Tall for a girl......

2010-10-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

Singlespeed Cyclocross World Championships Seattle

A little bit of gold, a lot of beer but no bacon

Norm and I have wanted to hit the SSCXWC for a few years but it never fit into the "schedule" (read: serious racing). When we heard that Seattle was hosting the race for 2010 we knew it was the year to go and pretty much signed up when it opened. We dropped Tycho for a fun-filled weekend of grandparents and cousins and we crossed the border for a fun-filled weekend of mud and beer. Saturday was the qualifier event which was an alley cat circle tour of (lower?) Seattle with a few checkpoints. The top 4 of each heat would qualify. After watching the first few heats go off I saw 2 guys dressed in drag nearly get taken out by a car, an entire heat of racers blow through a red light without even looking and a couple dudes trying to outrun a train. I wondered how exactly they had gotten insurance for this little qualifier....best not to ask questions I guess.

Anyone who knows me knows I am not strong on the orienteering.... I was a little worried about getting lost so I quickly scouted my heat for Seattle-ites and made sure to keep a close eye on them. In the end it was no problem as there were enough arrows and racers scattered about town I could figure it out. I did however get snaked while standing in the finish chute by a girl who really wanted to say she had beaten Wendy Simms. I guess I should be flattered. I received my race number for Sunday and waited for Norm, the one in the family with a much better sense of direction. Unfortunately for Norm, he flatted and did not qualify so he was pretty bummed...

Sunday we decided to race the MFG series before the SSCXWC - why not? Norm's luck kept getting worse as he had a mechanical in the MFG single speed race (Nathan asked HOW he could possibly have a mechanical with only one gear...) and then had ANOTHER mechanical in the cat 1 master race. He had obviously spent more time on my flash new Ridley's than his own bikes....My race went much smoother as I got to play in the mud with legend Ann Knapp who was the same chipper girl from years past (her traditional war cry on the start line is "lets have FUN ladies!!") and Kristi Berg who I battled with way back during my first Seattle race when I was just getting into the sport.

The skaters at the start - all nice and pretty. Katie Rabien is the real skater on the left (check out her bedazzled outfit) and I am just a wannabe (no bedazzles). photo by Norm Thibault

The start. Note the water balloons being pelted at us from above. I am tucked in behind a skeleton. Or maybe it was strongbad. Either way I did not receive a direct hit. photo by Norm Thibault

Finally at 3:30 it was time for the big show. SSCXWC. As it got closer more people came out of the woodwork with costumes and the beer fumes got stronger. They lined us up at the base of a steep hill and we were off. I tucked in behind a skeleton and Strongbad as the Rad Racing boys started pelting us with water balloons. I scrambled up the hill in good position and starting enjoying the chaos.

For a brief moment I was even ahead of Golden Speedo winner and now 3X SSCX world Champion Drew Mackenzie. photo by Norm Thibault.

The first lap was pretty crazy with some people going out hard, others having costume malfunctions and some even going the wrong way on the course to get good video footage. The mud had gotten pretty thick over the course of the day so there were bodies down all around. We hit the big run-up to the beer ridge where there was a 6 pack of barriers complete with a wall of beer at each one. These eventually got smashed down and became "floating" barriers that moved every lap. Coolers full of beer were being splashed on everyone by drunk spectators so the entire ridge smelt like a brewery. Apparently I have to work on my beer hand-up as I missed a couple but eventually started completing the transaction. I kept looking for the bacon station but apparently the drunks were not able to work with fire at that point in the day. I passed chickens, wrestlers, santa, saquatches, speedos and pretty much everything in between. I rolled in first girl (although I am not sure how they could tell anyone apart) and earned myself the golden bikini (well more like an 80s style one piece), a SSCXWC heavyweight belt, a custom frame and a SSCXWC tatoo to make it legit. It should go nicely with the white trash panther I got when I was 17. Not too bad for the first race on my new Ridley singlespeed. Maybe Stybar should come challenge Drew next year.

SSCX world champions for 2010 Drew Mackenzie and Wendy Simms (both from Vancouver Island much to the dismay of the Seattle singlespeed hardcores) photo by Norm Thibault

2010-10-16T16:16:00.000-07:00

Yes its true...after 5 years of flying the orange flag I have a new sponsor - RIDLEY! I wasn't feeling a lot of love from the orange camp so I started looking at my options. There was no doubt in my mind that Ridley would be a perfect fit for me. The company is Belgian, I LOVE Belgian chocolate! The company is named after Ridley Scott (the director), we were going to name our KID Ridley! Ridley Scott has a kid named Noah. I have a nephew named NOAH! The World Champion Stybar rides a Ridley, I think Stybar is HOT! Sue Butler and the Subaru Hudz team ride Ridley X-fires, I want to show up Sue and ride Ridley X-nights! Ridley colours are red, white and black, I look GREAT in red, white and black! Kevin Bacon is white, I LOVE bacon, the gateway meat. 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon separation. It was meant to be.

2010-09-21T16:46:00.000-07:00

STAR CROSSED & RAD RACING WEEKEND

I was a little nervous about how I would fare my first weekend back racing cross after a year on the sidelines. I was hoping to do a local race to get the kinks out before the UCI season started but it was not meant to be. Nothing like making Star Crossed your comeback race to put a little fear into your training. It is one of my favorite events because the racing is competitive, the course is fun and the fans are rowdy (if you trip up in the barriers the drunks in the beer garden show no mercy and spray beer all over you while they mock you). Better make sure I screw up in the darker portions of the course.

I knew I was fit (good for the last lap) and strong (good for the first lap) but wasn't sure how my body would react to the distinct pain of lap 2 when you have burned a bunch of your matches off the line but haven't quite settled into a rhythm. I didn't have any UCI points so I was definitely going to be burning some matches.

The weather was perfect, and when I say perfect I mean wet and muddy. On and off torrential downpours throughout the weekend.

My goal was a podium finish and I managed a pair of second place finishes against the powerhorse Katerina Nash (LUNA) so it was a solid starting point to the season. Norm met me at the finish line with a big grin and said "well, I guess that answers THAT question."

No race report can tell a story like the photos of Joe Sales (joesales.ca) so I will shut up now...

Rad Racing GP. Katerina Nash (LUNA) leads out the sand pit by the beer garden in the pouring rain. Photo by Joe Sales joesales.ca

Rad Racing GP. Me (5'10) trying to get a bit of draft off Katerina Nash (5'6?). Photo by Joe Sales joesales.ca

Star Crossed. Heading into the velodrome in the pouring rain. Photo by Joe Sales joesales.ca

Star Crossed. Always a few Canadian flags in the crowd. Don't screw up, don't screw up..... Photo by Joe Sales joesales.ca

Star Crossed. Pretty much the coolest picture. Photo by Joe Sales joesales.ca

2010-09-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

T4 - Tim and Tycho's Tickleberry Triathlon

Ironman Canada weekend up in Penticton. NO, I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR 2011. Geez enough with the question. But yes Norm did (nutjob).

It was a heavy spectating weekend as always BUT we did a little event of our own. The first ever T4 (Tim and Tycho's Tickleberry Triathon).

Tim's brainchild:

LEG 1: ride the Chariot around Skaha lake

LEG 2: stop at Tickleberry's for some ice cream

LEG 3: tube down the channel (but this year had to be substituted for skinny dip in Skaha Lake since it was too cold to tube)

Uncle Tim and Tycho at Skaha Lake

Norm was in line signing up for 2011 so he had to miss the first 2 legs of the T4 but he met us for the glory lap.

Tycho skinny dipping in Skaha Lake to make sure he got the participant medal.

Norm and Tycho - professional Ironman spectators.

2010-09-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

Assault on Mount Benson

We finally got a chance to hike up Mount Benson this summer! Benson is our local version of Vancouver's Grouse Grind but its less manicured, less traveled and there is no gondola to take you down so the legs are usually a little crippled after the return trip. The last time I hiked Benson I was 6 months pregnant so this summer it seemed like a breeze, although Norm couldn't say the same since he packed the 25lbs of dead weight up (Tycho). Marty even got to join us. At 14 years old he needed a few boosts up the steep stuff but he added the summit to his resume nonetheless.

Views of Nanaimo from top of Mount Benson.

Tycho taking the easy way up. His first summit "ex" - utero

Marty with his first summit as a fourteen year old puppy.

Showoff.

2010-08-20T15:35:00.001-07:00

Trans Rockies

Some time in February, 2 or 3 months after Tycho was born, I decided that I needed a race goal to get back in shape. For me, this means signing up for a race that scares the crap out of me so I have to get my butt off the couch and train even when its dark and farty outside. I didn't want to set my goals TOO high for MTB season since I had no idea how my body would respond post-baby. But I definetely wanted my fitness back for cross season. The best way I know how to get in shape for cross is to cram buttloads of hours into August, follow it with speed work and running, then fine tune everything as I race into shape. With that recipe, the perfect race goal was Trans Rockies - 7 days of racing through the Rockies in August. Lucky for us they honoured our free entry from our 2008 win, Rollin said he was in for support, my parents said they were in for baby duty and suddenly we had more than enough reason to squeeze in a few more rides each week. I thought the training would be the hardest part but I was wrong....

Day 0
We drove for 2 days to get to Fernie, registered, met my parents (who had flown in from Ottawa a few days before) and set up our camp in the high school lot. Everyone was a bit cranky and tired. Tycho had a cold, I was getting his cold and my dad had a different cold. Germ Awares like myself and Norm knew we were doomed. Stage racing is gard enough healthy. We went for a spin to flush out the cobwebs and got back just in time for an absolute downpour to flood our campsite. As we were trying to sort out cooking and sleeping arrangements in our van/borrowed pop up trailer (thanks Wally!) I wondered what the hell possessed me to do the Trans Rockies with a baby? Was I an absolute IDIOT? I didn't share these thoughts with the crew...

Day 1 Fernie to Fernie TTT - 31km
We thought we were pretty lucky to get an early start time for the team time trial. We were wrong. It rained all night and we had a mudfest course to deal with. To top it off we were the rabbits for our competition. I had some chain suck issues almost immediately and I probably could have climbed faster on my CCM Scamp when I was a portly 10 year old nicknamed Seacow. Mical and Jeff started 30sec back and caught us within 1-2km and Gretchen and Cannon started a minute back and caught us within 2-3km. You do the math on a ~500km race. Ouch. That stings. But I sorted it all out by the downhill when I realized I had to drop the competetive side of my brain if I was going to get through the week and have some fun. Sweet Fernie singletrack was a good place to start. When we finished we were so covered in mud that people in the street looked at us in horror. 3rd place finish but two pretty shattered egos.

Day 2 Fernie to Sparwood/Elkford - 71km
The circuitry in my brain is hard to rewire as I had a fast start and followed the right wheels to get in with the lead group for the opening fire road. But I was pinning it and it was only the first 5km of a loooong 71km stage. oops. Time to slip back to a more manageable group for my training. A steady climb before we hit the long steep fun descent. But Norm yelled out that his brakes weren't working. I could smell something burning and then some hot mangled piece of metal popped off his bike in the shape of a swan. It was his rear brake rotor. Uh oh. Poor Norm had to run/coast most of the 7km descent. 3rd place finish but 4+hours of bike repairs and definitely 2 bruised egos as the other 2 Open Mixed Teams seemed out of reach already. But we had a great camp site by the river and it was sunny (mostly).

Day 3 Elkford to Etherington Creek - 65km
More rain overnight and a recently graded fireroad meant that this opening ride with the group was a mess. Slick mud, high speeds and a big group of mountain bikers is never a good thing. But we managed to stay out of trouble and felt reasonably good and so we were rewarded with a giant hike a bike that opened up to unbelievable views. A fun descent and we saw the Tokyo Joe's team and even managed to make up a few minutes on them. 2nd place finish, higher spirits and another great campsite.

Day 4 Etherington Creek to Anchor D Ranch - 60km
We thought there might be a more mellow start today with the TR3 crew heading home but chatter around camp was that there was only 2km of road before the opening singletrack so Norm warned me I had to "BE AGGRESSIVE". I started fast and went into the singletrack top 10. Sweet! Mical and Jeff were towing the train but I still had them in my sights. Norm is a great starter so I always assume he is on my heels. But I hit the road and no Norm. I had to let the lead group go. Bye-bye. Sniff. I let the chase group go. No Norm. No Norm. I circled around and around and around until he finally showed up and let out a huge groan. "NOOOOOOO I thought you were BEHIND me!" apparently my white Frontrunners kit isn't as distinctive as the orange Kona and he was soft pedalling waiting for me to catch him. We chased through the mud and cow poop all day but Mical and Jeff were long gone. 2nd place but riding stronger.

Day 5 Anchor D Ranch to Little Elbow -54km
More rain (and hail) on the ranchland meant more liquid cow poop. Norm and I are mudders so we just put our heads down and ploughed through. We had originally thought "only 54km, should be an easy day" but again we were wrong. I got delerious at one point and made up a story about how I was vacationing in Hawaii and getting the mud treatment at the spa that day. This was after I had stopped drinking my water because there was so much cow feces on my bottle that I would take dehydration over bacterial infection of my bowels. 2nd place and riding strong but cold rain soon followed and rumour was there was fresh snow on the peaks.

