Louisville 2013

Well, that's a wrap, and there's absolutely no better way to cap off the season then with Cyclocross World Championships in Louisville, Kentucky.  They did an amazing job with the event and I don't think there is a single bad thing I can say about the week, especially considering the conditions they had to deal with.  Regan and I arrived monday night into Louisville to 21 degrees shorts weather, yes, hot and wet.  Shannon raced the Master 45-49 womens qualifier on tuesday (the only women's qualifier for some reason), and Kenny raced the Master 40-44 men's qualifier on wednesday to both move on to the finals.

That night you could feel the temperature drop fast, and we got a call at 4:30 am from the front desk with a tornado warning, yes, tornado hit Louisville.  Huddled in the laundry room with 10 other people at 4 in the morning, awesome!  Followed quickly by rain, sheets and buckets and tonnes of rain.  Then snow!

The already chewed up Masters course went from bad to worse, but Shannon still rocked a 2nd place on Thursday and Kenny a 10th place on Friday (without the aid of a bike wash - frozen lines and power washers...ooops), while Regan and Richie worked tirelessly, chipping, scraping, spraying, just to keep a couple gears on the bike somewhat functional.

The Elite races were scheduled for Sunday with the U23 and juniors on Saturday, but with the forecasted flood looking ever more likely, the UCI moved all the races to Saturday.  Minor kink in the prep plans for the race, but everyone is in the same boat, so Saturday morning after a good inch of fresh snow and -10 it was race day for me.  Like I've said, I really wasn't too sure how good my fitness was going into this race, I've worked hard to stay motivated up north and do the time, so I was really, really nervous for this race.  Thanks to the Pro City race team killing me the previous Saturday, I did know that I still knew how to suffer :-)

Third row call up, not great, but at least not 4th row haha.  It wasn't a huge field, but all of the top players were definitely there at the start line.  I had a great start, definitely the best part of all my races, avoided a big crash off the start that took out the back of the pack, and took a couple low off camber lines that allowed me to pass 5 girls at a time!  At the top of the steep limestone stairs I found myself behind Katie Compton (who didn't seem to be having a great time on her bike), but it flashed through my head, maybe I can stay with her!!  Came through the start finish on lap 1 in 9th place...WOW!!!  But I quickly felt my slight lack of fitness starting to set into my legs and started making a lot of errors on the 2nd lap....which ended up costing me a lot of placings and time.  Slippery off camber and frozen ruts are not my friend when slightly cross eyed.

Lap 3 I slowly started getting my rhythm back slightly worked my way back into the race.  Had a good battle with Pepper Harlton again, but lost her when she dabbed in the sand pit.  Fought and finished in 19th place at my first World Championships for Cyclocross, and easily one of the best cycling events I've ever been to.  Watching the men's race was absolutely amazing!!!  My Stan's IronCross wheels worked fantastic in the icy mud with Kenda Kwickers at 22 psi...yes, 22 psi with no problems.  My Ridley X-Fire was flawless, along with my Lazer Helmet and Aeroshell (single best cyclocross accessory), and my Sidi Spyders.....we easily have some of the best gear around.  Thank you Shannon and Kenny for all the hard work you've put into the team making it run so smoothly.  Thank you Regan for making my bike work super smoothly like always.  Thank you Richie and Aaron for fantastic race pit set up, and Cindy for everything!!  Including the underground Zip-lining!  And thank you to Louisville and all the fans, especially all the crazy Canucks that made the trip down south to cheer!!

Officially in fat and sassy season, bringing my xc skies up to Fort McMurray this rotation, not even worrying about a bike for a couple of weeks.....but really jazzed about the Cannondale Scalpel coming soon!

Photos Courtesy of Kenny Wehn

Worlds Prep

    Wahoo,  I've been a slack ass with the blog since....wow, since I won myself a tattoo!! I do fall off the blog bandwagon from time to time, so almost one month later, here I go.

    Bend USGP was awesome, probably one of my favorite courses and venues.  Regan and I loaded up our fast growing puppy and did the good ole road trip down south.  Stopping in Ferndale at Transition Bikes to pick up Regan's new toy, we had a great and uneventful drive down.  This was my first experience in Bend, and I have to say it's a pretty neat city.  The course is on Deschutes Brewery grounds in the Old Mill District, so the river and the big smoke stacks in the back ground make for a very neat picture.  I had a great battle both days, Day 1 sprinting to the finish with Teal and Day 2 battling with Julie on the last lap, finishing 7th both days.  Last race till worlds!!

