Jour très triste!

I finally made it to the chocolate bowl place and was super ready for the ultimate hot chocolate experience....and it closed at 5:30 pm....what kind of cafe closes at 5:30??? geeezzzzz



Had a great ride today, was supposed to do just a road ride, but couldn't resist the call of the mud and snuck on the course a cruise through the technical second half of the course. I was actually really, really surprised with how well the course held up after last nights crazy storm. We must have gotten 10 cm of rain (I'm not joking) in less than an hour..it was absolutely ridiculous. But it was really good for the plants..hehe..and there's nothing like finishing a great ride with a wild raspberry feast...yummmmy.

Est-ce que c'est le soleil ?

Wow, what is this big burning ball of fire that produces heat and light???? The mythical sun...hehe...haven't seen the sun in a while but yesterday was awesome. Hot and sunny all day, oh yeah, don't forget very very humid. I went for an early morning spin at 10 and came back an hour later drenched. Today is supposed to be something similar, not as much sun, but about 40 with humidity....good day to go sit in an air conditioned coffee shop and drink the worlds best hot chocolate. That was my mission yesterday but I failed....second attempt today. You have to know, this isn't just any ordinary hot chocolate, it's amazing and will totally wreck hot chocolate for you forever....but you have to be in the mood for this extremely rich drink...if not, it'll totally put you over the top.

Happy Trails

Mud St Anne

Never fails to be a challenging muddy race. All week I was watching the forcast for Sainte Anne de Beaupre, the small town at the base of Mont St Anne, and all week the forecast called for rain everyday, with 30-40 mm on saturday and sunday..yikes. But everyday I checked, the rain was pushed back another day...but I kept the mud tires close on hand. Just light rain during the night, but the course was drying up great and come sunday morning everything looked in awesome shape and the Bontrager Revolts (great all around dry to tacky tire) stayed on. Just as we were called to the staging area and the skys opened up. Oh my goodness rain.

The start was the very typical World Cup start, 55 starters sprinting into the first corner. They got rid of the start loop this year and there was no big climb off the start to string us out, so by the time we hit the first singletrack we were all off the bike and climbing over eachother trying to gain a spot...it was pure World Cup madness..very euro style. As we all strained ourselves through the single lane the race quickly became very spread out.

The rain hadn't soaked into the ground yet, so most everything was rideable, but as the race wore on, the raining stopped and the mud started turning into chucky peanut butter...vera slickery. The sketchy rock garden descent stayed in surprisingly good shape through out the race, though there were some really good stories of really good crashes. After the race I found out there was a "chicken line" cut the night before around the rocks..oh well. I managed to clean the section everytime, but on lap three the berm at the bottom after the downhill claimed my front and rear tire at the same time and I slide through the berm (about 15 feet) on my rear. It actually was kinda fun..hehe.

I had a solid day all in all, faded a little at the end....oh yeah, but my highlight of the race was chasing the current World Champion jersey of Margarita Fulliana down to the finish line......hehe. I was definitely motivated to put that notch into my belt, but didn't catch her and finished 23rd on the day.

Today I got up early, ran into fellow team Canada rider Ryan grabbing hish bike from the mechanics and we road up the ski hill access road in the pouring rain for about an hour. Too bad the fog was so thick we couldn't see anything because it probably woulda been a great view. From there we started down the DH world cup course..hehe, that was a little short lived, and found a more xc friendly trail. It ended up being a wicked 30 min downhill through some pretty nasty mud...oh my poor clean bike... Thank for the wicked ride.

After a crazy long travel day (not sure how a 3 horu drive turns into 7 hours of travel.......) we made it to Bromont...land of the best hot chocolate....which I'm looking for tomorrow.

Super big thanks to the entire CCA staff that helped out at the race...you guys rock.

Oh yeah, huge congrats to Kika for winning her second World Cup!!!!!!

Mont St Anne

Plan of action for today...relaxation.

I arrived in Mont St Anne on wednesday evening to stories of a crazy downpour all wednesday....and the course was a disaster, super duper muddy. Quebec never fails to be wet and muddy, I think in the maybe 20ish times I've raced in Quebec, it's been dry once or twice... in other words, always expect mud. The rain had stopped and wednesday evening was warm and all thursday was really nice, so by the time I got out on course things were starting to dry up nicely. Most of the course drains relatively well, but there are a couple singletrack sections (which seem to be all tricky technical sections) that just hold water..even when it's been nice for days, they are slick and mucky.

They have re-routed the course from previous years and I actually find it feels a lot harder then usual. They have used most of the same trails/sections as always, with the exception of the usual freightening sketchey descent....in which we are now sent down a steep mess of rocks that could be a mess if covered in mud. As well, all of the major climbing is at the end of the lap instead of the beginning....but then all the descending is at the end as well..yippee.

Today, my only mission for the day was to roll down to the cool little internet cafe at the bottom of the hill and drink Americanos, eat pastries and geek out for a little. It's really nice not having internet in the condo, I'm needing the detox...the couple of days I spent in Montreal by myself I found I spent a little too much time on the computer to pass the day.....and I don't even like computers..hehe.

Big mistake today tough - no chamois for my ride to the cafe....my seat is a lot harder then I realized..gonna be standing most of the way home.

Ciao

Wine and cheese and coffee and pastries and crepes...oh my

After a couple of days of relaxing and riding in Montreal (or Point Claire to be more exact), I've made my way east again to Quebec City. Just hanging out in the airport for a couple of hours waiting for the rest of the national team to arrive before we make the trip to Mont St Anne. The rest of the this week will consist primarily of more rest, a couple laps of the course (keeping everything crossed that the rain isn't too bad this year), some coffee, tour watching (hopefully we have that channel), and some yummy, yummy pastries (when you're in Rome...hehe).

Hope all is well around the country and I'm really excited to head west again. The east is nice, but I really miss the west.

Oh yeah, Jeff Neilson (my awesome BC Bike Race partner) and I are doing the Transrockies Aug 9-16..yippeeeeee!!!!

Ciao

PEI Pic's

Red Sands Beaches



What's this??? little jelly fishy thingy....they do sting



Jumping off the wharf at Basin Head beach



Little Harbour Beach - wedding photos day

PEI

Yuppers, on the far east coast of Canada....get to put my feet in both oceans in less then 3 months. Spending the weekend here for a wedding, doing a little touring, a little fresh seafood eating...yummmmmmy....experienced the "COWS" ice cream experience (though I ended up wearing more of the mint chocolate chip then eating it..hehe)....even yummmmmmmier.... and a little biking. There's some pretty nice roads for riding around here, you can link up lots of quiet highways for a really nice ride. Did my first set of intervals today since the BC Bike Race (minus the race last weekend), and everything actually felt really good. I was very pleasantly surprised for a change. It's been a little tough mentally recovering, getting out on my bike everyday, feeling tired and just ending up spinning easily again...but alas, I smile today at how things feel, maybe it's the fresh salty air.

Just getting prepped to get dressed up...doesn't happen very often so I have to work myself up to it...hope no one minds all my scrapes and bruises...and my lack of make-up (never mastered that feminie skill).....and going to enjoy a good ole' east coast wedding. I hoping to slip out sometime and go flouncing in the ocean though :)

Monday I'm heading back to Montreal to spend a couple relaxing days waiting to meet up with the national team in Quebec City on Wednesday.

Ciao