Day 6 Little Elbow to Rafter 6 Ranch - 72kmThe TR website described day 6 as: the “Queen Stage” will be one of the funnest days you will have on a mountain bike. However it ended up as the hardest, most hellish day I have ever had on a bike. We knew this was going to be a super tough day even before the elements turned on us. Longest stage with the most climbing is never easy but listening to the rain all night we knew it would be a whole new level of survival - there would be people cracking today for sure. Lucky for us we seem to excel in crappy conditions but sometimes I wish I was a sunny warm day race specialist as opposed to a shit weather specialist. Dressing for the day was hard enough - I ended up with thermal knees, 2 x undershirts, arms, jersey, winter gloves, rain jacket with an emergency tuque and extra vest packed but everything was soaked within minutes. We were cold and wet but it was all manageable until we hit the exposed area at the top of the mountain which had 50km/hr winds and sub 5C temps. Descending would have been fun on a nice warm day but my hands weren't functioning and I was having a hard time focussing so we had to stop in the trees to put everything we had on. I gave up on eating with my club hands at about 35kms and barely drank. Checkpoint 2 had a warming tent but i knew if I went in I would never come out so we kept moving and ended up winning the stage for Open Mixed and 6th overall but it had taken its toll on our bikes. Norm spent about 4 hours working on my bike - new brake pads, rebuilt pedals, new cables, new bushings for my rear shock, new casette, and the fork was seized but he couldnt do much about that. He thought about changing the chain but figured it would be fine as it was only 6 days old...... He gave up on his own bike and decided to just race his back up bike for day 7.

Day 7 Rafter 6 Ranch to Canmore - 46km
Well we should have changed the chain as I busted it 3 X and had to baby it in to the finish so what could have been a solid finish for us ended up as just a fun ride through Canmore to end off a tough week of racing. And as always the best way to end a tough ride is with a plate of poutine.

Thanks to Rollin, Lizzie and Geo - our awesome support crew - we couldn't have done it without you guys and thanks to and Tycho for being such a trooper! Oh the stories we will tell....

2010-07-12T22:19:00.000-07:00

First Chariot bike ride!!

We have been soooo good. But we couldn't wait any longer! I know "they" recommend you wait a year until you tow your wee one behind a bike (probably because they are no helmets that fit) but we just had to take Tycho out for his first spin when summer showed up. It wouldn't be very fun to wait until December when the weather is crap. So we put the bike conversion kit on my Kona PhD (aka the preggermobile) and went out for our first family bike ride with the Chariot!! wahoo!!

The PhD will be towing the Chariot on a daily basis when I go back to work

Tycho didnt stay awake very long. He is pretty used to the Chariot by now - he has been in the carrier for skiing and running since he was only a few weeks old.

Norm had to take a turn

2010-07-08T07:43:00.000-07:00

Addendum

People keep asking me how Norm and I could race BC Bike Race with a 7 month old baby. No, we didn't put Tycho in a baby kennel for the week. No, Marty didn't babysit him. No, we didn't leave him in the van with the windows cracked while we raced. Norms neice Hope traveled with us for the week and took care of Tycho while we raced. She was awesome! The oldest of more than a dozen cousins, Hope has more baby experience than I do and is amazing with kids. We were sad to say bye to her at the end of the week and poor Tycho is in Hope withdrawl. Thanks Hope!

2010-07-07T21:07:00.000-07:00

BC Bike Race 2010

Geez. I just did some blog surfing to catch up on what everyone has been doing the past week and find out my Open Mixed competition Catharine Pendrel and Mical Dyck have been posting blog updates for every single day of BC Bike Race. Keeners. I better get my butt in gear.

Norm and I went into this years BCBR with a solid streak of Open Mixed leaders jerseys - 7 for 7 in 2008. Buuuut when we heard that Catharine Pendrel and Geoff Kabush were teaming up we knew we would be doing laundry this year. And with the Mical Dyck - Jeff Neilson duo, we knew it would be a good battle for second. I wasn't sure if the body was up for such a battle but since my motto this year was to kick it old skool and "race back into shape" I didn't have much choice. I was banking on my base from years past to carry me through 7 days and hoping my leg speed would bust through the cobwebs and make an appearance somewhere along the way. Surprisingly, my base did hold true and a teeny bit of leg speed shone through but it was my back that gave me the most grief. Apparently carrying a small human in your belly for 9 months slowly deteriorates your core strength - huh? I did not get the memo.... Anyway this is the short and sweet version of the week.

Day 0 - this ~9minute time trial prologue basically set the stage for the week. 1. Pendrel/Kabush 2. Dyck/Neilson 3. Simms/Thibault If you cheat at choose your own adventure books, you can skip to the end

Day 1. Nanaimo. Home turf! If there was a stage where we would have an advantage, it would be today. As we rolled the neutral start through town, our adoring fans cheered loudly from the sidelines. Unfortunately the RCMP bike cops were having such a great time they forgot to pull off the front and Norm had to sprint up the hill to tell them it was game on or there would be a log jam at the first trail head. Crisis averted. But in a twisted irony Norm burps his tire and eats shit only 5 minutes into our favourite trail on day 1. He flats. His CO2 cartridge head is busted. He cant seal his tire. As I am waiting at the troll circle going around and around hoping the trail gnomes will play nice (0 laps = bad luck, 3 laps is usually safe). I see rider after rider pass by in a long train. When Norm finally appears ~10mins later he is hurt (busted ribs), pissed off, stunned, a little wobbly and we have about half the field to pass. Not the best start to the week. 3rd place with a big chunk of time to make up.

Norms pain face. photo by Dave Silver davesilverphoto.com

Day 2. Cumberland. I love racing Cumberland trails and know them pretty well by now. I told Norm "today is the day we go for glory, and by glory I mean second place..."One of the buses breaks down and the race is delayed. I hear the announcer say the bus isn't even here yet so I casually go to the BMX track to warm up. I head to the bathroom and hear "30seconds to race start". Whatthehell!?! I boot over to the start line, sneak through the side chute and see Norm looking around frantically for me. I have time to yell at him that i am here and the gun goes off so I have no time to take off my warm up jacket. Woah. That was CLOSE. Norm was NOT impressed! I love Cumberland trails so we have a pretty good day - 3rd place - but my back starts to fatigue and I have to pee the ENTIRE race.

Day 3. Powell River. New stage for the event so noone knew what to expect - definitely not the million bridges that we crossed! The coolest part of the day was passing by a primary school on the way out of town and the ENTIRE school was out cheering us on!! Awesome trails but unfortunately this is where my back went on strike. I was the weakest link and Norm looked like he was soft pedalling. 3rd place and a trip to the massage tent to try and get some strength back

Day 4. Earls Cove-Sechelt. I knew this stage and was well aware of the climbing ahead. My back felt pretty good for the first 3 hours and then there was a "TWANG" and i was almost in tears at every rock, root and climb. I limped in not caring how much time we lost. Seems we were solidifying our 3rd place position quite nicely. Another massage.

Day 5. Sechelt-Gibson. Apparently the massage did the trick as I felt pretty good off the line and we decided to try to stay with Mical and Jeff (and Melanie McQuaid who was leading the open women race). I asked Norm if it felt like he was in the middle of a cat fight and he hissed out a small "meow." It was pretty fun to be racing again instead of just staring at Norms wheel hoping to not be dropped. Mical stops to get sharkies at one of the aid stations and we get a small gap and hold it for 2nd place. Small victories!

Day 6. Squamish. this is one of my favourite places to ride and we know the stage pretty well so Norm and I decide to take off up the opening climb and push it every chance we get. I can hear Mical behind us the entire day but we keep pushing and keep a few minutes buffer. 2nd place and feeling stronger.

photo by Joe Sales

Day 7. Whistler. We were about 15minutes behind Mical and Jeff and about 5 hours in front of 4th place. It was a short stage but you never know in stage racing so we were supposed to go hard off the gun and see what happened. Unfortunately there was a screw up at the start that had the front of the pack mixed up with the back of the pack and I had to exert a bunch of energy passing a whoel whack of people up the biggest climb of the week. Normally I would suck it up and get on with it but Tychos sleeping habits were getting blown to bits and I was running on 4 hours sleep. I had nothing to donate to the cause so we kept our lock on the solid 3rd place finish.

Showing off my third place award and the pipes gained from 7 days of BC singletrack. Oh yeah and pale skin, puffy eyes and some scratches and bruises. photo by Smiley

2010-06-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

ROCK CITY RUMBLE II: THE RECKONING

This past weekend was our 2nd annual Rock City Rumble paintball war out at the Mark property. Although they don't make paintball guns in Tycho's size they do make camo onesies at the hunting superstore in nanaimo - who knew? So Tycho played superfan in the "safe zone", flirting with Lisa and telling everyone stories about how he earned his ninja headband in 'nam.

2010-06-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

RESULTS TRANSLATED

Now that I am on team M.O.M. you might think that I spend my days wandering around WalMart looking for good deals on diapers. Sorry to disappoint but I have yet to have my skin itch in a way that only WalMart can trigger (although Zellers is a worthy adversary). With a full year on maternity leave I envisioned myself with heaps of spare time to kill. Maybe I should pick up a hobby. But apparently being super mom takes a bit of time. Who would have thought a little munchkin could be such a time suck. A pretty cute time suck but still on the high side of maintenance. Now add moving out and starting a major reno on the house, training for BC Bike Race and suddenly I am busier than if I was working full time. What happens when I DO go back to work? Gulp. I will just have to sort that out when we get there. So for now I am still dabbling in the race game hoping for a fun summer of all play and no work. When summer shows its pretty face that is....

Before I started racing seriously I was a firm believer in the scientifically unproven regime of "racing into shape" and I now I find myself full circle. Training time is limited so you may as well just go for the good stuff. Once I got my first race out of the way without a major catastrophe or meltdown I picked a few more local training races. Minimal travel for maximum return. That wasn't too hard to find as BC is home to many top athletes. I went to a local Island cup race in Duncan and lined up next to multiple Xterra world champion Melanie McQuaid. Never saw her the entire race. I went to the new Nimby Fifty race in Pemberton and raced against current World Cup leader Catharine Pendrel. Got absolutely annihilated. A couple of second place finishes but a smack in the face memo that I am nowhere near the top of my game. But it didn't seem to bother me. Especially since a few weeks back I discovered that I can be a local hero without racing around the world. It was only a third place finish in the local trail running Gutbuster series yet I had people all over the island congratulating me like I was a superhero! Hmmm. Have I been busting my butt all these years when all I had to do was get pregnant and pull out a podium finish in my own backyard and have it sent out to cyberspace via the world of facebook? duh, less training more marketing now you tell me....

Our cute time suck.

Our ugly time suck. Underneath the pretty interior was almost no insulation, 3 ant nests, secret cupboards, water damage and dodgey wiring. I guess you could say we were a little overdue for some upgrades.

2010-04-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

By the Pound

So…..uhm….how much weight did you gain?!?

That is probably one of the most common questions I get asked about being pregnant. From girls, and cyclists, and especially girl cyclists. And the question is usually asked with a grimace. Like extra pounds are a virus or a contagious disease or something. Actually pounds are probably even less desirable to cyclists than a virus. You get rid of the flu by sitting on the couch. You have to work your butt off to get rid of the pudge.

Norm and I at our anniversary dinner a few days before Tycho was born. Dont let the colour black fool you. There is 50lbs more of Wendy to love in that photo.

One of the few "full on" pregnancy shots of me just a few days before Tycho was born. And yes, that is Norm trying to get his arms around the bonus me.

Now that I have shed most of the baby weight (Thanks to my new Chariot!) I can come out of the closet and say that I gained almost FIFTY POUNDS during my pregnancy. Holy. Crap. All of the books & magazines said the average weight gain for pregnancy was 20-30lbs. Uh hello. I hit that mid-way. I am not usually a weight weeny. I can’t be. I am taller than most girls on the circuit and I am pretty dense so if I played that game I would waste away. I probably out-weigh the legendary “fillet” by 30+ pounds. But when the pregnancy pounds started adding up I wondered what I would tap out at. One morning Norm and I weighed in the exact same and he joked about finding a teeter-totter. ha ha ha ha ha – shut it. I think that was the same week I went into the midwife and saw that the last person on the scale weighed 126lbs – less than my non-pregnant state. I muttered something about midgets under my breath. But eventually I just had to embrace it. I was “eating for two”, if I went for a walk I was a hero, naps were prescribed and everyone said I looked great. How can you NOT embrace that?

Shedding the pounds with a little resistance training with my new Chariot.

Buuuuuut once Tycho was born (at just over 8 lbs), I was stuck with extra weight and a body that wasn’t good for breeding OR biking. The glow was gone. Time to get moving. I started with walking & swimming. Then graduated to hiking. Then added XC skiing & baby stroller boot camp. And finally I got up the nerve to start running & biking. I had to suck it up and ignore my bruised ego. January 2009 I was at the cyclocross world championships and January 2010 I was starting my run-walk program with a 30sec run for every 4:30 walk. Ouch. But the body is a pretty amazing piece of machinery and after 4 months I am only 5 lbs shy of my world champs weight. Now I am not saying that the distribution of that weight is the same (I missed the memo that when your hips open up for childbirth your ass follows) but it’s a start.