     The monday after Regan and I did something that we've never done before!!  We slept in and just enjoyed being tourists in Bend!  Lots of walking and exploring and tiring the poor puppy out.....she was dragging her butt back to the hotel for sure.  Nothing like sitting outside on the patio enjoying a coffee in December....and being too warm.  From there we headed north to visit my parents in Calgary for a couple of days.  Hit The Elk Pub in Spokane (from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives)...YUMMMMM, spent the night in Fernie and Laila got to experience her first snow (cute!).  3 days in Calgary, and I flew straight up to Fort McMurray for 10 days of work.....or prison camp more like it.  It's really not that bad, I really only worked 2 or 3 days this rotation....but it worked out to be well over 50 hours in those days, needless to say I spend a lot of time recovering.

 Showing the SSCXWC Trophy to fans

Thx Verge and Stans Notubes For the Nat.Champs Kit

      Quiet Christmas at home, fun surfing filled weekend in Tofino for New Years with some great friends, and now I'm back up north doing my time.  With less then a month till CX World Championships in Louisville I'm trying to tailor my workouts to have me fast for that weekend.  In a way, trainer riding is almost better for this because I can really focus on my intervals......sometimes, days like today when I'm recovering from a looooong shift, I feel a little drunk on the bike :-)

   This is going to be an experiment in self coaching and sleep deprivation going into Worlds!  Lets see what this body can do!

Thank You to Matthew Lasala For the use of these beautiful pictures.

http://www.lasalaimages.com

CXLA and SSCXWC.....busy!!

Rain in LA!!  What the....  Left cold, wet Victoria for......at least it was warm and wet.  Final race of the Cross After Dark series Saturday night, another UCI race Sunday morning and SSCXWC Sunday night lead to a jam packed weekend!  And as usual we did you quick in and out trip.  After flight delays, yippee San Fransisco fog/rain.

After a day of just a little rain, the course seemed to be drying up nicely.  Pre-ride on my dry tires was awesome and the flat CXLA course looked like it was going to be fast!  It started raining shortly into my warm up, but no panic, it's really sandy so conditions should stay half decent for a while.  Wow, couldn't have been more wrong with that one!!  I couldn't believe how fast the conditions of the course turned really really really slippery.  I was sorely missing my Kenda Kwickers on this one.  A good wipe out coming out the BMX course and I lost contact with the lead group.  After that I found myself tip toeing around all the corners, perfecting the fish tail!!  And in a great battle with a couple of girls for 8th to 10th.  I know I wasn't the only one having troubles with the mud, it was about an inch layer of grease sitting on top of the hard pack underneath.....just like riding on ice.  I made my one and only move on the last long straight away in the final lap and managed to put a small gap on those two to nab the 8th place spot.

Some yummy greasy Chinese food for supper (didn't sit so good the next morning), Regan did a great job of cleaning all the bikes and we were in bed by 2am.  Only to have to get back up at 7:30 to make our 12 noon start.  Talk about a quick turn around, I think everyone was hurting today!

I decided to run the Kwickers on Sunday, and after not even a half lap pre-ride (which was all I could get my bike through, sticky gluey peanut butter mud did not make my bike happy....and impossible to clean) we converted my pit bike to a single speed.  Had a great race on Sunday, blew up a little in the last 2 laps, but it was fun being able to ride up at the front for the first couple of laps.  Pepper roared by me in the final lap (and put some good time into me) and I finished 7th place.

Another quick turn around, change into dry clothes and easy spin on the trainer, and it was SSCXWC time!  I've wanted to do this for a couple of years now, but it just never worked out, so when I found out it was with the UCI races this year I was really stoked!  Few little mods to the course; whisky short cut through a minivan (I have perfected the barrel roll) and the sesspool of filth (ewwwww) and a lot of very rowdy fans.  There were some awesome costumes out there, I personally sported a Norwegian jumpsuit/pajama/I don't really know what it was....but it was comfortable!  Waldo aka Pepper was coming on strong, until she took one too many whisky short cuts.  The very itsy bitsy bikini with lace body suit made a late charge and ended up only 200m behind me at the finish.  I didn't catch anything in the sess pool (there was some money filled condoms and a bike frame), but I had an absolute blast.  Shortly following the mens single speed race I was kidnapped and taken straight to east Hollywood for the coveted SSCXWC tattoo!!  What a story :-)

Thank you Dorothy Wong for organizing CXLA and Murphy Mack for the SSCXWC.  Huge thank you to Matt and Joan Wehn for the yet again awesome home stay, and Regan for looking after all the bikes!!  It was great having almost the whole team there together again!!!  Looking forward to rocking the X-Fire disc again in the mud this weekend in Bend!!

