Sequoia Cycling Classic Preview

The first race I'll cover in Cali is the Sequoia Cycling Classic in Exeter and Visalia. While at Carla's on Tuesday, I wrote the preview article, which you can find here.

So happy to finally be back covering some races, and it's extra special to cover ones in my old stompin' grounds.

Hope to see you at the races!

Cali or Bust, Baby!

Turned the Suh-boo-buh-roo toward Cali on Monday -- headed out to cover races for velonews.com for a month. And my bike came with me -- yay!!!You know you've crossed over into Wyoming when you start to see buffaloes...
...and Abraham Lincoln...?!! Ever since I saw this big hunk 'o man on Wyoming's Interstate 80 on my first cross-country drive from grad school, I've wondered why he's out here. I finally read the little plaque. Apparently, he was on Hwy 30 -- the first transcontinental road for automobiles -- and it was named "The Lincoln Highway" to honor his support of the building of it. It was moved to the highest spot on 80 in the 50's, I believe, where it sits now. At a rest stop that is very conveniently placed, if I may say so myself.
There are acres and acres of these big purty flowers in Wyoming, too.
And the road was MUCH more clear than when I drove back and forth at Christmas.
Carla and Dan welcomed me to their little "ranch" in Spring Creek, where I stayed until I made the last part of the trip on Wednesday.
This is the view of the Ruby Mountains from their living room -- sweet!
Back on the road, I finally made it into the Sierras...aaaaaahhhhhhhh!
Didn't stop for burgers here, though...eeeeeewwwwww!

(Ok, pretend there is a pic of the Donner Pass sign here...it would have been a great one to end with here, but I accidentally deleted it....)

I Dub Thee -- The Windburn Time Trial

I did my first race as a member of Velo-One this morning, as well as my first time trial. Officially, it's called the Frostbite Time Trial, probably because it can be frigidly cold here this time of year. While it certainly wasn't a balmy day outside Wellington where the tt was, it was definitely windy.

One of the joys of being on a team is spending time with teammates before, during and after the races. Last night, I drove to Ft. Collins to have dinner with teammates, and Bob, our humble leader, brought a start list for the tt. While the times of individual riders are only compared to others in their categories (I registered as master's 35+, and lean more toward the plus side...), you start in the order you registered. The first rider went off at 10:00, and all other riders followed at one-minute intervals. My start time was 11:53. And horror of horrors, I realized that Catherine, one of my VERY STRONG teammates, would start 6 minutes behind me.

Now, everyone says, "Oh, in a time trial, you're only racing against yourself." Well, that's just cr**p. Yes, physically, you leave the start by yourself and you are not allowed to draft off others as you do in a normal race. The mental reality, however, is that you know there are riders behind you, who started later than you did, and in order to maintain your self-respect as a competitor, you really don't want them to pass you.

This was my first time trial -- I've been racing for four years, but have only done road and circuit races. Additionally, I have been riding without a speedometer for a few months, so I really have no idea how fast I've been riding. And, honestly, I was never fast to begin with. So, I really didn't know how I was going to do. I did know, though, that Catherine was going to be a hammer, because, well, she is a hammer. At dinner, I let her know that if she passed me, I would simply drop my bike where she passed, and walk back to the start. Of course, I was kidding...but I was also "afeared and full of angst"!!!

I stayed the night at Bob and Stacy's house, and drove to the race this morning with Catherine. I'd hoped that, since she got a ride with me, if she did come up on my wheel during the race, she'd soft-pedal rather than pass, for fear that if she did pass me, she'd have to walk home. Thankfully, while she made up some time on me, she didn't pass me -- yay!

And, the tt was quite fun. It was 6 miles out and 6 miles back, and was on a service-type road that ran parallel to I-25. It had some very gentle rollers, and was faster on the way out -- I think my speed was between 20 and 24 mph on the way out (told you I wasn't that fast), but on the way back, it varied between about 11 (ack!!!) and 15 because it was so windy and it's a false flat. It had been windy on the way out, too, but while not a headwind on the way back, way more in-your-face. Thankfully, though, veteran Windburn racers had warned me of this, so I realized it was going to happen.

The trick in a tt is to go as hard as you can the whole time, but to ration your "go-as-hard-as-you-can" so you can keep it up through the end. Definitely a learned skill, but with the guidance of my coach (Chad Fischer) and teammates, I feel like I did pretty well for my first tt. My time was 40:27, and I was fourth in my category. Catherine's time was 37:something, (she raced cat 4)...thank goodness she didn't start 2 or 3 minutes behind me!!! And a young buck on our team, Matt, put in a time of 29:something -- major hammer!

Being that we're in one of America's bike training meccas, there were also some big time pros in the race today because they're between pro races and live in the area -- Tom Zirbel (Bissell), Georgia Gould (Luna Chix), and Meredith Miller (Aaron's). And it was also fun running into (figuratively, not literally, thank goodness...) some of the America's Dairyland riders I first met last year when I covered Central Valley Classic for VeloNews: Cari Higgins, Kate Ross, and a teammate I hadn't met, Clare Vlahopoulos.

Most importantly, a great time was had by all. And afterwards, we gathered at The Chocolate Rose, a great little cafe in Wellington, for lunch.

I'm not sure we got everyone who was there with the team, but this is most of us. Back, from left to right: Spence, Matt, Bob, Stacy, Glenn, me, Catherine, Ayn; and front, Bryson (in stroller, but dad Bob had already removed his stroller-aero bars), and Audrey.

Good people. Good times. Even with the windburn.

