This I had not practiced!  I fired my empty bottle into the moving van and grabbed the full one, without crashing.  Bonus.   With that out of the way we set to hammering the 20km winding descent.  Pepper and I made up a load of positions and were almost back onto the main pack by the time we hit the base of the next climb.  While the leaders scampered up to the next summit, we settled into our own climbing pace, which really wasn’t that slow considering we were fresh off the biggest race on the prairies:)  There was another great descent waiting for us at the top of this summit, not so flowy but a lot of fun.  On the second climb the lead group had split into two, and we almost made contact with the chase group, but close doesn’t count and we watched the gap grow as we slogged the demoralizing false flat which connected us to our final summit climb..  Our group splintered as we wound up this final summit, with Pepper and I bringing up the rear for 23rd and 24th place.  Although we felt like heifers plodding up those summits, it was worth it for the sweet roads and terrain we covered.

Content and knackered after 4 days of racing, we  packed up and headed for Clint and Patty’s where we would once again be staying.  We met all the new baby goats that were born since our last visit.  Check it out, they named one of them Dot because of her spot….

And that was Mount Hood 2011!

So.  This one time, in the Shuswap, Shawna D and I were stretching out after a ride and trying to impress each other by contorting ourselves into yoga pretzel moves.  I looked up from Down Dog and said, “Hey Shawna, do you like Pigeon Pose?”  She was in the middle of a beautiful cat-cow sequence, but didn’t miss a beat and blurted out ”I LOVE pigeon pose”.  Her eyes almost popped out of her sockets as she emphasized how much she LOVED it.   As I write this, I realize that if you don’t know Shawna D then you probably aren’t giggling like I am.  Suffice to say it was really funny.  But this blog post is actually about a different Pigeon, the Pigeon Lake Road Race which was on Sunday.

Pigeon Lake Road Race is self-proclaimed as the biggest road race on the prairies, so I didn’t dare miss out.  The women’s race was 87km which consisted of three main loops as well as a starting and finishing loop.  I had raced here last year and appreciated the course:  rumble strips, sticky/grippy black-top surface, a few Central-Alberta sized hills, kickers, some squirrely wind, curves, corners and an uphill finish. 

There was a decent sized women’s field of 20 including 5 from Team Niklas, 4 from CycloBellas and a smattering of us lone wolves in various different jerseys.  Somebody had to unite and give Team Niklas a run for their money!  Insert unofficial composite team of Pepper, Kinley and Katy.  Kinley is a 16-year old budding road racer who already has a developed steam engine from triathlon and various other competitive sports.  Her assignment was to shake the race up with attacks and counter attacks but not pop herself from the race.  She executed like an old-hand and between her and Pepper they had three or four lengthy solo breaks off the front which forced the pack to chase.  Team Niklas was busy patrolling the front of the pack and hunting down breaks while working to get their girls in a break.  The pack whittled down to 10ish, and with 15km to go Pepper and I jumped.  The intent wasn’t to stay away, but to gauge how much jam the pack had left in their legs.  We worked it for a few minutes before being brought back.

Pepper selflessly (as always) decided that I would be the hammer for the finish with Kinley on lead wheel.  We set this up almost 7km out and I felt like the Queen of Sheba as I was escorted to the finish line at beautiful Mulhurst Bay.  At 600 m out from the uphill finish, Kinley made her move up the left side with Pepper and I in tow.  Everybody else wanted Kinley’s wheel as well which made for a bit of a traffic jam.  Kinley kept it pinned while Pepper and I took opposite paths around the traffic jam and converged at the front of the pack and behind Kinley who continued drilling it at the front.  I was slightly ahead of Pepper so I figured we would just swap roles and I would now be 2nd wheel instead of 3rd.  At 200 m from the finish I was ready to peel off and looked behind me to see Pepper and Kinley 5 seconds back with the pack another 5 seconds behind them.  I rolled across in 1st with Pepper 4 seconds back in 2nd and Kinley another 4 seconds back in 3rd!  Most impressive from this race was the way Kinley soaked up Pepper’s pre-race  instructions and executed in convincing fashion.  Second most impressive was that Pepper and Kinley both had flat rear tires by the time they got home.

And there you have it!  A Pigeon Podium on the Prairies!  A great day for ABA women’s racing…lots of action and lots of riders getting in there and getting their noses dirty.  For some riders it was their first ever road race which was awesome to see!  Next up on the ABA women’s scene is Banff Bike Fest June 16-18.