Jersey Baby!!!

Wow....It looks like all I need is some really nasty cold rain and mud to have a great race.  I’ve been wishing for mud all week cause I was really excited to run my Kenda Kwickers in the mud, love these tires, and they helped me win my first ever Canadian National Championship title....YIPPEE!!!!!!  Though halfway through the race I was really wishing for some warm sun 

Caught the 5pm ferry over to Vancouver Friday night after work, made a quick stop at the pet store to buy another collar and leash (not used to packing for the puppy yet), then over to the venue for about 8pm.  I did a quick slippery walk around as much of the course as I could...should have brought a light...as Regan set up the tents near the course. 

Photo by Steve Pukesh 

Saturday morning still hadn’t brought the forecasted rain and I was seriously starting to doubt my tire selection.  Come noon the skies opened up, and I mean it started DUMPING!!  Horrible start slipped my pedal once, twice...uggh...finally got in and had some work to do.  Thankfully the starting straight was really wide so I had no problems finding a path back up to the lead group.   Pretty quickly we had a break with Pepper Harlton, Wendy Simms and I off the front with a small gap to Catherine Pendrel and Emily Batty.  First time up the stairs I tripped, second time up the stairs I tripped hard landing on my knees in the rocky mud, third time up the stairs I tripped yet again!! GEEEEEZZZZZZ, first time with my new feet!  I think it was the 3rd step each time too 

Photo by Steve Pukesh

All 3 of us were trading blows trying to hammer each other and break away...also knowing there were some really fast women very close behind us.  Part way through the 3rd lap, Pepper started having some problems with the corners and hit the ground a couple of times.  This allowed Wendy and me to open up a gap on her.  We seemed to work together a little to put some distance between us and the chase.   Near the end of lap 3, through the slow slick off camber section, Wendy choose to run and I managed to clean it (just), looking back I had opened up a small gap so I kept the pressure on.  I ran a clean race for the final 2 laps, staying upright with Regan’s smooth is fast and fun mantra.  Not quite believing it I won my first ever National Champion title!!!  Happy Dance, Happy Dance, Happy Dance....though I was too cold do to my happy dance at the time.  Celebrated in style by ordering in pizza, grabbing a tub of Haagen Daas and popping the top to some San Pellegrino.  YUP, I’m wild in my victory....supper in bed!!

Photo by Jamie Cameron

Photo by Jamie Cameron

Day 2 had no more rain, leaving the mud a very sticky peanut buttery consistency, and a really flipping cold wind.  They changed the course a little, removing my dreaded stair (not sure my knees could have handled that one again) and all the straight aways were straight into the nasty head wind.  Had a great start but smartly decided not to stick myself out in the wind right off the bat.  Sunday’s race stayed a lot closer together due to the wind making it a very different dynamic of racing, really neat to have a race so close.  After the first lap I found myself in the group just slightly off the front with Catherine, Wendy and Pepper.  Lap 2 Catherine had some serious troubles with the blowing course tape and soon it was just the 3 of us again.

Photo by Steve Pukesh

Photo by Jamie Cameron

No one launched attacks (when we did it was useless) because as soon as you moved out of the draft you were really hammered by the wind.  My only strategy for this day was to hit the last section of muddy course in the lead.  I wanted to have a clean run at the course and if I made a mistake I didn’t want a gap to open up.  I had a clean run and the second last corner I heard Wendy who was sitting second wheel bobble and I opened up a gap.  There was a fast pavement downhill into a hairpin corner to the finishing straight from there.  I hadn’t realized how hard Pepper had hammered to catch back up to me, and while rounding that last hairpin I noticed her tire out of the corner of my eye.  Head down full on sprint (slowly) uphill into the head wind.  She played it smart, staying in my slipstream as long as she could, but made her move a little too late and I was able to just hold her off at the line, taking my second win of the weekend.