2010-04-12T15:35:00.000-07:00

THE CUMBERLAND DINNER JACKET

It had to happen sooner or later. And no matter when it happened, it was going to hurt. My first race back. Almost a year now. But what better way to hurt than on some local Vancouver island trails. I chose the Cumberland Vancouver Island Cup race as my comeback race. 3 x 45min loops of the best singletrack around. Norm was supposed to race with me but he lost the coin toss after our friend Erin called in sick for babysitting duty. Welllll thats not entirely true. She said she could still take care of Tycho but when she called to let the germophobe (me) know she was sick, her voice was so scratchy she sounded like a pack-a-day-princess and she described 2 year old Parker as having snot running down her face. Hmmmm. I decided to skip the fight with the common cold because I knew I would lose that round. So Norm got to ride up island in the sun and play super-dad-supporteur while I raced.

I wasn't sure how the body would react to the harsh reality of a race after such a long hiatus. I have been able to get out riding at least 2-3X/week for the past month but race efforts have definitely not been in the program. As a result, the metallic taste of blood in my mouth after the first 200m was a bit of a shock. My Hei Hei Supreme was still pretty nimble on the technical trails and my legs were still pretty solid on the flat sections but I had to back off a bit on the climbs for fear of a giant mushroom cloud on lap 3. I had a great battle with Joelle Guynup for most of the race but lucky for me the race ended on downhill so I managed to lead the way on the last lap. Apparently a few of the local boys were pretty pumped I was not on form....yet. Norm hasn't lost his touch as super supporteur, even with a tot on his belly. While our handoff was sub par the bottle was full of cold coca cola to get me through to the finish.

Norm and Tycho donned their Cumberland "dinner jackets" for the race and lucky for me our 2009 Kona kits were based on the dinner jacket (although no royalties were paid out to the town of Cumberland) so I fit right into the family portrait.

The morning of the race I wondered why my arms and back were so sore. I had only done a short spin in the afternoon the day before. Ohhh yeah. Then I remembered we had taken my nephew Torno to the Nanaimo BMX track in the morning and knocked off a bunch of laps before we (the adults) all got tired and had to drag him home. Wish I was 8 again.

2010-03-24T21:38:00.000-07:00

Marty and Me

Marty turned 14 years old this week! If you dont know who Marty is, you probably dont know me too well. I have had Marty since he was 6 weeks old - he puked on my feet driving home and its only gotten better ever since. I watched that stupid movie Marley and Me when I was pregnant and I absolutely bawled. I am not much of a sobber when it comes to movies but your hormones get all jiggy and when I thought about losing Marty I couldn't stop blubbering. I had some flashbacks of all of our good (and bad) times together over the past 14 years.

1 shredded Mini Cooper S back seat (I have still not forgiven him)
1 shredded GMC van seat
953 eye watering farts
2 expensive knee surgeries after chasing a "bad bunny"
2 pink casts for said knee surgeries
1 bacterial infection of the spine (Kristenn figured it out)
830 rocks chased on the beach
14 teeth removed from eating said rocks
2 mailmen forever terrorized by a big black dog for cookies
1 wedding
1 ass kicking received from a small fluffy white dog
1 ass kicking received from a marmalade cat
32 ass kickings delivered to dogs that tried to hump Marty
4 bras with the underwire skillfully removed (Marty's specialty)
5 expensive science textbooks eaten
3 chewed leashes (until i got smart and bought a metal one)
0 dumps in the house
6 bones stolen from his buddy Rex down the road
15 tennis balls and baseballs found in the park and immediately destroyed
1 ego crushing incident where Marty ran into a park bench
9950 enormous dumps
8 pounds of bacon (1 pound a year for his birthday)
1 whistle that both of us can hear in a crowded room
967 customers greeted at Frontrunners
6 awkward humps in the back seat of the car (the only place he gets horny)
2 girlfriends Heike (boxer) and Humu (pointer)
1 non-sexual male crush on his buddy Raven (pitt bull mix)
26 energy gels consumed with his girl Humu
1 enormous belly ache from said energy gels
54 frisky romps in the snow
2 fluffly white pillows shredded with his girl Humu
748 snuggles when Marty is allowed in the bed
656 beach cruises
1575 amazing trail runs, skis and mountain bike rides

Thanks for the memories Marty. Lots more to come!

2010-03-10T20:35:00.000-08:00

Resurrection

Allright, allright, allright. I know I have been a slacker. No posts for months. But its hard to get fired up to maintain a race blog when one is not racing. Pregnancy, new baby and Olympics then BOOM its March already. I will try to summarize it all down for you so we can just move on.

Pregnancy. Done. No problem. Waaaaaay easier than training and racing. You get fat and everyone says how great you look. You go for a walk and everyone thinks you are overdoing it. Naps are prescribed. A girl could go soft being pregnant. Although I did get sick of of every female in the room chatting me up about labour and babies. Especially at the pool. In the changeroom. Naked. uhhh awkward......

Labour. Done. 10 hours. Hardest thing I have ever done. No drugs. But I really wish someone had told me that laughing gas was an option. I call do-over.

Newborn baby. Holy crap. I have never felt so utterly useless in all my life. Maybe I should have changed more than one diaper (that my 4 year old niece had to help me with) before Tycho was born. Rookie.

6 week+. After the first smile it all seems worthwhile.... those fog hormones kick in and you forget about all the rough spots.

2010 Olympics. Kicked ass. We got to see 2 gold medals, 2 silver medals and a bronze medal for Canada. The Canadian fans were amazing. Unlike the euro fans who only like a winner, we cheered just as hard for DFL. The energy was incredible. And Tycho was like the Willy Wonka golden ticket as we got pulled out of every line up to go through the "access centers" (who knew?) and got to use the toasty warm family washrooms.

There. That wasn't so painful. Just like ripping off a bandaid.

2009-08-22T12:53:00.000-07:00

Norm has termed me "the preggernaut" (closely related to juggernaut) so I thought I would define the term for everyone to make sure there was no confusion that it is indeed a term of affection (I think).

Preggernaut (preg-ger-naut)

A preggernaut is a term used to describe a pregnant force regarded as unstoppable, that will crush all in its path. It is especially applied to a large (hungry) pregnant woman or collectively to a team or group of pregnant women working together to crush all in their path.

Etymology
The word is derived from the Sanskrit जगन्नाथ Preganātha (meaning "pregnant Lord of the universe") . One of the most famous Indian temples is the Pregannath Temple which has an annual procession of chariots full of pregnant women. In the festival's past, people were crushed accidentally as the massive, multi-ton chariot filled with pregnant women slipped out of control as the hungry women were feeding. Others suffered injury in the resulting stampedes. This sight led the Britons of the time to contrive the word "preggernaut" to refer to examples of unstoppable, crushing pregnant forces.

2009-08-05T18:52:00.001-07:00

Huh. Apparently my "auto blog" program has malfunctioned. Better get on it.

So what the hell does a prego athlete do during the busiest part of the race season? Sit and sulk was an option but the weather in BC has been absolutely incredible so I have been getting a sweet tan and keeping myself pretty busy. Who would have thought a summer of play could be so much fun!?

SUZIE SUPPORT
BC Bike Race was on the list of races for me this summer but "in my condition" it was not meant to be. So I decided to help support Norm and his partner (Power Pole Pete) and the Kona crew. I soon realized that we run with a pretty talented group of friends as I would go to cheer and after the top 30-40 riders I would be done. Amateur friends and all. Poor soul beside me usually had another 2 hours before their friend in 287 th place would be coming by.... See ya.

Norm on his way to winning Master men at BCBR

NATIONALS vs WAR
The weekend of nationals we has a huge outdoor paintball war for Norm and Careys birthday. 25 of our closest (most hyper competetive) friends armed with guns played for almost 7 hours. Dont worry I padded up for the war, turning a lacrosse kidney belt into a bebe protector. Who would have thought there was no market for this sort of equipment?? We had so much fun I almsot forgot to check results when I got home.

I would like to claim this kill as my own but sadly my aimn was not that true

The hyper competetive players in full gear

ROLE REVERSAL
Soon after Nationals I received an email from my superfans Ariane and Marine Lewis. The little KONA rippers had BOTH won their races. With me on the sidelines I will have more time to follow their up and coming careers. I can be a superfan too.

New National Champ Ariane Lewis

New National Champ Marine Lewis

Ariane showing her true superfan support

THE NEGLECTED SPORTS
The last few years, with so much time away racing and so much of my time at home spent training I have neglected a lot of sports over the past few years. So I have been taking this opportunity to catch up on lost time and spend some quality time with Marty who is about my pace these days. Lots of trail runs, hikes, paddling, swimming and even a 3 day canoe trip. Rough life.

Marty "training" for his canoe trip with his panniers.

Our not-so-successful fishing trip

Norm wore this shirt the ENTIRE trip

The coolest looking outhouse

I have never seen Norm sit still for so long

2009-06-21T21:34:00.001-07:00

I really dont have much of a bump yet so we pulled out the fish eye lense to make it look more dramatic.
photo by Norm Thibault

TEST OF METAL

So I am technically not supposed to race anymore. My doctor said its too risky with the elevated heart rate and dehydration issues. But he did say I was still allowed to train, just at a lower heart rate. So I have been riding and running and swimming and paddling and gestating nice and easy like, just going off of perceived effort. Its actually been pretty enjoyable. But I am not gonna lie, occaisionally I have strayed on the high side of effort. But its interesting how your body shuts you down when you are pushing it too far. Its like I can feel every ounce of energy being shuttled from my arms, legs and head straight to my core to provide for the wee one. You start to feel like ass and you pretty much get the hint. Back off!

This weekend was Test of Metal, probably the biggest mountain bike race in Canada. Definitely the most fun. Last year I won it and smashed the course record and walked away with $1100. A year later I am getting winded taking the compost out...All for a good cause but it doesnt make it any less of a blow to the ego.

A big group from Nanaimo was going over to race Test of Metal and Norm was racing so I had a few options:

1. Stay at home and sulk

2. Go to the race and play Suzie-Support-Crew all day but probably be bitter for not getting to ride the sweet trails or

3. Start the race with the understanding it was just a fun ride and pull out when I felt tired

I went with option 3. I really wanted to see everyone, ride a bit and help out Norm. This was my option to do all 3. I would start the race, ride to the first aid station and then pull out and help feed the Nanaimo crew. My body seems to shut down at 2 hrs these days anyway, so it should be a perfect length for me.

I saw a whole whack of faces I havent seen in a long time. It was good to catch up with people. Word had spread pretty quick that I was pregnant but I am notreally showing yet. I am in that in between state where you could be packing on the pounds or pregnant but its too rude to ask. More than once I recognized the surprised understanding of a few as they said "Ohhhh, I THOUGHT you looked a little fff (as in fat) or thhhh (as in thick) or chhh (as in chunky)." They always managed to cut themselves off as they realized that might me taken so well but it hung on the tips of tongues.

In my head I was a little worried about starting the race as its pretty hard to turn off that circuitry in your brain. For the past few years I have taught myself to push through the pain and fatigue so now I just felt like a wuss if I stop at the first sign. I had read somewhere that you should keep your heart rate below 140bpm but I personally dont think I would get out of bed for that "workout" and I am sure it was set up for chicks that shop for exercise, so I went with the 150 rule. I even strapped on a heart rate monitor to keep me under tight reins. Unfortuantely there are quite a few major climbs that dont fit the 150 rule so I dutifully pulled over and waited for my heart rate to drop after a few climbs. I caught myself punching it to pass horrificly slow technical riders. I caught myself scrambling to hold the wheels of the 6'5 guys that could block a tornoado. And I caught myself hammering through the fun trails. I didn't stay below 150 the whole race but my head didnt explode, I had a great time and I confirmed that I am definitely in no shape to race. I am not even sure I could have finished the full course. Catharine Pendrel won it and shattered my record. BuT I am pretty sure I won first prego to the feed zone. Small victories...

Me and a small bump. photo by Norm Thibault

Super supportcrew Rollin (he was in charge of feeding 12 riders) me and Norm. photo by Matt Dawes

Norm was third in his category but they only did awards for Elite - LAME. So he went up to the step afterwards for his glory. photo by me.

2009-06-15T21:20:00.001-07:00

RUMOUR MILL

Its funny what you hear about yourself when you sit back and listen. I haven't been on the race circuit for a couple of months for totally preplanned legitimate reasons yet I started hearing some great rumours as to why I havent been on the US Cup and/or World Cup circuit. I probably should have set the record straight sooner but its pretty funny hearing what I have been up to.

Rumour: I went back to work and quit racing.
Not true. I went back to work in March with plans to have a late MTB season start, race closer to home and focus on mostly multi-day stage races, the first of which is in 2 weeks so by the book I am right on track.

Rumour: I stopped training and got slow.
True. Sort of. I did take a big break off the bike after CX worlds. I went on a holiday, ate poutine and drank milkshakes and it was divine. But as always, the bike calls and I was back to training within a few weeks.

Rumour: I bought a new car and quit training.
True. Partially. I did buy a new car. Sweet little Mini Cooper S. My dream car and it is a blast to drive so I admit I didnt commute to work by bike for a full week. But the guilt caught up and I am back on the bike.

Rumour: I was in Belize for a month doing some underground training.