Stage 1 Time Trial was on Saturday morning.  My start time was at 11:15am and thanks to Mac’s punctuality we were at the race venue by 9:45am.  I was cautiously optimistic that I was going to achieve that elusive 1-hour TT warmup.  At 10:15am sharp, I was riding away from the van, completely kitted up and with my equipment in working order.  I had done a few hours of riding in the aero position during the week and was feeling comfortable during the warm-up.  Not to be confused with ‘feeling powerful’, but at least I wasn’t fidgeting around like I had ants in my skin suit as I’ve been doing all year.  It was a 10km TT which was to my advantage:  the shorter the distance, the less GC time I can squander.  The cautious optimism was cautiously mounting.  After a sound warmup I made my way to the start line to think fast and smooth thoughts and pat myself on the back for a warm-up well done.  The rider who was slotted to start 30 seconds ahead of me missed her start time and I could hear her arriving shortly after I set off.   Things were going well and I was thinking that today was my day to get this TT monkey off my back…perhaps a mid pack finish was in the cards?  Those thoughts were squashed at the  1 minute mark when I was overtaken by that tardy rider who started at least 15 seconds behind me…sigh!  She was 150m past me before I even realized what happened, and next thing I knew she was out of sight.  I eventually crossed the finish line, still feeling smooth but apparently not very fast.  I was 2:00 down on the leader and in 26th position (out of 32).  Moral of the story:  Don’t bother warming up, it doesn’t help anyway. 

Stage 2 Criterium in downtown Enumclaw was on Saturday evening.  It was lightly raining when we started and I was keen for a technical race on the Figure-8 course.  Apart from the prime laps and a few other surges here and there, the pace was tame.  The field seemed totally uninterested when they called a merch prime on the 3rd last lap, so I bit like a big old bass and went for it.  I snagged it then found myself slightly off the front and feeling like a fish out of water, wondering how I was going to slide back into the pack and still contend the sprint finish:

I ended up in 6th place with the same time as the race winner.  My merch prime was a burglar sized sack containing $80 cash, 13 tubes of nuun, 24 gluten free energy bars, 3 pairs of socks, 2 water bottles, 1 t-shirt and some coupons!  The GC leader ended up with 11 seconds worth of time bonuses which put me 2:11 down in GC and in 24th place overall.

Stage 3 was a 93 km road race on Sunday morning.  We did 4 laps of the course which started out flat followed by a brutal climb that gained 700′,  then a false flat, more flats, and a descent into town.  To my advantage, they haven’t cut down every tree on the landscape so wind was not a factor.  Cat 3 women were racing with us again so it was a big field.  The pack would separate slightly on the climb, but came back together on the first three laps and we rolled around as a blob of 60ish riders.  There was one rider off the front who stayed away until early in the 4th lap.  On that 4th lap, the pace kicked up a few gears and the pack thinned.  Heading up the final pitch into the feed zone false flat, the pace kicked up another gear and I found myself dangling 10′ off the back.  There was a 90° left hander shortly after the feed zone and I knew I could make contact there so I didn’t bother with the sirens.  I hope the feedzone crowd enjoyed the sight of me mustering every last ounce of energy to crest the hill without riding over my tongue which was hanging out of my mouth.  I shaped up on the false flat and latched on to the lead six by the corner.  The seven of us started booking it back to town to ward off the feisty chase pack which had reeled us in the three laps before.  Since I was almost DFL in GC, I had a vested interest in completely burying myself in the last 15 km to help make the gap as large as possible.  I finished 3rd in the sprint finish and we ended up putting 1:13 into the chase pack which was enough to bump me up to 6th overall in GC and into the money!  30 bones for the RR podium and another 30 bones for the GC placing, better than a kick in the pants!  Here is a sequence of 8 photos on the sprint finish:

And that’s the wrap on MOE!

Tomorrow was supposed to be my 2011 mtb race debut at COP, but it was cancelled due to this week’s monsoons.  Sunday is Pigeon Lake Road Race up at Mulhurst Bay!

Next big race is Mount Hood down in Oregon next week.  I was creeping on the start list yesterday and see that Clara Hughes and Kristen Armstrong will be there, cool!   Sections of Stage 4 (with its 8200 feet of climbing) are currently under 8′ of snow, according to this article in Velonews.

Over,

Katy.