Eboost

I am extremely excited to announce and welcome Eboost Canada to my amazing team of sponsors for the upcoming season!!

Eboost is a relatively new, but pretty great natural effervescent Daily Health Booster. Loaded full of vitamins, nutrients and minerals that help "boost" endurance, recovery and immunity. The 3 most important things for any athlete. Or anyone for that matter!!

Lactose free, gluten free, sugar free and even yeast free, Eboost is a great option for everyone, even you picky eaters out there...ya me too :-) Eboost comes in 3 great flavors; orange, pink lemonade and my favorite, acai pomegrante.

I'm usually very skeptical about the health claims of nutritional supplements, lets face it there are a lot of duds out there, but this stuff is really something different and I'm really excited to be apart of the team.

Where can you get you're Eboost???? Order it online or in store at Popeye's Canada. Or hunt me down for a sample. Thanks Jason Binab for turning me on to this stuff and thank you Matthew Clayton for supporting me with my dream!

Shoulder Update

YESSSS!!! It's a big day for me and my shoulder, I did my first set of 5 real, that's right, REAL, push-ups since October. It's been really slow progress, a lot slower then I would like, but I think I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel with this injury. Final diagnosis was tendonitis in the rotator cuff (still possible cartilage tear..YUCK)....to go along with my separated shoulder. I've had very healthy tendons and never had the pleasure of dealing with tendonitis like this before. I'm currently 4 months since my crash and finally getting to the point that most movement is painless...not 100% yet.

Paul from Broadmead Physio in Victoria, has been putting my shoulder through the paces to diagnose and "repair" the damage. Who knew a 2 pound weight could be SOOOO heavy! Thanks to Alex and Yves for setting up my MRI and getting me in. As well, Melanie aka RacerGirl's Shoulder Prehabilitation episode has been a great addition to my rehab.

Look out, soon I'll be swimming again....or at least learning how not to take 40 mins to go 1km!!! Ouch, that really was slow.

2012 Island Cup XC #1 Course Preview from Pro City Racing on Vimeo.

Awesome fun day of riding at the dump with and Rob Parkin made for a great preview of the first Island Cup race of 2012 just outside Victoria, BC. Great clip Rob!!

Island Cup #1

It's that time of year again!!! Or just about. March 11th is the first cross country race of the year, Island Cup #1, out at the Hartland Dump hosted by none other then the fantastic crew at Trek Bikes Victoria .

And look, I'm the poster girl..lol..now you have to do it!!!

MY GOALS

So I'm putting it out there in writing for everyone to see now!!! So you can all hold me to my word ;-)

I've been focused on the Olympic distance cross country mountain bike racing for the duration of my career. The Olympics was my ultimate goal, but I've realized it may not be realistic at this point because Canada has 3 women within the top 7 in the World!!! Canadian women are the fastest in the World!!! I'm actually extremely excited to start moving my racing career in a slightly different, but no less challenging and commited direction.

For this summer, 2012, I'm moving my focus to the large stage races, such as Transrockies and the Furious3 series. These events are very fun and challenging at the same time, bringing a large number of people from all walks of life together with the common passion of cycling. Defending my title as Queen of the Rockies and breaking into the exciting new Furious3 series are tops on my list for the summer.

Fall and winter of 2012/2013 are going to be focused on the wonderfully goofy sport of cyclocross with World Championships being on North American soil for the first time ever! Being on the top podium in Louisville, Kentucky come January is my ultimate focus for this upcoming season. I'm going to use my summer of stage racing, along with all the fantastic UCI races in North America such as the USGP series, to get there.

My Xterra goals are going to pushed to the side for 2012, due to my cyclocross focus on World Championship, but I'm going to spend the summer refining my swimming and running so that I can hit the 2013 season full storm. The rumor mill has it that Xterra is scheduled to make an appearance in the 2016 Olympic summer games, and that's where I want to be!

Beyond the upcoming season, I'm going to continue pursuing these great stage races and expand my scope. Stage races have an amazing atmosphere that seems to make me fall more in love with cycling every time I race! As well, I'm going to continue pursuing the fastest growing discipline in cycling, cyclocross, with the goal of being National Champion and World Champion. Last but not least, Xterra Racing is hot on my list, which is also an extremely fast growing side of triathlon, working towards World Championships in Hawaii and the 2016 Olympics.

Join me on my journey and help me out if you can :-)

Back to my Race Resume

Missin Summer

Missing Summer from Regan Pringle on Vimeo.

Some old footage from a fun ride (as always) with Regan!! Definitely makes me miss summer...but it's on it's way. Thanks Regan for putting this video together.....my look how much your bike position has changed!!!!!!!

Red Velvet

I'm back up in the good old Fort Mac....and there's almost no snow!!!! Gnarly!!! Ya, I can sound like a biker bum sometimes. Ya, +4 today, never had I ever seen that growing up here in the winter, that might be the end of my cross country skiing this year :-( BIG FROWN

Yesterday was my 30 birthday, the big 3-0!!!! It's funny, I truly feel life is just starting at 30, kinda starting to get things figured out a little. It's going to be a great summer!!! I'm a little bummed about my shoulder still taking it's sweet time getting better, but it's really good news that the rotator cuff isn't torn. I was hoping to really learn how to swim this year (I'm going to take swim lessons I think) and try out this Xterra thing a little more.....but that's going to have to wait for a little while longer. But having cyclocross Worlds in North America has me really jazzed!!!!