Not true. I was in Belize but it was for work. I help put on a Biology field school and was there for a month hiking and canoeing with a few trail runs but no bike. Check out the cool critters.

Dying leaf mimic katydid

Red eyed tree frog

Spider monkey

Green iguana

Mayan ruins

Red rumped tarantula

Jaguar (Ok... from the Belize zoo)

Rumour: I am bulemic/anorexic and that is why I was sick at Sea Otter

Not true. At the time, I thought it was something I ate. I later found out it was my belly but not so much food related.

Rumour: I got a boob job

Not true. Sure my boobs are bigger but no silicone

Rumour: I got slow

Getting truer.....

Rumour: I got fat

Getting truer...

Rumour: I have an alien growing inside of me

True.

So if you are expecting race reports you can tune out now as there wont be any for the summer but I will still be posting blog reports of my perspective on races (I will still be at races but as a pro spectator and supporteure) and other cycling related issues if you are interested. Hell, maybe I will toss out the cycling part who knows. Tune in if you are bored.

2009-04-29T08:28:00.001-07:00

SEA OTTER

Well by now you probably have seen that my Sea Otter was a bit of a bust. With 3 events you would think I could pull something special out of my butt but alas it did not happen. Momma always taught me to look at the positives so here they are:

It was hot and sunny!

I got to travel with my dreamy boy Norm!

My new Hei HEi Supreme is awesome

We got to hang out with the smiletron.

The California wildflowers were blooming

Our new kits were super flash.

2009-04-08T21:15:00.001-07:00

Where do all the kits go??

Better dust off the old blog here now that the season has started again.....

One of the questions I always get asked is: what do you do with all of your old kits? Our sponsors are pretty generous, clothing us for the season with everything from skinsuits to jerseys to jackets. Most of it is just used for training and racing. Riding 6 days a week all year with only an apartment sized laundry takes its toll. But Kona factory team gear size smalls have found their way to different parts of the world. Some get signed and go to promotional events or fundraisers, some are gifted to the people that have helped me along the way, some are thrown in with the purchase of a bike, some are sold off so the local timetriallers can be more aero, some go to my favourite up-and-coming juniors but I always save one kit from every year so that when I am an old bitty, slow and gray, I can roll up to watch the local races in full factory team kit circa 200X. They won't know who the hell I am, but they will certainly wonder.

Kevin and Hannah out for a mid-winter ride.

The Lewis family, waiting for the snow to melt.

2009-02-14T13:47:00.000-08:00

Norm's slide show from Hoogerheide Cyclocross World Champs 2009

The quality on the web is a little less than ideal but hopefully still enjoyable.

IF you want a good quality one fire Norm an e-mail and he can burn you a nice CD or DVD one.

2009-02-09T16:00:00.000-08:00

MINIs of Malta

I was supposed to be helping Norm make a slideshow of Worlds but he was doing such a good job on his own, I went ahead and made a slideshow of all the sweet MINIs we saw on Malta.

2009-02-03T01:12:00.000-08:00

World Championships highlights

2009-02-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

Death or Glory

Quick World Championship report as we are headed off to the Maltese Islands for a much needed holiday. I will try update from warm, sunny malta with some photos of the Canadian view of worlds.

Death or Glory. That is what Norm always says to me before a big race. You have to go for it. So I went for the glory. Unfortunately it backfired. But noone can ever accuse me of racing conservatively. I had a good start off the second row. Up the hill things were looking good but then chaos at the first corner. I dont know what it is about girls but they seem to get jiggy off the line. Cant control their speed or something. I saw out of the corner of my eye a crash just waiting to happen almost in slo-mo. A Dutch gal going into the corner waaaaaay too hot so I cornered tighter to avoid the inevitable. In the video footage you can actually see another crash just behind me happening at the exact same time. Somehow I managed to thread the needle and squeek through both crashes and found myself with a select group off the front. It was now or never....death or glory.

There really was no question. It was World Championships so I went for it. Race plan out the window. I tried to stay with multi World Champion Hanka Kuperfernagel. Who has been on the podium every single year since the first womens World Champs. Was I a little out of my league? Probably, but that didn't stop me. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaang on Wendy! The pace was insanely fast as Katie Compton was off the front and Hanka did NOT want someone from the US to win (she actually said this outloud at an interview afterwards.....). I had watched the espoir race the day before and things let up a bit at the end of the first lap so I went ALL OUT that first lap trying to hang on. Mistakenly thinking there would be a moment to catch my breath. Unfortunately for me, when we hit the start hill Hanka cranked up the pace even FASTER and I blew up. Sky high. The chase group was close behind so I fell back to them and tried to stay with them. It worked for a bit but my body was a bit jello-y and my legs were screaming. I just needed a teeny rest. For the love of god SLOW DOWN! It was such a windy fast race staying with groups was really important but I had used up all my matches too early. I slid backwards for the rest of the race. I knew I needed to hold wheels but I just couldn't. I made up time on the few technical sections there were on course but to no avail. I slid all the way to 18th. A slow, painful fall from potential glory....I was in rough shape at the end with a vicious headache and the distinct taste of blood. I was as close to puking as I ever could be.

If I had raced smarter I might have been able to stay with the big group that eventually made up 4th-11th. Who knows. But surprisingly I am OK with my 18th spot knowing that I went for it on the day. Sure I would have liked a better finish but this is likely the last World Champs in my career and I can walk away saying I tried to ride with the best. I couldn't hang on. But I tried. Question answered. Now go eat some chocolate and get a tan on Malta.

Maybe in a week or a month I will get that little niggle that says "well maybe if I did this, or that, or trained this way or ran these tires..or what if____?" Its the what-ifs always brings me back. But for now I am OK with being 18th in the world. Maybe I am just getting soft.

Thanks to everyone who believed in me! I might not have been top 3 in the world but I definitely tried and I couldnt have done it without all your support.

2009-01-31T00:40:00.000-08:00

I have the BEST superfans!

Exhibit A: the Duh nuh nuh nuh video from Lisa & Curtis

Exhibit B: Dave, Erin, Parker, Breckin & Euchre video

Exhibit C: Peekay

Exhibit D: from the Nanaimo crew

2009-01-20T02:33:00.000-08:00

Roubaix mud. photo by Mitch Clinton www.clintonphoto.com

Roubaix World Cup

Everyone was pretty excited to be racing at the legendary Roubaix velodrome. Finish of the Paris-Roubaix classic. I think we all felt the history of the place when we arrived. You could almost feel the pain. No cobbles on our cyclocross course but they managed to piece together a really fun loop in a small space in the middle of the city. No features mattered except the BIG DESCENT. It was the talk of the day: did you ride the BIG DESCENT? what do you think about the BIG DESCENT? We (when I say "we" I mean NORM IS HERE!!!!) prerode before the masses so I managed to ride the BIG DESCENT no problem. I am not going to lie, it was sketchy - super steep with big ruts at the bottom - but it was a straight shot with a run out at the bottom and I am a mountain biker so I rode it out of principle. When I left the venue I saw about 12 pro men at the top of the BIG DESCENT looking down and not a sole rode down it for the 5-10mins I watched. At the managers meeting Saturday night they announced that the BIG DESCENT would be removed for the womens and juniors races. WHAT?! Pretty cheezy move as we are trying to prove that elite women should get more respect and then they anounce its unsafe for the women but OK for the men to ride. Apparently Katie Compton was livid. In the end it rained all night and the BIG DESCENT was 10X worse on race day so prooooooobably should have been removed for everyone. Maybe after a U23 guy in the lead group busted his fork and just about killed himself? hmmmm? What about after witnessing 98% of the top pro men in the WORLD running down it?

In Europe I have realized they do things a bit differently here and for the most part I have adapted. But one of the things I cannot get used to is the !%$#'n FALSE STARTS that they let slide. Today was no exception. Hanka Kupfernagel was probably 3 bike lengths ahead of me by the time I got off the line. I just saw a white streak to my right and unfortunately my left side of the grid was screwed as a result. So I ended up into the mud 15-20th. Nooot a great start to the day but I was not the only one to get screwed by a world champion's itchy trigger finger. Surprisingly there were a couple of front row girls back there with me. I had a good first half of the race and managed to pick people off and move into the top 10. It was slow going but I was riding pretty smooth and steady. Until the second half of the race where my legs just didnt have as much power to donate to the cause. Still smooth, still steady, just not as powerful. I did a bike change and came out of the pit behind a group of 5 girls instead of ahead. A couple small errors and they got a gap and I was struggling to try to catch back on. Which I never did so my top 10 went to a 15th.

Covered in mud and freezing my butt off, I was called for doping control AGAIN!? I thought I could just go right away and be done before the leaders came in off the podium but I misfired with only 60mL of pee and had to drink 4 bottles of water and wait and hour before I could finish the job. Rookie maneuver.

2009-01-14T01:35:00.000-08:00

Castles and Cathedrals and Chocolate, oh my

A day off in Antwerp with Sue B.

2009-01-10T01:25:00.001-08:00

The Whereabouts Program

Lucky me. I have been chosen to be part of the Whereabouts program. That means I have to account for 1 hour of my day, every single day of my life , minimum, so I can be randomly tested out of competition with no notice to prove that I am a clean athlete. I am all for making sure our sport is clean and fair but this is going to be a pain in the ass. I can tell that already because of the introduction I got to the program.

The UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) apparently sent me a letter on Dec 22 which informed me that I had been chosen for the whereabouts program. I guess my one week stint as world #1 caught someones eye. This letter must have sat in the CCA inbox over Xmas holidays because I did not receive it until Jan 5th. As it was the start of a new "quarter" I am assuming I was already in violation as my whereabouts information for Jan had not been inputted into the ADAMS website (Anti-Doping Administration and Management System). I read the letter over and over but had zero guidance of what to do next. I emailed my UCI contact person on the letter. Its Jan 10th and I still have had no response from them. I emailed people at the CCA (Canadian Cycling Association) who had forwarded me the letter, but they could not answer my Qs and forwarded me to the CCES (Canadian Center for Ethics in Sport). So I finally had someone from the CCES who sent me a link to a PAPER copy of the form I could fill out TWICE because one copy had to go the UCI and one to the CCES. Uh no thanks, I would rather use the electronic method. It is 2009 after all. All I needed was a login and password. Noone seemed to know it. Someone from the CCES eventually got back to me with a login/password. He was keen. He even used an exclamation mark when welcoming me to the whereabouts program. I knew he would be good. I sat down ready to start inputting my wherabouts into the ADAMS program but the login/password did not work because of "inactivity". They use big BOLD red lettering when you have an error. And errors seem to be common. I am assuming this "inactivity" refers to the gap between me receiving my letter Dec 22 and my first attempt at input Jan 9th. My keen CCES guy transferred my account from the UCI custodiam (not so helpful) to the CCES (helpful) and I got a login/password that worked.

So yesterday I sat down and tried to get started. Login/Password worked! Step 1 complete. I had been warned by Tony Theriault and Helen Wyman that the ADAMS program was not very user friendly. And I had read Simon Whitfields blog about his frustrations with the program. He basically said - I would rather you inplant a GPS chip in me than have to fill out all this paperwork. Hmmm. Doesn't sound promising. Helen gave me a tutorial but even though she had been part of the Whereabouts program for a few years, the input software had changed 3X since she started so she was still figuring the latest one out. This was the least efficient of the bunch apparently. Well, it took me over an hour to enter my whereabouts for the next 1.5 weeks of my life. Then I was exhausted and needed to go to bed. With an MSc in science I like to think I could do pretty well in "Americas Most Smartest Athlete" TV show so I would hate to see how much time the not-so-smart athletes clocked for this event. I hope to hell I get faster but I really should start tallying how many times I have to type my home address into the system. I guess that is what you get for being world #1. If only for a week.....

2009-01-10T01:18:00.000-08:00

Gary sweeping the driveway (he's from California....)

The Major Jake in full winter mode. I have to wash it after every ride because of the salt. Sounds easy but our hose is frozen so I have to shuttle buckets of hot water from the house to thaw the frozen slush off the bike.

Geo stretches in the snow. Running seems easier and warmer than riding

2009-01-06T13:25:00.000-08:00

HARD CANDY

I checked the weather this morning and it was -10C. With the windchill: "feels like -17C". brrrr. Everyone was gearing up for trainer rides indoors. At home I probably would have done the same. Rent a couple movies and get it done. But I had a 3hr ride on the books and new house rule 5.3.7a said no more trainer workouts in the living room in front of the TV. I dont want to name names so lets just call her "Sweaty Sweatersons," sweat too much on the living room floor and the new rule came into effect. That left crappy Belgian TV in the hall or the dark and dank basement "catacombs" so I decided to gear up and see how long I could last outside. It took me almost 20mins to dress. Top to bottom:

1 ear warmer

1 Helly Hansen toque

1 pair Rudy Project sunglasses

1 leg warmer pinned around my face & tucked under said sunglasses (couldnt find my neck warmer)

1 Helly hansen l/s sleeve base layer

1 Helly Hansen wind jacket

1 Champion systems soft shell jacket

1 Champion systems winter jacket

1 Champion systems bib short

1 Sugoi thermal running tight

1 Champion system thermal bib tight

1 Sugoi winter ski gloves

1 Sugoi wallaroo sox

1 Shimano WM80 shoes

1 OBB neoprene booties

The scary part was I wasnt too hot in the house...hmmm this could be bad

I put cross tires on my bike and set out not knowing how long I would last. Helen said she would give me a medal if I lasted an hour. I had 20 euros in my pocket in case things went horribly wrong. I dont even know if there are taxis in Belgium but I am sure I could bribe some one to get me home.