Photo by Jamie Cameron

Thanks ladies for the awesome weekend of racing.  Hard, muddy, cold and fun   And thanks Daryl Evans for hosting the nationals weekend.  This was my first really good disc brake cross bike experience and they were great.  Late breaking into hard rough muddy downhill’s, no problems!  My Ridley X-Fire performed flawlessly with my Stan’s Iron Cross Wheels and Kenda Kwicker tires at 25 psi...loving this low pressure thingy.  Very thankful for my Lazer Aeroshell, kept my noggin warm!!  Huge thank you to everyone for their congratulations and big hugs!!  Thank you to my great Stan’s No Tubes CX team and my awesome mechanic Regan who made everything run so smoothly!!

Giggle giggle giggle

USGP Loo-uh-ville

USGPcx weekend #3, World Championships course preview....AWESOME!!! Hard, hard, hard, hard, hard, both physically, technically and mentally. Over 50 starters in the women’s field makes this by far the largest cross race I’ve ever competed in. Have to say it wasn’t one of my better performances this weekend though. Not sure what it was, but things didn’t quite come together for the race the way that I planned. Felt great during the week, really strong and fresh, felt good for the pre-ride (tough a little sore from the 18 hour travel day....funny how you pay less to travel substantially farther then the expensive flights), and warm up was good. Not ideally placed for start either day, second row, far left behind Mo Bruno Roy, I ended up fairly far back in the mix going into the nasty first sand pit each day. Burnt a few matches but managed to get myself up into the chase group.
Saturday I lost contact with the chase group at about 20 mins, but I was able to keep the pressure on and not loose too much time...still finishing 11th place. Sunday I lost contact running up through the sand pit again at about 20 mins and had a lot more troubles mentally rallying myself to keep hammering. Everything felt like slow mo pain and I just held on for 14th place at the end of the race......and surprisingly not that much farther behind then Day 1.
I’ve noticed this year that I don’t seem to have the fitness that I did last year to be able to race to full capacity after killing myself in Day 1....going to insert an excuse here lol, thinking my after work night training may be starting to catch up with me a little......feel like just sleeping...A LOT! Let’s see if I can fudge my fitness for one more week into a very muddy Canadian Nationals this weekend in Vancouver. Going to be one of the most competitive Nationals CX race to date for the women and I’m excited for it to be nasty wet and muddy.
For Day 2 race I successfully ran 19 psi in the rear and 16 psi in the front with my Stan’s Iron Cross wheels with Kenda Kommandos and didn’t burp or roll my tires, on a course that had a high chance of doing so....these things are awesome, I say it again! However it definitely not the best choice of pressures (the old thumb test squeeze for pressure check has failed me), I did have a very cushy ride!

Spooooooky

    Back to back double headers really are kicking my butt this year, not to mention the change in weather right now...I'm finally starting to come around almost 1 week later!

    Home monday from the USGP #2 in Fort Collins, work 3 days, then straight down to LA Friday night for SOCAL double header Spooky Cross and Krosstoberfest. Really fun event....some cool costumes (damn UCI rules or I would have had something fun on), a little sand pit action (with a surprising amount of new sand dumped for the first lap), some awesome BMX action (big air!) and great weather.

    Got in really late Friday night so it was really nice having an über lazy Saturday morning leading into the night Spooky Cross. Though getting ready for a 7:30 pm race has it's own challenges. My first front row call up at a UCI race of the year...yippee...so I finally got to test out my starts. Yup, still got my starts :-) Now if only I could hold that for 40 mins...I'd be like World Champ or something maybe! Head down and hammer, hammer, hammer for the first lap before I finally relinquish my lead....okay, I got overtaken. It was a great battle with us 4 leaders attacking each other the entire race. Elle Anderson, Teal Stetson Lee, Courtney McFadden and myself. Road tactics really played a large part in this race, with a lot of fast open straight sections you could really save a lot of energy by drafting. 3rd lap in Elle took a flyer and put a good couple corners into the rest of us. At this point I was really starting to feel my first lap effort of trying to ride everyone off my wheel....haha, yes, I know! It looked like Elle was going to have a clear shot at the win, when all of a sudden we come around the corner to find her picking herself up at the bottom of the stair run up. Even pros have dismounting and mountin issues sometimes! Teal attacked here and broke us up completely. I tailed along just out of reach and finished in 4th place, with my first podium of the year!

