Cascade Wrap-Up and On

Well, Cascade finished up spectacularly! The Saturday evening criterium was fast and furious, with the expected teams making attacks and attempting breaks. Nothing stuck, though, and KR was active throughout, staying in the mix, and helping to bring back moves. The highlight of the night was Leah's fantastic move, sticking on the TIBCO leadout train through the finishing straight, and coming out the other side with 3rd place. Way to go, Leah and KR! That meant the 2nd podium finish for the team.

Sunday's road race was hot and heavy. With no cloud cover and no shade on the course, temps rose into the high 90's, and the hills took their toll on the field. Partway through the 2nd lap, a small break formed, which contained Tara. As the break began to lose steam, Tara took a gamble, and attacked from it. She managed to stay off solo until the finish, taking 1st place for KR, and moving up into 6th in the GC! Everyone on the team also moved up in GC, and the team finished 5th in Team GC, leaping ahead of Webcor on the final stage.

Three podium finishes, 2 of the top 5 young riders, 5th in Team GC, top 10 in individual GC... It'd say KR had one fantastic race, and boy did I have fun playing my part. I got to hang out with Tina Pic in the feed zone, drive in the caravan, and get to know all the KR composite girls. Plus, I learned that I totally love the job. I love planning logistics, making sure everything is ready, navigating to the race, taking care of the girls... I loved it all so much that I'm going to the Tour of Utah with the HB team to soigneur for them!

Yup, that's right, straight off the visit to my parents' in Massachusetts, I'm headed to Utah for a little under a week. I have never really spent time in Utah, and I'm very much looking forward the whole trip. Can't wait!

But first, one more week of work, then volunteering at the track nationals qualifier at Marymoor.

Cascade Day 3 - TT and More

Today was the time trial! You might think that a 16-mile race would be simple with regards to logistics. You would be wrong. Let's see some numbers:

• 6 racers
• 8 bikes (6 TT bikes + 2 road bikes for warmup)
• 5 disc wheels
• 3+ mechanical issues
• 1 set of rollers
• 2 trainers
• 2 coolers
• 3 chairs (yes, I know, not enough for everyone at once) thus -
• 1 blanket
• 3 large beach towels
• 6 start times
• 1 follow car
• 1 doping control call-up

And those are only the things I can remember now...at midnight...

Luckily I was still home in time to float the river with the team and some of the HB kiddos. For consistency's sake:

• 7 girls
• 6 boys
• 1 minivan
• 1 HB team van
• 3 air mattresses
• 3 donut floaties
• 2 marshmallow man chairs
• 1 really cold sit-in-the-water floatie
• 1 spillway
• 1 sunburned back

Good times were definitely had by all. Especially when cramming all 13 of us into the HB van.

Finally, we went to dinner at Bend Brewing Co. The food and beer were so-so, but the company was wonderful, temperatures were perfect for patio dining, and we even went for ice cream afterwards.

I'm finally done with my soigneur duties for the evening, and planning on an early morning. We're aiming for a 9am departure for our 74-mile road race with a nice climb up Mt. Bachelor at the end. And I'm looking forward to another day in the caravan!

Cascade Cycling Classic Begins!

I'm here in Bend for the Cascade Cycling Classic, acting as super-soigneur (as I like to call it). Really that means I get to handle lots of logistics for the racers so that they don't have to. Things like driving in the caravan, providing (minimal) mechanical support, feeding them bottles from the car, and making sure we get where we need to be when we need to be there. The planner in me LOVES this kind of stuff. The part of me that wants everyone to be happy, and everything to go right, gets pretty dang stressed out. But it's good practice for...life.

The team is racing under Keller Rohrback, but the only true KR girls are the terrific Tricia and the amazing Amy. The remaining 4 racers making up this composite team are Jasmin Glaesser (Canadian/German junior extraordinaire), Jess Hannah (a true climber, and strong all around), Leah Kirchmann (current Canadian criterium national champion) and Tara Whitten (current world champion on the track in both the Omnium and the Points race). Can you say AWESOME??

Today was the first day, and it brought us a 2-mile prologue. The girls did great, with Leah taking 2nd in the Best Young Rider competition, and Tara taking 2nd in the overall. I think everyone is excited for what tomorrow will bring, and we have a fantastic team to defend our positions. The 74-mile hilly road race is sure to sort things out a bit. Bring it on!

Altitude is Not Friendly

On the 4th of July I raced a crit in Hailey, Idaho, about 15 miles from the beautiful resort town of Sun Valley. The fields were small, and they raced the W1/2/3 field with the Masters men. Two of us gals hung with the pack the whole time - with the other girl even outsprinting the men for a prime. At about 6,000 ft altitude, my lungs were wondering where all the air was for most of the race, but I managed to hold position pretty well throughout. I went in with a training mindset, and that's definitely what I got! The course was friendly - flat, four corners - but with a stiff headwind on the finishing straight. It was a fantastic feeling, being able to take the corners hard, follow the right wheels and be assertive in the pack when I had to. I'm relatively certain I earned the guys' respect. It felt good.

This photo is taken coming out of turn 4.

(Photo credit: Bob Law)

Oh, and I got $100 for 2nd place. Twice as much as the cost to check my bike on the plane home. Rock on!

I'm headed back to Boise next Thursday for some Twilight Crit action. It's gonna be a doozy.