I am not going to lie. It was pretty damn cold. I had zero skin showing when I first set out but my fingers started to get cold almost immediately so I did a few efforts to warm up. That helped. Then the sun started to warm up and I found some great side roads with hard pack snow and some trails that had a foot of snow to keep me working hard enough to stay warm. It was pretty fun. 1hr clicked by. participation medal guaranteed. I got a bit lost and then headed for home and another hr clicked by. Hell, I wasnt going to get this far and do my actual workout on the trainer. I found a bakery and got a chocolate croissant to get me through the intervals. Damn right I deserved it! Plus my bottle had frozen so I needed some hot water to thaw it out. Found a good spot for my workout got it done just as my toes and fingers were starting to go numb. 3.5 hours. As my nephew Noah would say: yeah me.

I was feeling pretty proud of myself until on my way home I saw this young Belgian boy riding his bike to the store with no hat, no gloves, and his jacket open at the neck like he was overheating. Freak.

2009-01-06T13:23:00.000-08:00

Teveuren

Another mechanical that took me out of podium contention. I don't want to talk about it. It makes me ANGRY.

2009-01-02T01:41:00.000-08:00

Azencross Womens CX race - lap#1

I borrowed a mini video camera from Rick (Gabby's man) and attached it to my Major Jake for the Azencross GvA race. Its a pretty big file so I had to chop it down. Here is the first lap.

Quick race report to go with it:

I had an OK start but got swarmed by bodies into the first few corners so Marianne Vos (red and blue butt), Katie Compton (butt with stars), Daphny van den Brand (blue DESTIL butt) and Hanka Kupfernagel (white butt) got a bit of a gap. I sifted through most of the bodies and tried to chase down the leaders. They were SO close. But I didn't want to tow everyone around all race so I pulled aside to get some help. Rachel Lloyd (Giant Strawberry butt) took up the chase on lap 2 and closed down the gap to the leaders. We were together for most of the race although I am not going to lie, I dangled a bit. The pace slowed down a bit on the second last lap so Myriam Melchers van Poppel (red white and blue butt) caught back on. We were 7 on the last lap and I had caught my breath. Things were looking good. Although I can't guarantee how I would fare against 3 world champions, I have a decent kick on occaision. But.... with half a lap to go my PINS of STEEL stomped on the pedals and snapped my chain. crap. I had just passed the pit so I turned around and ran back into the pit and got my other bike. Unfortunately I had lost a few spots as a result. I tagged back onto the end of Georgia Gould's group but had a hard time moving forward as everyone was trying to do the same thing. I ended up 13th. Bummer.

I will try to figure out how to post the entire race but this should entertain you until then. Enjoy.

2008-12-28T01:15:00.001-08:00

A Belgie Christmas

With the Zolder World Cup race on Boxing day we didnt really celebrate much of Christmas on the day. Stefan and Helen, sporting her "I HEART CHRISTMAS" pin, woke up early to open presents but the rest of us rolled out of bed much later and all that was left was ripped paper and a few things under the tree. I got some yummy Belgian chocolate and a heart shaped frying pan for my eggs! (I had cracked last trip and bought the house a couple of new frying pans so my eggs wouldnt taste like burnt bacon). A preride on the course and race prep was about as festive as we got after that. Ok maybe I had some of my Xmas chocolate...

The Zolder course was super fun. A lot of the girls were surprised at what they had put together but I thought it was a great course. Twisting in and around a formula 1 race track, it used the sandy banks and woods to make a short fast loop that on the day, was pretty frozen as it hovered around zero.

As I looked around on the start line I realized that I was one of the few gals that did not have legs or knees on. Hmm. Usually I use Georgia Gould as my litmus paper as she is always wearing fewer clothes than me. Not today. No time to reconsider. The light turned green and we were off down the loooong paved straightaway. Unfortunately the stretch pinched at the finish banner and as a result I got pushed back further than normal. And then things got chaotic. Every second corner we turned had bodies on the ground or piled up in the corner. I am not sure what the hell happened but I do know someone tried to ride OVER me as I have tire burn marks up my calf. I stayed pretty calm and passed girls here and there. I made my way up to the chase group and could see the lead group but as things got more technical it was harder to make up time. Frozen descents. Brick wall run ups. Sandy corners. When Maryline Salvetat came by me with a few gals on the start of the second lap I knew it was now or never for the bridge. Apparently I had the 2nd fastest lap but never quite made the jump to the lead group. Salvetat did.

So that left me "drafting" off a wee Czech girl. I was trying to race smart but I the 5ft-er was doing nothing for me and a few girls were closing in so I decided to push on. The wee one drafting off me the whole time. Once she realized where I was making time on her, she starting to CHOP me. I got pissed off and started to chop back. two can play at that game. Unfortunately we started to focus too much on each other instead of the overall picture and lost a couple spots out of stupid passes. On the last lap, after my battle with the wee one was over and I was spent, I saw Luna colours charging hard. What the hell? I just assumed Georgia was ahead of me. She passed me and then proceeded to fly head first over her bars and eat shit on the last sandy corner. I had to scramble around here and run scared up the finish chute to stay ahead for 9th place.

We celebrated Christmas last night (27th) with a big feast. Stefan spent all day in the kitchen roasting chickens, veggies, making custard and nutroast. It was so yummy it did not last long. But we will need the fuel as we have hit a cold snap here in Belgium and its hard to stay warm. Next race Azencross Dec 30th.

2008-12-23T08:14:00.000-08:00

Shaky take off

So I am back in Belgium and it hardly seems like I left. Back in the Tielt-Winge house with the Brits but this time with a few extra canucks in the mix (Natasha Elliott, Derrick St John, Aaron Schooler and Andre Sutton). More of us seem to be coming over for the Xmas racing scene and the Brits seem to take pity on us. Cheerio. Tut tut.

It was a long haul from Nanaimo as there have been snow storms since the weekend before I left. Norm says there is now about 40cm of snow in Nanaimo! He has apparently been doing a LOT of trainer rides....poor Norm.

With the snow, every flight out of Nanaimo was cancelled the day before I was supposed to leave for Belgium. We started to think of a plan B. It involved ferries, buses and a lot of extra grunt work as I was traveling with a double bike case, a regular bike bag full of wheels, a carry on suitcase and a regular bag that was packed FULL. Not very mobile and no porters....semi pro. I checked the first flight the next morning and it was cancelled. Uh oh. I kept getting ready and checked the flight before mine and it was scheduled to go ahead so we made the decision to go for the flight and hope for the best. Except...Nanaimo drivers aren't known for their snow driving skills so it took a loooong time to get to the airport and I was a late check in. With all the cancellations and Xmas in the horizon the plane was full and my bikes & bags did not make the flight. They even tagged my file LATE CHECK IN. Bugger (as the Brits would say). Oh well. At least I got first class seats all the way to europe. Ahhhhhh. And at least I packed some underpants and Ts so I didn't have to wallow in my own filth for 2 days waiting for my bags to arrive. I have done that before and its not pretty....

Scheldecross

The Antwerp race was supposed to be a blow-out race so I didnt stress when my legs felt like C-R-A-P. And I mean poo. We got there a bit late and only squeezed in one lap on the course. I would have liked more because there was a lot of sand that was a make-or-break feature of the course. In the end I was in the "break" department. I got dropped by the leaders in the sand and I got dropped by the chase group in the sand. I thought I knew how to ride sand but apparently not like the euros. But I didn't expect too much and my legs actually raced better than they felt so an Ok start to the campaign. We drove back ate, got a massage, unpacked, repacked and went to bed.

Nommay

We had an early start Sat morning as Nommay was almost 6 hrs away. My legs felt worse and a 6 hr drive was probably not going to help so I pulled on my new SKINZ that Norm got me for Xmas. They definitely helped. The Canucks had rented the Listers sprinter van so we looked legit. It was no Swift pink RV camper van of style but the next best thing.

Race day. We got an early call as the Brits and Canuck were all on random doping control. As were the Belgians and Czechs. Convenient that we were all in the same hotel hmmmm. Blood for hematocrit. At least they wore gloves this time...The Nommay race was a new one for me and it was actually pretty cool. Super muddy course with some fun twists and turns and ups and downs. I had a perfect start and went into the sharp corner into the stairs top 5 without killing myself (it was a crazy start) but managed to hit a stake with my shifter less than a minute later. dammit. Then the masses started to come.

I was riding technically pretty well but didnt seem to be pumping out as much power as the other girls so they would catch me on the muddy straightaways. It was a great battle from about 8th-18th. Lots of back and forth with pits, errors, strengths and weaknesses. back and forth. back and forth. A ding dong battle as Norm would say. Helen was away up front but myself, Natasha and Gabby were in the ding dong battle together so our pit crew was run ragged with bike changes for all of us at least every lap. I got my mudders back on the second last lap and decided to keep them, as they were riding the mud much better than my B bike tires. I made a move (undetectable to the human eye I am sure) on the last lap and caught and dropped a group of 4 girls with Natasha but then a couple (including Natasha) came back from the dead and caught me guess where - the last mud straightaway. I went into the finishing stretch worked over and looked back to make sure I was in the clear. I saw someone in my periphery but too far back to get me. wrong. Gabby Day nipped me on the line for 14th. serves me right.....

Then as a final smack I was a random for doping controls after the race. again. crap.

So although I was world number one at the start of the season I seem to keep slipping. slipping. slipping. time to get back on track...

2008-12-12T21:41:00.000-08:00

USGP Portland - Pair of 5's

Portland. The heart of CX racing in North America. Maybe I am a little biased because I am from the West Coast but from what I have seen, it really is THE hot spot of CX culture this side of the Atlantic. Rabid fans that come out in the worst possible conditions to wag their cowbells at you, inventors of "the windmill of death" and the only place you will see a full drum corps belting it out while hurricane winds threaten to blow them away. So when the weather called for sun and balmy temps it was hard to believe the usual mudfest might not happen. Huh?

Since I missed the first USGP weekend in Kentucky I wasn't really in the running for overall series standing. In fact with all the issues my belly was throwing out at me Portland was more of a tester to see if I would be leaving for europe as planned. I was starting to feel better but my training had taken a bit of a hit. Its pretty hard to throw down hard efforts when you are surviving on rice, applesauce, yogurt and bananas. I don't know how vegetarians race...I was craving red meat and feeling oozy for lack of...No meat makes Wendy a useless feeb.

Me leading out eventual winner and overall USGP series winner Katerina Nash (LUNA).photo by Russell Anderson

Sunny skies on Saturday or rain and mud on Sunday, the outcome was the same. I had great starts and managed to ride with the leaders for a couple laps but just could not hold it. Once the pressure was applied I slipped. A bit depressing yes, but deep down I knew it was a good sign that I at least had something in there to play with. It didn't last as long as my 40min race but it was there and I didn't want to puke after the effort. Euro was a go. I had taken a hit but I could only get stronger - right? Nothing like the world stage to get your ass in gear quickly.

Me, in the Portland mud pre-fade. photo by Russell Anderson

While I was squeeking out 5th place finishes, Norm was the one piloting his Major Jake like a pro as he finished 3rd on Saturday and an easy FIRST on Sunday! Impressive, most impressive. The best part was that every lap he passed the Kona tent he looked over and had a HUGE grin on his muddy face! He wanted to make SURE that I saw his dominating performance.

Norm Thibault and his muddy 2-pack after his big WIN at the USGP in Portland. photo by Joe Sales

We decided to skip the after party and head North. When we crossed the border the guard asked us where we had been and as usual, we replied with the generic "bike race". But then he asked us if we had been at a road race or a CYCLOCROSS race! Norm laughed and asked him how he knew about cyclocross and he replied "it's my job to know everything". You know the sport is growing fast when the border guards know what it is.

So while the US crew are racing for the stars and stripes jersey this weekend I am packing up for a long haul in europe. The doctors called back and finally figured out what was making me feel like crap for so long - apparently somewhere along my travels I had some undercooked sausage and one of the bad guy bacteria started the party. Stupid pork.

2008-12-01T14:44:00.000-08:00

Me, before compression sox were hot.

I am good at the bull, no?! (bonus points if you can name this quote). Me proving I am worthy at my stag.

Me in my BMX days (on the left, the not-so-cute one) with my sister Sharon

The Simms family muscle. L-R Sister Heather, Sister Sharon, Sister-in-Law Wendy & me

Hanging out at the Sneddon household means guns for everyone! No animals were harmed in the taking of this photo. Actually if you must know the truth most of us (OK the one girl) had to be told how to hold a gun.

Proof that my "suffer face" makes me look like I am smiling. photo by Joe Sales.

The underpants-on-head war. Norm lost.

My sister Sharon. On the right, duh.

2008-12-01T14:20:00.000-08:00

Its been a couple weeks and people are harassing me for a new entry so I better blog, else I get beaten with a wrench (at konaworld.com). Master got me workin'....