Regan and Robin took me out for PIG, best pulled pork joint ever!!! and Marble Slab ice cream for my big day...thanks guys!! After sampling the Red Velvet ice cream, I've decided I really want to try to make some Red Velvet cake when I get home.....but I need a recipe. If anyone has a good recipe please send it to me!!! Gotta test out the my Kitchen Aid mixer!!

Really hope mine looks this good!!

Ever have tired sore hands after mountain bike riding?? Blisters?? Slippery grips?? Ya, big problem, and a lot of people actually don't realize that there is a really great, comfortable, inexpensive and easy fix for that!!! ESI Grips makes the most amazing, that's right, I'm calling these grips amazing, silicone grips. I was turned onto them when I tagged along with the Trek/VW team a couple of years ago, and I will not let another set of grips stay on my bars for more then a ride.

Trust me, this isn't a shameless plug!!!!!!! You really need to try these out for yourself. My larger hands prefer the Chunky 60gram grips versus the Racer's Edge 50gram grips, but both are a step above anything else!

So.....I want to thank ESI Grips and welcome them to my team of sponsors for 2012!!!! Trek Victoria carries them ;-)

Zed Wheels

Check out the new very cool website from wheel guru Brad Head of Zed Wheels

2012 Race License is ordered!!!!!!

February??

Definitely enjoying my last weekend of freedom!! The best possible week I could end up having as a surprise 2nd week off!! Sun and nice every day.

After somewhat recovering from the TNR, "easy" road ride up and over Munns Road and Ross Durance on Friday, I was definitely feeling my first big week of riding on a loooong time coming into the weekend. Saturday Regan and I headed out for a great 4 hour mountain bike ride!! Running into Mike Palmer on the ride out lit the fire under Regan's butt and I was dangling off the back of these two for a good 2 hours of trail. I stole the demo Trek Superfly 100 to ride...wow, I like that bike.....it would be so nice if Trek would come through and help me out for the year ;-)

Sunday we headed out with Trek World videographer Rob Parkin to shoot some promo video for the upcoming Trek Pro City Island Cup race in March. I've never had the opportunity to do any video shoots before and it was actually really cool. Couple hours of sessioning fun sections of the trail, and a couple hours of great riding lead to another great day on the bike. And the weather couldn't have been any better in February! LUCKY

Picture from Jamie Cameron

TNR #1189

photo courtesy Dave Mclellan

TNR #1189 by micaldyck at Garmin Connect - Details

Thanks Regan for the gentle nudge to get out and enjoy my 2nd ever Thursday Night Ride (TNR). I hadn't even thought of doing it, but it was a given that Regan was going to do it....I did tell him not to come home till he'd done at least a 3 hour ride :-) When he mentioned that I should come do it, I was like, hey, YAAAA, that's a great way to get in shape!!!

18 guys and me left the usual front yard and headed up the usual Cairn to hit some of the greasiest gnarly trail right in town. After 2 months off the mountain bike, I was a little sketched out to say the least...but the view at the top was worth it. Pink and blue pillows, overtop the mountains and the ocean...stunning if I do say so myself.

From there was headed through Esquimalt and out to towards Thetis Lake and some really great trails to ride in the dark when no one is out there......and there wasn't a cloud in the sky once things got dark. Winding through Thetis Lake, over to Francis King (which I cleaned a section of downhill that I've never had the balls to even try in the day time...funny what you'll do when you can't really see very well ;-), up to the Dump and out Executive, it ended up being a solid 2 hours of trail. Once we hit Interurban the pace picked up and we strung out in a beautiful mountain biker paceline.

I was feel pretty strong at this point and figured....."Hehehe, if I catch them buy surprise...maybe I can make these men suffer a little!!!" I know, that's what every woman thinks right...haha. I had to laugh when Robby yelled "You're pulling 400 lbs up this hill!"

The pack regrouped at the red light on the Goose by Tillicum Road. I look over and Carter Hovey gives me the '"wink...hmmm, what does the "wink" mean?? I'm gonna pull for you, or you gonna pull for me...haha. Light turns green...okay, I'm gonna work....so I hammer out and pull the pack as hard and as long as I can. Just as I'm starting to blow to pieces, Regan pulls by and tears the legs off of everyone. I've got nothing left, can't grab any of the wheels that pass me....then Carter comes up behind and gives me a little push saying "You're gonna win this one!!" Oh, that's what the wink meant....lol. He gets me back up to speed to grab a wheel, but that's all...lol...go for it!!!! Good sprint to the end guys, I'll leave that to you....for now.

Back at the clubhouse for a few tails and a quick beer, thank you Dave McLellan for the Phillips Chocolate Porter!!!! Clean the bikes at Pro City on the way home, then shower and wait for the pizza! Ya, nice little indulgence after an awesome night ride!