An Update From Just Across the Canadian Border

Here we are in Penticton, British Columbia, eating breakfast at a cute little cafe ("Aloha Charley's") with wifi. We left home Sunday morning, and made our way to Winthrop in the Methow Valley of eastern Washington. Yesterday we made the short drive across the border and up to Penticton, where they host Ironman Canada. I don't have much time, because we've got 8 hours of driving ahead of us before we make it to Banff, but I'd like to do a little update by the numbers.

# bike rides completed: 2

# bike rides that went ~70% farther than planned: 1

# deer sighted: ~8

# dead snakes sighted: 2

# chipmunks avoided: 1

# times loaner camp stove used: 2 (Thanks, TBJ!)

# borders crossed: 1

Can't wait for more wildlife sightings. Hope to update again once we make it to our condo in Canmore!

Intermezzo

For a wrap-up of last weekend's race, hop on over to my team's blog. It's a pretty good summary of how everything went down, and panned out.

As we drove into Walla Walla on the first day of the race, I found myself thinking, Man, wouldn't it be nice to hang out here for a while after the race is over and just ride, drink wine and chill? Then I realized - I was already planning on doing that! Perfect. So on Sunday, instead of heading back to Seattle, my job and real life, I spent 3 extra days in beautiful Walla Walla with my teammate Cheryl, a Walla Walla native, before heading down to the next weekend's stage race, the Cherry Blossom Cycling Classic. I kicked off the week by partying Sunday night with the Whitman cycling team, then proceeded to ride every day, enjoy the perfect weather and even watch a sweet documentary about human towers, with live Q & A hosted by an actual participant.

But my favorite memory from the week?

Tasting some local wine with Sam & Cheryl, then meeting up with Timbah for the best sauna experience I've ever had, grabbing Walla Walla sweet onion burritos at La Monarca, and polishing them off sitting on the edge of the quad on Whitman campus, watching intramural ultimate frisbee. I'm not kidding about the sauna, either - there was something almost transcendent about it - is that possible?

The next morning, we headed down to The Dalles, Oregon, after stopping at Andy's for some local, inexpensive asparagus and sweet onions. The amazing drive is mostly spent right along the Columbia River, and we were treated to fantastic views of the valley, green hills, rock formations, Mt. Hood, incredibly long and colorful trains and of course the river itself. We also passed one of those tree farms - the ones that are almost hypnotizing with their rows and rows of trees that if you look down the rows to the end, appear like stop-motion photos that barely seem real. There's also something satisfying about the fact that these farms help alleviate clear-cutting of forests.

Once we made it into town, we joined Lang, Phil and Kennet for a quick recon ride of the Stage 2 circuit race course - a great way to shake off the 3-hour drive and stresses of traveling, and enjoy the beautiful weather.

This is the life. Now to figure out how to live like this all the time...suggestions?

KR in WW

So here we are, the Keller Rohrback team, in the grand old city of Walla Walla, Washington. The 3-day, 4-stage race began yesterday with a late afternoon/early evening, 37-mile road race out of Waitsburg. This race is notorious for severe winds that explode the pack to pieces. Well, yesterday was certainly windy, but no one really seemed up for anything big, so the few attacks that went off (from our team, and maybe 1 or 2 others) didn't last, and the pace was relatively calm. Things split up over the QOM climb, and I ended up having to chase back on (as did quite a few other people), but there were 37 pack finishers out of a field of 49 starters. I was pleased to finish with the peloton, but even MORE pleased that Cheryl pulled off the sprint and took FIRST! Go, Cheryl! TB and Kele lined it up for her, but it started to get pretty crowded at the front, and Cheryl knew just how to maneuver to cross the line ahead. Fantastic!

This morning we raced the 9.3-mile time trial. Slight winds, a climb in the middle, and a lot of descending afterwards keep this an interesting course, with a fast finish. I worked as hard as I felt I could, and bettered my time from last year. My teammates managed to all nab spots within the top 10 (TB 2nd, Cheryl 4th, and Kele 10th?) to potentially take the lead for Team GC. We'll find out for sure when we head downtown for the crit in a few short hours.

In the meantime, our amazing hosts Shannon and Doug (Cheryl's sister and brother-in-law) have cooked up some amazing barbecue fare - grilled chicken, homemade rolls with homemade raspberry and strawberry jam, caesar salad, pasta salad, potato salad, strawberry lemonade and of course dessert. Can you say YUM?

Training Camp

Our First Steps in Santa Barbara

First Ride, Amazing Views in Every Direction

UCSB Campus Parking

Second Ride, View of Lake Casitas

Largest Ficus Macrophylla in the Country

From Underneath

Santa Barbara Mission

Last Ride, View from Mountain Drive

Rad Hippie Bus

Goodbye, Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara Forecast

I think I can handle that.

Maybe More Days Are Like Saturday Than I Thought

Last weekend, we took a short trip to Walla Walla, home of Whitman College, Clarette's and magnificent riding. Unfortunately I didn't take any fantastic photographs, but I did go on two fantastic bike rides.

It was foggy. It was damp. It was chilly. It was hilly.

But the company, lack of automobiles and smooth pavement more than made up for all that. And even made the fog and hills kind of fun.

Friday: 3.5 hours, out to Waitsburg, then to Dayton, then back up the "Elevator Shaft" and into Walla Walla along Rte 12 to make it back before dark.

Saturday: 4.5 hours, out to Waitsburg again, then onto the loop for the Tour of Walla Walla Friday road race course, and back to Walla Walla along Middle Waitsburg Rd., also the final climb for the final road race course in the Tour of WW.

Good. Hard. FUN.

THIS is what riding a bike is all about.