New Jersey USGP

Updates: So since I have returned from Europe I raced the USGP in New Jersey, quite possibly the muddiest cross race I have ever seen. Normally I would be ecstatic with so much running (we counted 8x off the bike/lap) but I still had my belly issues so I was in survival mode. I almost quit half way through the race Sat but since it was only THREE laps, by the time I was contemplating curling up in the fetal position and crying for my mommy I only had 1.5 laps to go. I went into damage control and rolled in 5th. My body was wasted with the effort and I couldn't even go out for dinner Sat night. Sunday's race seemed a bit better as I accepted that I just wouldn't be able to go off the front with the Luna gals so I didn't demo myself off the line. With a little extra energy I could at least respond to attacks, most importantly the one Mo threw at me with half a lap to go so I rolled in 4th. I am never happy with 4th but this one didn't seem so bad.

Cross on the Rock

At least now I was going home. I could see my doctor, eat my own food, sleep in my own bed, ride my own trails and Norm would be there to nurse me back to health. Well, sort of. We had the last Cross on the Rocks race of the season in Nanaimo a few days after I got back from NJ. We had a house full of volunteers and I was out in the pouring rain sledge hammering wooden posts into the ubdergrowth for 2 days. BUT it was sunny and warm for the last race of the season and we had the biggest whirly whirl I have ever seen so somehow it was worth it.

So 5 weeks later I am still keenly aware of the nearest toilet and doctors can't tell me what is causing havoc in my belly. I even broke down and went to a naturopath so I am sitting here drinking stinging nettle leaves after spending $200 on pixie dust. Hippie. So forgive me if I haven't updated my blog recently. Maybe when the pixie dust kicks in and I have my energy back I will have some good news to write about and be eager to share. So until then I have decided to share some entertaining photos. Enjoy

2008-11-14T08:38:00.000-08:00

I miss skinsuit Fridays.....Nothing like eating breakfast in your chammy.

2008-11-10T00:09:00.000-08:00

HOW's THE DIARRHEA?

ugh. Im not doing so good here. There is a party going on in my stomach and after a week and a half its turned into a bit of a rager. Fireworks. Beach Volleyball. Food fights. Water slides. Think - girls gone wild - but in this case its "Bacteria gone wild." I think it started out pretty tame. Some foreigners moved in next door. Maybe Czech, maybe Belgian but definitely not Canadian. My good guys were just being polite and invited them over for dinner but the foreigners started to get a bit rowdy. Hanging from the chandelier, doing cannonballs in the pool and sneaking in their buddies. Eventually they took off their fake mustaches and exposed themselves for who they really were: the Bad guys. My good guys tried to kick them out. They were holding strong for almost a week, patrolling the perimeters, identifying the bad guys and battling them liek Spartans. But.....then I made the mistake of having a glass of wine with dinner one night. The good guys weren't used to alcohol and got a bit drunk and fell asleep at their stations so the bad guys had a mass orgy and snuck in some buddies and thats when the party got a bit crazy. As the world cup race approached I brought in the reserves to help me get through the race. I called in Immodium to block the back door. It was either that or poop my pants during the race. Not cool. I thought it might put a damper on the party but it just pissed them off and they went OFF in there and now I am paying the consequences. The place is getting trashed and the good guys are in rough shape. But I have called off Immodium and the new strategy is to block the front door. No more deliveries to this party. I am going to starve them out. See how fun a party with no food is, boys. My apologies to the good guys left in there but I need to start from scratch.

Oh yeah the race. I guess you want to hear about the Pijnacker world cup. I had a phenomenal start. One of my best. Second into the mud. Perfect position as there was going to be chaos behind me in the thick mud. Unfortunately I did not have the energy to back up my start. I just did not have the power to push through the mud. So I got passed. I could not even capitalize on crashes around me. I had to change my strategy after the first lap and put in my small ring hoping to maybe spin through the mud but it was only marginally better. Even 3 bike changes did not help me, I was losing time there too. Everytime I rode a section and passed a few girls, they would pass me back on the power sections. I was getting schooled. Rolled into 14th exhausted, not sure whether I was going to puke or soil my skinsuit. At least I wasn't called for doping control, that might have been a bit awkward.......

2008-10-27T05:46:00.000-07:00

Robbie giving the Queen Ann some love

Jergen and Stefan prepping the bikes

The CZE smog

They are rubber boots. But they look like converse! How cool is that?

2008-10-27T05:37:00.000-07:00

Tabor, CZE World Cup #2

I have never been to Czech Republic so I was pretty excited to race in a new country. It was a long haul but traveling with the Swift crew in their sweet pink camper van makes travel a hell of a lot smoother. Our crew was Stefan Wyman (Helen’s husband and the Swift team manager), Robbie the mechanic and Jergen the soigneur. Luckily Helen and Gabby were willing to share their mens. On the way down I watched the 2006 Tabor race to get an idea of the course. Grass. Fast. Not much else to report. When we got there Sat afternoon (after everyone playing a viscious game of scrabble in the back got brutal headaches once we hit the twisty turny roads of CZE) it hadn’t changed much. Grass. Fast. And long. There were 3 big metal up and over bridges and 2 sets of stairs scattered on the hilly course.

We went to find our Hotel but the signs looked more like a strip club than the official UCI accommodation. Hmmm. The smog (pollution filled fog) was rolling in when Stefan returned from the manager meeting with news and numbers. They were doing call up by UCI ranking so my “world number one” status was getting me on the line first. I figured if there was ever going to be a time when I would be a “random” choice for doping controls it would be now. Did I mention I was world number one?

The vampires came for me the morning of the race. But they were pretty nice vampires. I was a little disturbed when they went to take blood from me and they didn’t have gloves. What is the deal? Can the UCI not afford gloves to work with the blood and piss required to test athletes. The blood was for a quick hematocrit test that they would do at the race venue. If it was “abnormal” I wouldn’t be allowed to start.

So as world number one I was part of the front row club. I am not going to lie. It’s a lot different up there. It really IS that much better. I had a great start without burning too many matches even after sustaining a massive blow from 66kg of pure German muscle going into the first corner. I may only have 60kg to hold my ground but I was a solid kid nicknamed “The Wall” in soccer. You are going to have to do better than that. I settled in behind Hanka and Daphny. I know we had just started but it wasn’t even that fast up here. This is what the front row club is all about. I wanted a permanent membership. I was sitting 3rd wheel for most of the first two laps. Nice and comfortable. Everything was great until I slipped a pedal and tried to make up the time on a fast steep bumpy downhill. I went in so hot I blew out the corner and shot UNDER the course snow fencing. Rung my bell. Stunned I crawled back underneath, almost got gunned down by the chase group and jumped on my bike. But my chain was off so I had to get off and manually do it. More riders whizzed passed me. Possible podium to 15th. arrrrrg. Dammit! I was starting to despair at the distance to the next group when Helen bridged up and stomped on the gas up the long hill. Her “come on, Wendy!” was all I needed to focus again. I rested up behind her for a bit and then took the lead at the start/finish. No more front row club. I was back to working my ass off. All alone. It took me 2 laps of suffering but I tagged onto the end of the first chase group. But the effort had taken its toll. I was dangling dangerously. I was wiped. I rested up a bit and then Robbie and the boys were yelling at me to move up so I struggled up to 3rd wheel. It was not pretty. Then we caught Daphny. I knew I should keep moving forward but I didn’t have the juice and stayed put to end up 7th overall. Bittersweet…

My doping control chaperone had to wait a few minutes for me to be able to talk. Long enough to hear that poor Gabby Day was running the last half lap. I was a “random.” Again. I started drinking as soon as I could. When it was my turn I could only eek out 60mL so I was relegated to the wait room until I could bring the cup up to a solid 100mL. Sitting in the wait room with a sample of my own pee. Not cool for conversation. 4L of water, 3 tries and 125mL of amber urine later I was allowed to go.

So my membership to the front row club has likely expired as European champs are next week and with it, points I am not allowed to get. I am surely bumped from World Number One and likely bumped from the front row. But I got a taste and -Wendy like - so I hope to be back soon.

Notes:

-The mullet is alive and well in the Czech Republic

-The fans are no where near the numbers you see at Belgium races but you can always count on the Czech fans for a real air raid siren and I was not let down

-2010 World Champs is in Tabor but it will likely be a different game played on ice and snow in Jan of that year

2008-10-23T00:57:00.000-07:00

kmag just sent me a great quote:

Talent is nice. Guts are better

- John Munroe

2008-10-23T00:47:00.000-07:00

Im getting HUGE-er in Finland

(YAWN) so maybe you have heard the news, I am currently ranked #1 in the WORLD at the moment. I am for SURE going to be even bigger in Finland. When I ride down the street here in Belgium, people yell out "Hey Wendy Simms, world #1!!" (OK it was Helen and Gabby). I figure Canada should really name a stat holiday named after me now.

2009 UCI Cyclo-Cross Rankings
Women Elite

Last ranking / Women Elite : 20.10.2008
Ranking Winner
Mondial Ranking SIMMS Wendy (CAN)

2008-10-21T02:14:00.000-07:00

The Tielt Winger crew. photo by some random Belgian in the crowd....

Back in Belgium!

After Nationals I went home for a day, unpacked everything, washed everything and then repacked everything. 40 hour complete turnaround. The Air Canada check in lady was a little frazzled with her deja vu as a few days ago when I checked in she had gotten in trouble for not charging me for the bikes. This time I was traveling with a big double bike case AND a separate bike bag full of FSA wheels (I couldn't leave them at home!) so I thought for sure she would be double dinging me for 2 bike bags. I was ready with the VISA but she must have really hated her job because she waived me through with no excess baggage charges. Apparently someone had been a tattle-tale last time and that was why she had to call me out of the boarding area to pay when I was almost through, scott free. Suzie Suck-up was not there today so free bike travel combined with my business class upgrade and things were looking good. I was traveling so smooth I didn't even mind the overly chatty guy next to me complaining about the shoddy decor and seating in Air Canada planes. Blah blah blah. Yah I get it, you have $$$. Headphones on.

I am staying at the Wymans in Tielt Winge for the month so Stefan picked me up and Helen had dinner waiting for me! More smooth. The house was full of cyclists from around the world as per usual and whose American twang do I hear when I walk in, but Garry and Betty, friends of Barb Howe's that I met last year in Belgium! Small world. There was lots of talk about racing and racers and bikes and everything else but I was fading fast. I crashed hard and slept until almost 10am. Yikes. But a few fuzzy jet lagged days and a leg flush from Jergen and I was ready to go.

We took the pink Swift "camper van" (translation: RV) to the race. Traveling in STYLE. Checked out the course at Kalmthout and I loved it! FOUR sets of stairs (yes I said FOUR and two were almost on top of one another), a few lollipop 180degree turns and a lot of twisty, turny, swoopy tracks through the woods plus a couple of sand pits. I do love the world cup courses. They is just SO much going on.

I had a pretty good call up from last years UCI ranking - 9th - so I was on the second row. I needed a good start as the course had some turns coming up pretty quick. Unfortunately the gun went "click" pause "click" so the start was a bit crazy as some bolted at the clicks, some rolled off the line, some laughed and I stupidly paused thinking that they would call a false start. I should know better. This happened to me last year and they never call a false start (unless you are Sven Nys). Go with it. So my start was not great and I went into the dirt in the 20s as I got squeezed out by many in the terrifying corners off the start. The race was strung out immediately so I had to pick people off whenever I could. I soon realized my long legs could do it on the stairs with ease so one by one I picked the minis off. I was moving through nicely but the lead group of 6-7 was gone. So when Maryline Salvetat from France bridged up to me I decided to play smart and get some rest on her wheel. It was a good place to be until a few girls bridged up and on the last lap sharpened their blades, I mean elbows. I had forgotten how pushy and aggressive these gals are. I got slammed into the gates twice by the same chick, squeezed out by another and T-boned (on purpose) by a third, all in about the span of 2mins. I was pissed. I had not worked this hard to get shut out by demolition derby style racing. I passed mini#1 on the stairs and then set my sights on the menace, but by then Salvetat had made a break. I squeezed some anger into my legs and bridged and then passed the menace in a sprint finish for 8th. I was wasted but happy my legs could talk back. But next time missy, it will be elbows.

2008-10-13T14:34:00.000-07:00

Canadian National Cyclocross Championships & Jim Horner UCI race

Edmonton, Alberta

Chilldog

As we boarded the plane to head to Edmonton for CX Nationals, the Air Canada agents laughed at us and told us to expect snow. They weren't far off on the temperature scale (it was hovering around freezing) but we were lucky to get mostly sun for the weekend. I had raced the Jim Horner event here last year so I had a pretty good idea of the course - a long (3.1km), fast, mostly grassy loop with a few tight corners and a fun bowl section with some ups and downs. Nothing too extreme, but not a lot of rest.

Edmontonian love

As always, the Edmonton hospitality was in full effect the moment we arrived. Dan from the Juventus Cycling Club that hosted the event gave us a guided tour of the course before it was even set up, Don Fox the organizer invited Mike Garrigan and myself to be on Breakfast TV to promote the event as the defending National Champions, and Tom from River Valley Cycles (second biggest Kona dealer in Canada) gave us a guided tour of his shop and helped out our Junior travel buddy Nick Holatko (team BC) whose bike had a catastrophic failure while we were doing a 5 up sprint pre-riding the course. For the record, Nick did get the holeshot on the sprint but a few pedal strokes later his bike exploded and ended up in pieces. Not bad for an 80lb 16 year old kid (should have bought a Kona).