The Ultimate Tandem

If you're a person of faith and a cyclist, you've GOT to read Tim Loper's latest blog post. Tim is an amazing racer, loving husband to my friend and Bella teammate back in Cali, Tracy, and a guy who started a Christian race team in Fresno called Vapors. His blog is always terrific (that's why he's on my list of Rockin' Blogs in the right column here, which, by the way, I REALLY need to add to...), so check it out when you get a chance.

Women's Racing Rocks!

Aaaaahhhhhh....it's race season! I'm headed out to Cali on Monday to cover some NRC races for VeloNews, and couldn't be happier. I'll start with the Sequoia Classic, a two-day women's race in Visalia (March 15-16), then after a break with family and friends, cover the Redlands Classic, a four-day stage race in Southern Cali (April 3-6), and finally, cover the Garrett Lemire Memorial Grand Prix in Ojai (April 13). Sa-wheet!

While I love covering men's pro racing, I have to say that women's pro racing has really become exciting in its own right, and the Sequoia Classic promises to be great. Check out this great article on women's racing in North America on cyclingnews.com, as it provides a nice overview of the challenges and the triumphs in the sport right now. And, Sheri Clark, good friend and director of the Sequoia Classic, is quoted -- her support of women's racing is stellar!

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features.php?id=features/2008/womens_calendar_mar08

Happy Birthday, Katrina!

Had a meeting with VeloNews editor-in-chief Ben Delaney today to confirm details about some of the race coverage I'll be doing in Cali, as well as to pitch some story ideas. One of the advantages of going by the office here in Boulder is that I was able to pick up the latest edition of the magazine before it hits stores or subscribers' mailboxes (and, yes, I'm a subscriber). And better yet...my article on junior phenom Katrina Howard is in it -- page 58 when you get your copy. She's a 12-year-old (as of tomorrow) racer out in Fresno who has already won 5 (yes, FIVE) national champion jerseys. She's a hammer, and it was great fun working on the article and getting to know her family. Tomas Ovalle (http://www.propix.smugmug.com), a photog and racer in Fresno, took the pics of her that are in the story, and they're terrific, too.

Hope you get a chance to check out the article. It's always fun to get a VeloNews byline, but to get one for a local superstar from Fresno, where I first fell in love with bikes and racing...well, that's even sweeter than usual.

Balance

Life's all about balance...the good with the bad, the light with the dark, the yin with the yang, Wilma with Fred, and Betty with Barney. I don't know if it's the "Yoga for Cyclists" dvd that I've started doing (I think it's a law that you have to do yoga when you live in the Bubble) or just the regular order of things, but this week has definitely made me more aware of the balance that life offers.

See, my week started off baaaadddd when my laptop crashed. Ack! I'm trying to make my living as a writer, for goodness sake, and my laptop is, well, my office, my tool belt (and tools), and my ticket to a paycheck now and then. The first glimmering of problems came when I had trouble shutting the computer down, and once I did and tried to turn it back on the next morning, all that glowed back at me was my desktop photo -- no icons, no cursor, absolutely nothing to help me navigate and create. Two times, I was able to get it to re-boot by unplugging and also removing the battery. The third time, however, wasn't charmed, and it was gone. Just a little blinking cursor on a black screen, and then a long "Sorry, Windows has shut down due to technical difficulties, and you will never again be able to feed yourself or pay your rent, blah, blah, blah" message. With a deadline for a Fresno Magazine article looming on Friday, well, this was a crisis.

Thankfully, I'd just recently written the name and number of a computer dude who was recommended by someone on my Boulder Media Women listserv (apparently, I sensed that my computer was about to crash...I knew we were close, but didn't realize I was that tuned in), and he came by to see what he could do the day after I called. Today, he gave me the verdict. I need to either let him replace the hard drive, or buy an entirely new machine. Aaaaaahhhhh! I've learned more about computers, hardware, and software in the last few days than I'd ever wanted to. So now I have to make a decision, and in the meantime, he was nice enough to let me borrow one of his computers so I can make my deadline Friday. If you're on the Front Range and ever need a computer dude, do contact him: chris@geekforhire.com

So, where's the balance, you ask? Well, yesterday while at the library to use the internet for a bit, I logged on and found the coolest e-mail message. It was from a senior editor at Shape magazine, and she was letting me know that she wants an article I pitched back in October. How cool is that?! It's a small front-of-the-book piece (front-of-the-book articles are those short, attention grabbing pieces at the front of most magazines) and it will be in the June issue. It's due Monday and most of the work is done, as I did a lot of it for the pitch -- woo-hoo! (Remember the Magazine Writer's Conference I attended back in September? I learned there that FOB pieces are a good way to break into national mags, and I also met with Janet Lee, a Shape editor, during my "speed dating with the editor" sessions, and she helped me refine my idea for the pitch.)

AND today I was invited to do some articles for The Daily Camera's annual "Success Stories" edition for the advertising department (stories about businesses). AND I chatted with Andy Lee, the communications director at USA Cycling in Colorado Springs, and we're working out a deal where I'll be doing some writing for them, as well.

So, some very good professional vibes there to balance out the bad computer ju-ju. (Honestly, how do you spell "ju-ju"?)

And, perhaps even better, I had a very good conversation with my dad this morning, and then another with my mom. We had to talk about some stuff that was pretty hard to talk about, and, frankly, I think we all did an amazing job. Very, very good ju-ju.

So, there's your balance. It's tipping much more heavily toward the good side at the moment....deep, deep sigh.

(But, no pics with this post, as currently ALL of my photos are being held hostage in my lifeless laptop...but not for long!!!)