    Day 2, on the exact same course I decided to employ a slightly different tactic, not launching my start attack and try to sit in a little more off the start. Sunday's race ended up with the same 4 women off the front killing ourselves. Teal launched an early attack and she was slowly reeled in only to have Elle counter attack and have a smooth run in for 1st place. 3rd place sprint came down to myself and Courtney, I didn't play my cards right and I just didn't have the kick to get around her. Pair of 4's for the weekend!

Photo: Dorothy Wong

Photo: Phil Beckman

    As per usual, the Stan's No Tubes CX team works together flawlessly making for a great weekend, thanks team. Regan came with me as team mechanic, so of course my bikes worked flawlessly, thanks Regan!! Thank you to Matt Wehn (Kenny's dad) for the awesome home stay and thank you Dorothy Wong for hosting the weekend!!

Photo: Phil Beckman

    Stressful flight home with rain delays and lost luggage...doesn't make me a very happy traveller when all 3 of my bags don't show up, especially when you have to pay extra for the bikes! Not to mention the fact that when I called 2 days later, they didn't have any idea where my bags were!!! Bikes have since made it home safely.

    On completely different and other exciting news, Regan and I, after a lot of thought, have adopted the sweetest little girl ever. Big brown eyes, big sharp teeth....haha yes, 9 week old Laila is a Boxer puppy. So this past week has been a flurry of poop and pee and kisses and all sorts of new adventures. I'm a first time pet owner (besides the typical gold fish) and Regan has some limited experience growing up with a dog, so this is all new, exciting and scary! I really want to get her a little pumpkin costum for halloween!!! Yup, I'm going to be that kind of mom :-)

USGP Fort Collins Action

USGP weekend number 2 in the books. Not as successful here in Fort Collins as last year, but still an awesome weekend with some great people. Shannon has done an amazing job with the Stan's NoTubes CX team and I feel so lucky to be a part of the team and being able to ride such great gear.

Finally got to try out the Ridley X-Fire disc in a little mud this weekend....though definitely not as much as last year or as much as on the island (looks like it was a good weekend to get away!). Some nasty rain moved in Friday night and Saturday morning and it was looking like it would be a near carbon copy of last years mudfest, but as I was warming up the sun started peaking through and I really can't believe how fast things started drying up! Race conditions were perfect, corners tacky and a little bit of mud to make things exciting. I was hoping to have a better call up, but I keep forgetting its based on UCI points not series points, but manages to grab the last 2nd row position.

I had a great race but just didn't have the oomph to stick with the wheels I needed to. Thinking back I have some doubts as to if I could have squeaked a little more out of my legs and stuck with this wheel or that wheel it could have been a lot different. The next 5 spots in front of my hard fought 9th all seemed to slow the same as me....I just happened to do it a little sooner.

Photo credit © Dave McElwaine

With this in mind I headed into day 2 with the main goal of challenging myself to stay with that wheel. However my body seemed to have different ideas. Things were going great, found myself in a good spot, moving up through the field on Pepper's wheel (who had an amazing weekend of races), but when she made the move around Caroline Mani and I couldn't due to ....insert excuse of corner into barriers....by the time I passed Caroline I had a lot of work to catch back up.

Photo credit © Dave McElwaine

Entering that red very red zone can happen only a couple of times in a race, but throw in some good altitude and you can enter that zone even less. I hit that zone and didn't manage to make contact finding myself panting painfully in no mans land for a little too long. A strong roadie wheel passed me (very fast course today...ave 21.7km/h) and I manages to keep myself in the mix for a little longer. The final lap 6 came and I was swarmed by 4 women in a heart beat. Just dangling off the back of this group for the last lap I couldn't muster the pop to catch anyone's wheel....but managed to hold off Amanda Carey who was just a head of me Saturday and hold on for 14th place.

Photo credit © Dave McElwaine

No worthy excuses...though I could come up with a lot :). But I'm hoping it turns into a good learning weekend for me. Teammate Kenny Wehn who had an awesome weekend in the Master 35+ gave me an awesome workout to do....here I come Wednesday.

It was the first weekend to have the whole team together, it's pretty near being a part of a team that travels and works well together. Had a lot of fun this weekend...thank you Regan for the pre-trip complete overhaul, thank you Chris and Kenny for dialling my bike on for race day, and huge thank you to our host housing Randy!! As usual I loved the Stan's Iron Cross wheels, working flawlessly at my new 24/25 psi....yes, I'm coming to enjoy running lower pressure!!!

Photo credit © Dave McElwaine

Back home for 3 days work, then straight down to Spooky Cross in LA. Really excited about this race!!!!