The main event

With Lyne Bessette retired, the question was whether Alison Sydor would start. She hadn't shown up at a single CX race yet this year and she did not seem like the type to "wing it" unprepared so I had my doubts. In the end she was a no show. So there would be a lot of strong cyclists at the race but only a few pure CX addicts. It wasn't a very technical course so I figured if they were smart, a few could work together and pose a problem. Star crossed 2007 ring a bell to any of the gals that ganged up on me? Boooo. But that didn't change my stratgey. I wanted to go off the front from the gun and see who was game. I got a gap on the first lap and it was only young Pepper Harlton (Team Alberta/Juventus) that posed a threat. I had raced her last year and knew she had speed, skill and guts but not a lot of endurance built up yet so I kept my eye on her. Any problems and she would be able to close the gap quickly. She held the ~20 second gap steady for a couple laps but then faded a bit near the end of the race so I got to cruise into the finish and savour my 4th National Championship title. Red and white for another year!

My fourth National Championship title! photo by Joe Sales

Overzealous Officials

Its a bit unfortuante that even though the Juventus Cycling Club put on a great event the talk of the weekend was the overly anal officials enforcing random UCI rules. It was like they had scanned the rules manual (and there a LOT of UCI rules) and cherry picked their favourite obscure ones to enforce. At registration they told everyone that there would be a mandatory bike check 30mins before the start. ?? A bike check, WTF?? Apparently they were going to check and enforce rule

1.3.013 The peak of the saddle shall be a minimum of 5 cm to the rear of a vertical plane passing through the bottom bracket spindle

So 30mins before my race I went to the tent for my bike check. On an uneven grassy field with the wind blowing the plumb line they eyeballed my bike without a ruler. The "expert" said ohhh, uhhhm, yeaahhh, I don't know, this one is pretty close and called in another official expert. Ohhhh, uhhhmmm, yeahhh, I don't know, this one is close, get her on the bike. So I got on my bike against a table and they "measured" from my knee. They made it seem like they were doing me a favour and let it slide but I was supposed to go in the box now 30mins before my race or risk getting checked again. I chose to continue my warm up.

Contrary to UCI rules which state that the podium event should take place right after the race, Norm's awards ceremony for the Masters race was 2+ hours after his finish so he decided to stop the festering in his crotch and change out of his chammy. He went to the podium for his third place in pants and a Frontrunners jersey. As this is against rule

1.2.113 Unless otherwise stated, riders shall appear at official ceremonies wearing competition clothing.

Norm got FINED for wearing inappropriate gear to the podium. And he also got a fine for giving sass to the officials (although I can't find this rule in the UCI handbook....). They didn't actually tell him that he was fined, the posted it on an official communique that he happened to see outside the clubhouse. He was pissed! You can guess he will be protesting that fine. Two can play at that game.

After my award ceremony (in full accordance with rule 1.2.113) I asked an official if I could wear my pre screened KONA National Champion jersey for the UCI race the next day. They said yup no problem. Wait let me check with another official, yup no problem. But I had remembered some random rule reference a few years ago that you couldn't wear any sponsors on the jersey for 24hrs (I can't even find this rule, but i am getting a little dizzy). Since my race was 23hours later I decided to play it safe and wore my orange KONA skinsuit with the plain National Champ jersey over top (sorry Kona).

All bikes were supposed to be checked again for the UCI race on Sunday (you never know I might have slipped in a TT bike in while they weren't looking...) so as they were doing call ups (15mins before the race which is contrary to UCI rules) there was a line up of people waiting for their bike check to pass. I missed my call up. They called up everyone again and I was still in line. When I finally got through I was second last to pick a spot on the start grid. Our brand new National Champion in row 3. Respect. I wasn't the only front row racer to miss their call up so someone in the crowd yelled out "your start grid is all wrong" so a few of the girls moved aside and tried to let me through but the officials got very angry and said we would all be fined if they moved their position. You want to prove a point, I will prove a point. So I held my third row start position for the gun. The gun went off and I blew out all my anger and proceeded to get the holeshot. Bite me.

In the mens race, our new National Champion Geoff Kabush missed his call up and the racers moved aside to let him start on the front row. He was FINED $100 for not respecting the start order.

2008 Canadian National Champions. The commisaires tried to fine Geoff Kabush for wearing a hat on the podium but he reminded them this was not an official UCI podium. Suckers.

2008-10-02T12:14:00.001-07:00

Island Racing

So the reason we did a 48 hour turnaround in Vegas was because we had to get back to the Island for some local events that are too good to be missed. The Mind Over Mountain Adventure Race (MOMAR) was up in Cumberland Saturday, after-party Sat night up at Mount Washington and then the Ramble Mountain Bike marathon event was in Parksville Sunday. I was doing the double which ended up being about 10 hours of training and left me almost crippled.

I have been on an adventure racing hiatus for the past couple years but Norm convinced me to partner up with him at 8pm the night before the MOMAR race. With 1 paddle this summer (3 last year), minimal running and zero navigation we would not be back to our winning ways so we decided to go for the spirit award. Norm pulled out his golden box of 80s workout gear (a birthday present from Stefan and Ceri whose mom used to sell fitness gear). And team Frontrunners Fitness was born.

Wendy and Norm stretching Geo style after the MOMAR race. It turns out with 2.5 hours of hilly trail running (~30mins of that because of "misnavigation") we needed a lot more than stretching to recover. photo by Lisa Ludwig

Unfortuantely we only got an honourable mention as "Team Haggis" outdid us in the spirit department. 4 gals dressed up as Jimmy 1, Jimmy 2, Jimmy 3 and Jimmy 4 with kilts, orange matted wigs and matching plaid hats. I just about killed myself on the mountain bike portion of the race as my split shorts kept getting caught on my saddle. I am not sure how they managed riding trails that were in BC Bike Race in kilts?? At the after party Norm decide to pay tribute to the 20+ MOMAR races he has done in the last 9 years. He put on every Tshirt he had from every race and now I have a pretty good idea of what he will look like if he gets fat.

Fat Norm (with 20 MOMAR T-shirts on) caught loading up at the after-party dessert table. photo by Lisa Ludwig

I am not sure how I managed to get up the next morning and go to Parksville to race the Ramble marathon event. I could barely walk. But it was worth it. Bluebird day to race on some sweet singletrack and hang out with friends in the sun for burger and beer after the race. Ahh Island Life. Good times. Fat Norm never made it....

2008-10-02T12:05:00.001-07:00

Cross Vegas

What can I say about this race other than its crazy. Thousands of fans spilling out of the beer garden onto the course, legends from the sport showing up to race and getting swarmed by fans trying to steal his number, vegas lights in the backdrop. Its nutty. Not my favourite course in the world as it is all grass that is so thick it feels like you are racing on shag carpet but its more about the "show". Norm came down with me this year because he wanted to see the show first hand and check out Interbike. He got dizzy there was so much stuff to see. 48 hours later we were back in BC waiting for a 20min flight home to Nanaimo. It got cancelled so we had to stay in the airport hotel. Should have stayed in Vegas for the KONA marriachi party.....

I got a picture taken with THE Jen Tilley. photo by Norm Thibault

2008-10-02T11:44:00.000-07:00

A little muddy at Star Crossed. Photo by Joe Sales

Me in the "NACT" leaders jersey after the Rad Racing GP. Too bad I won't be doing anymore in the series....photo by Norm Thibault

Demo Dave looking buff in the pits at Rad Racing GP. No problem, he had it all figured out by Sunday. photo by Norm Thibault

Norm suffering on the Dale Knapp run-up. Dale Knapp getting a taste of his own pain. Photo by Joe Sales

2008-09-23T09:25:00.001-07:00

Star Crossed

Star Crossed always marks the start of the season for me. I love this race with its big crowds, beer garden and twisty course but unfortunately it usually ends up being the race where I work out the early season kinks. Even though it was the first race of the new "NACT" series (not the catchiest name boys....) I didn't have too many expectations. Norm finished putting together one of my two new Queen Ann's at about 11pm the night before so I almost expected something to go wrong. But it was a suprisingly smooth weekend of early season racing.

It poured the entire drive down to Seattle. Hmmm. Star crossed in the mud, I had never even thought about it. But when we rolled in there were puddles everywhere and the course was getting nicely chewed up by the early races. Interesting. Kona had sent down Demo Dave and Smiley to help us out. After calling cyclocross the "red headed bastard child of cycling" and admitting they had never been to a cyclocross race before, Norm whispered to me "don't worry I will be in the pits for you." Now, Dave is a great mechanic and a bright enough cookie so I wasn't too worried about him figuring it out until he helped me pit for Norm. Norm was having brake issues and needed my bike as a spare. I showed Dave what to do and he executed the bike catch smoothly...but....then he started casually walking away with the bike. "Uh Dave?" We need to get that bike fixed here and now because Norm is going to back for it in about 4 minutes. " He quickly returned and "we" tried to get it fixed. But when you mix someone who has never seen Spooky brakes before (Dave) with someone who is not very mechanically inclined (me) you sure as hell don't get the bike working in 4mins. Damn boutiquey bike parts. Poor Norm had to do a few drive by's only to keep moving on through on my "midget bike" as he called it. The mini screws were a bit stripped and the cable frayed so by the time Dave got it rideable Norm was almost done his race and finished it up on the midget Queen Ann. Maybe it would be best if Norm stayed in the pits with Dave during my race...

Unfortunately I missed my opportunity to pre-ride the course so I ended up on the start line blind. I had a good start but scaled back a bit to let someone else lead the way. Kristi Berg (Redline) had some great lines so I followed her but then she started to fall back so I moved up to wee Amy Dombrowski (Velo Bella) who is a roadie and I am guessing from her lines, not a mudder. Sue Butler (Monavie Cannondale) was riding smoothly up front and pulling away so I bridged up and let her show me the way. With no pre-ride I screwed up my gearing on a small climb and almost lost her, and probably got cussed out from those behind me. But I tagged back on and we worked together to get a good gap. I tried to drop her mid race but she was strong and had the fire so could not be scraped off my wheel. I changed my strategy and tried to rest up for the last lap but waited too long to make a move and came in for second. No mechanicals, no kinks, just have to get the brain back into a tactical mode for cross season.

We were passing by the tent when the boys were getting ready for their race. Dave all chipper-like asked if there was anything special he needed to know for the pits. All we heard was a "yeah, just don't f*ck up." Norm gutted himself laughing. Poor Dave. Better hope for a clean race. There is no fury like the wrath of Ryan Trebon. But this time it was directed at the lapped rider that took him out, not Dave.

The next day the Rad Racing GP was more of the same, except this time I was better prepared. Sue and I got away and worked together to grow the gap on Amy Dombroski whose roadie legs were much quicker on the fast open terrain. I tried to drop Sue once but she was too strong so I waited patiently for the last lap. I punched it just before the 80m Dale Knapp run up and dropped her but punched it again at the top of the run up just to be sure. I kept the gap to the end to steal the NACT leaders jersey from her. Not bad for early season racing.

We missed the mandatory team Kona blackberry picking to race back to Canada and caught the 8:15 ferry home. Nice capper to a good weekend.

2008-09-17T18:40:00.003-07:00

Me, eating SHIT over the barriers at the first cross race of the season. Its a little fuzzy but if you look closely you can see that my hands are still on the bars as I am pinned beneath my bike. Yep. Thats me. A professional cyclocross racer. No. I was not trying to bunny hop the barriers like Jeff Beeston did (smoothly). I just clipped my foot on the barrier, and as Sue Haywood likes to say "the hand of God came down and smacked me." Hard. Boom. I was down. The worst part is that I taught the Learn to Cyclocross Clinic about 3 hours earlier for all the beginners. Barriers were my specialty. Let's hope that is out of my system....

Thanks to Dave Shishkoff for the photo. I think its fuzzy because he was laughing so hard.

2008-09-17T18:40:00.002-07:00

Canadian National Off Road Triathlon Championships.
Me, Melanie McQuaid and Danelle Kabush.
photo from racergirl.com

Norm has a theory. He says that ever year you should do some event that you are totally uncomfortable with and you are completely untrained for so you can remember what it feels like to race like a rookie from the back of the pack. Its actually a pretty good theory. It hurts like hell and its hard on the ego but it helps you develop some serious mental strength. This year my ego crushing event was the XTC off road "National Championships" at Buntzen lake near Vancouver. You might wonder how it could be ego crushing when I placed third, but lets get it out in the open right away - there were only three girls racing in the elite category.

If you know me at all, you know the Simms' are sinkers not swimmers. I am a cyclist and a runner but I am not a fan of the swimming and I don't swim well. That's not exactly true. I can breast stroke forever, but I flail at the freestyle. Norm was racing the triathlon so I was going to be there anyway but I was planning on doing the duathlon. Unfortunately no girls signed up so I decided to go for the triathlon. Hell, why not? My sister did an Ironman last year, the Simms' can't be that bad.

The morning of the race I got those pre race nerves that I haven't experienced for awhile. Just get through the swim. I hate cold water so I decided to go for the shock method and skip the warmup swim to stay dry onland. I started near the back of the swim pack to avoid the chaos. I didn't want to drown. The gun went off and within 100m I rememberd why I hadn't done a wetsuit swim for 4 years. The wet suit I borrowed doesn't fit me, so it felt like I had 10lb weights on my arm. Oh yeah and I hate swimming. So I switched to breaststroke. It was supposed to be temporary but I felt so comfortable I ended up breast stroking pretty much the entire 1.5km swim. I could swim in a straight line, I could breath and I could see the whole race. I felt like a bit of a fool but I wasn't here to impress. 2 laps of the swim course and I wasn't last! Goal#1 achieved. Sweet.

A slow transition (I guess most triathletes don't dry their feet, put on sox, change their shirts and tie up laces these days). and onto the bike. But my body was in a bit of shock when I jumped onto my Kula 29er and tried to chase down all those swimmers. It took my legs awhile to come around. A slightly faster transition and I was off running. I actually had a pretty good trail run except I was wearing a long sleeve jersey and was overheating like a non-Finn in a sauna. The run was a double loop so I got the opportunity to see just how far ahead 3X Xterra World Champion Melanie McQuaid (Nature's Path) was and Danelle Kabush (Luna) who was second at the Xterra World Championships in 2006. Ouch. I finished third of three girls. To rub it in even more, Melanie outsplit my shell shocked legs on the bike and Danelle had to nurse her baby on the start line. That stings. But I like to think of it as a podium at the Canadian National Off Road Triathlon Champiosnhips. It sounds much more impressive.

The next day I was absolutely wiped. Muscles in my body that I didn't know existed hurt like hell. More than a week later my groin is still tight from the out of the blue 1.5km breast stroke. So maybe it wasn't the best physical training I could have done for the start of the cyclocross season but it sure as hell makes me apprecioate the sport I chose. Stupid triathlon. But when the results came out I poured over all my times and compared them trying to figure out where I could shave time. There might be a little tri-nerd in me somewhere.

2008-09-17T18:40:00.001-07:00

Im HUGE in Finland.

Almost a year ago, I inserted some Google analytics code into my blog site. It tracks who is visiting your blog and gives you a bunch of stats. I forgot about it until a month ago. I think part of me thought it would just pump out a few words:

"get a life, only your MOM reads your blog."

But I finally looked at the stats and it was actually pretty cool. How many people visit your site, when they visit it, where those people are from, who is a potential stalker etc etc etc. The most surprising stat was that FINLAND had the third highest number of people reading my blog after Canada and the US. Interesting. I figured it would be Belgium because I have raced there a lot, or Luxembourg because they adopted me at World Champs last year. But no. It was Finland. I have never been to Finland but apparently Im huge in Finland. If they ever have a big cross race in Finland I will have to go.

Better yet, I should go to Finland for the Sauna World Championships.

"Sauna aficionados Finland withstood the heat longest to win the 2008 Sauna World Championships in Heinola, Finland, defending their current reign as sauna champs. To do so, the Finns had to outlast tough competitors from Belgium and Belarus.

The competition saunas are much hotter than traditional Finnish saunas. “This is the wrong way to go to sauna, this is not about relaxing, this is competition,” Ossi Arvela, the head of the competition, told AFP. But that doesn’t stop dozens of sweaters from around the world coming to Finland each summer to test their personal heat endurance.

This year’s men’s champion, Finnish Bjarne Hermansson, stayed in the 110 degrees Celsius sauna for 18 minutes and 15 seconds. His skin dripping and beetroot red, Hermansson said “it feels wonderful, it is a dream come true.” The Finn has been training in hot saunas for 30 years, and has entered this competition every year since its inception in 1999.

This year’s female champion was Leila Kulin, who withstood the heat for five minutes and 21 seconds. In a nail-biting finish, Belarussian Natalya Tryfanava lost out by only one second. “The secret to my success was Finnish persistence,” Kulin told reporters just moments after she emerged from the sauna as the 2008 champion.

The sauna world championships have been held in Heinola since 1999. There were 164 combatants representing 23 countries in this year’s event. The Finns certainly have an advantage, however. Their country of 5.3 million boasts some 3 million saunas, and every Saturday virtually the entire nation heads to the nearest sauna to unwind."

2008-09-17T18:40:00.000-07:00

My first magazine "cover" (OK it was the BACK cover but its still a cover)

When I first met Norm, he told me that one of his goals in life was to be on the cover of a magazine. I thought that sounded like a pretty cool goal so I stole it and made it my goal too. I am currently winning. The Kona Major Jake ad starring ME, made the back cover of Bike magazine this month. Not too shabby for a stolen goal.

If you feel bad for Norm - don't. He stole my goal to compete in as many different world championships as possible and is currently beating me at my own goal. Norm has raced World Champsionships for Xterra, Ironman, Cyclocross, ITU Triathlon and Muddy Buddy (a team of 2 does a marathon with crazy obstacles and one bike between them). I have Mountain Bike, Muddy Buddy and Cyclocross World Champiosnhips under my belt but I kind of got addicted to cyclocross and stalled out and now I am running out of time. So I have been searching for obscure World Championship events to surpass Norm: Rock Paper Scissor World Championships, Extreme Ironing World Championships, Texting World Championships and the Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships. Maybe one of those will get me a FRONT cover....

Extreme Ironing World Championships.

Rock Paper Scissor World Championships. RPS for those in the know.

2008-08-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

Trans Rockies photos
by Norm Thibault (with his new fisheye lens - don't be alarmed)

If my nose looks big with a fisheye lens what the hell will the Wicknasty nose look like??

Marty LOVES TRans Rockies!

Tent city at Nipika

Our super support man - Rollin. Rollin LOVES Trans Rockies! He won 3 of the 7 stages (being the first RV to get to the next site). There were rumours of a few RVs driving erratically and speeding excessively throughout the week. We are pretty sure Rollin was leading the way.

Marty got a lot of treats for being the first model for Norm to practice with his new fisheye lens

2008-08-14T18:54:00.000-07:00

Trans Rockies

DAY 1 Panorama – K2 ranch 52km, 2478m elevation

Day 1 is usually relatively easy. A late start and a short day so everyone can get sorted and have a warm and fuzzy feeling about the week to come. Apparently the TR crew didn’t get “the memo” as the race started STRAIGHT up to the top of Panorama ski hill off the gun. Ouch. I was suffering within 10mins and had to scale back. We tried to keep Katerina Nash and her partner Steve Wallace (Clif Bar) in sight to limit the damage but I can’t say I was moving very quickly. I recovered a bit near the top half of the climb and we caught them just as we jumped into the singletrack. They were pulled over putting more clothes on as it was pretty damn chilly at altitude. Some serious off camber traverses, hike-a-bikes, fresh cut trail and goat tracks took us even higher. We rode together for most of it, which was pretty fun as I never see Katerina off the line at World Cups. Norm and I dropped them near the top of the hike a bike and tried to keep some distance. I was a little worried when it started to SNOW as we had gone with the lightweight approach to the “easy day” and didn’t have a lot of extra clothes or food. But the hike-a-bike kept us warm and then the sun came out when we first started to descend. Norm flatted on the fast descent but even with the quick fix team Clif Bar caught us. We rode together for a bit trying to figure out a good time to stop as Norm’s tire was not holding air. No good time really so we had to stop and top it up losing contact with the small train. But we somehow managed to TTT back up to them and drop them just before the finish to get a small gap of just over a minute. Easy first day my ass….. But we got some sweet purple leaders jerseys for winning the Open Mixed category, a good start to the week.

DAY 2 K2 Ranch – Nipika

This day was insane. It was going to be a hard stage to begin with but we went and made the race even harder and longer. The source of the chaos was the hike-a-bike straight up an avalanche field. It was so steep everyone was just following the leader and putting one foot in front of the other. Everytime we looked up the hill all you could see was racers carrying their bikes so you put your head back down and kept moving forward. It got colder. The altitude started making it hard to breath for us sea level weenies and Norm was cramping badly. Everyone was hating it. We had a 5min gap on team Clif Bar but that wouldn’t last long if Norm seized up. Suddenly there was chaos and voices in the bush next to us and boulders rolling down the steep hill at us, as everyone was turning around and scrambling asking when the last time we saw an orange ribbon. Apparently we had all missed the turn off. Some people went to the very top of the ridge to look around, some people came back down and a group of us decided it was too dangerous to dislodge giant boulders on the heads of 100+ racers below us so we bush whacked back down the mountain until we hit the trapper trail. We eventually found the trail and kept riding. We kept expecting the leaders to catch up with us but they never did…apparently they had scaled back down the avalanche field and by the time they found the turn off, 100+ teams from the back of the pack had found it too and the singletrack was jam packed. Team Clif bar was in this boat so they came in an hour behind us. The TR organizers decided to acknowledge the stage results but not count it towards the general classification. It was probably the only fair thing to do since we had all been affected differently but a hard pill to swallow after putting in a hard 6+hr day on the bike with a solid gap on 2nd place before the chaos. Plus there were a few murmurings that the bush whackers were cheaters so going up for the stage win that day did not have the glory it was supposed to. If I had known it was going to end like that I would have stayed in bed. We still had the purple jerseys but my quads hurt like hell and it was only going to get worse.

DAY 3 Nipika – Nipika TTT

Last year we had a forced Nipika – Nipika stage because of the raging forest fires. Everyone loved it so much they decided to keep it again this year. It was a chance to avoid the hassle of packing up and the luxury of sleeping in! They also decided to try a team time trial format which was pretty cool. ~50km of the best singletrack Nipika had to offer. They split the racers into thirds and had 3 start times, 9am, 11am and we started at 1:00pm with 1min intervals between teams. With stage 2 results nullified we were still only just over a minute ahead of team Clif bar and one spot ahead of them on GC (18th overall) so they started right behind us. We were riding pretty well or so we thought until 25mins into the ~3hour TTT we saw Katerina and Steve RIGHT behind us! Uh oh. We better get our butts in gear. We pulled the Wicks maneuver and as soon as thy got close we charged ahead. We were running scared the rest of the race and put ~15mins into them. Apparently they had started a wee bit too fast and had a rough go after we dropped them. What was supposed to have been a pretty mellow day ended up beating the crap out of us. But we had another win and had a bigger buffer for the purple jersey.

DAY 4 Nipika – Whiteswan Lake

Hump day. Today Rollin won the support crew race! It is a competitive scene, with the support crew and Rollin is probably one of the most experienced. He packs up and moves the Rv to an easily exit-able location, cheers us on the start line and then hightails it out ahead of the RV train that moves too slowly for his liking. He likes to arrive first and get a sweet spot for camp and brag about his race to us when we arrive. Ah Rollin! For us it was a long day too. Lots of road and lots of climbing. We were in a great groove riding along well 15km from the finish on a fast road with super strong teams when Norm flatted. Damn! So much for our free ride into the finish Norm tried to refill his tube with a CO2 cartridge but it wouldn’t hold. So he went for the full fix but when he tried to get the valve out it was seized. Sticky Stans is good for some things, not so good for others…Uh oh. Ring a bell Stefan? We tried a sealant cartridge to see if it would seal but he just managed to get it ALL over him. I couldn’t help but laugh! He smashed the valve with a rock for a bit and got it off. Shoo. We got a tube out and did the change and although a whole whack of teams passed us, we were on our way. But the tube wasn’t holding air. So we had to stop again. Tried another tube but it had a hole in it. Our third and last tube was an ancient old school green latex tube that had been kicking around for about 10 years. It held! But just as he fixed it, the single speeder open mixed team passed us. We got back on our bikes and charged so hard. We caught and passed them on the downhill (they were spinning their one gear out so fast it wasn’t that difficult). Norm nursed it to the finish but it was a bit sketchy. Another first and more purple jerseys for the collection.

DAY 5 Whiteswan Lake - Elkford

It was a clear blue sky at 8am when we started today. Of course the sun hadn’t gotten over the mountains surrounding our campsite. Whiteswan Lake is one of our favourite stops on the TR tour. It is absolutely gorgeous here. The stars at night are incredible. But we were too tired to enjoy them for very long….sleep was more important. Today the group stayed together for a bit longer as there was about 15km of fireroad off the start. Nice little warm up as each day our pre race “warm up” was getting shorter and shorter. 5min spin in the sunny part of the field was about as good as it gets on day 5. We had a great ride today. Really steady climbing and stayed with fast teams at pretty key times. Norm had a bit of an energy dip with 20km to go. He shoved a whole bunch of wagon wheels in his mouth at the last aid station and took a few chocolate bars for the road. I tried to encourage him – only 20km to go! But realistically it was 15kms straight up that was granny gear climbing or hike a bike ending in a really long rocky rocky descent that ends in the dreaded “rock garden”. But his sugar rush helped him get through it and we rolled in first again. We have a 40min buffer on the Open Mixed lead but you never know what will happen so we have 2 days left to survive.

Day 6 Elkford to Crowsnest Pass

I am not going to lie to you, today was bit of a bitch. 100km of riding with 3000m of climbing. Ouch. The worst part was the first 5km of teh race climbing up and out of Elkford. Normally this would be fine. Hide in the group and get pulled up. But at the top of the climb was tight singletrack so the pace was furious as everyone tried to get their first. I managed to stick with the top men until about the last km when I popped off the back. I was bogged down by a few guys who forgot how to ride a bike, but not as many as those behind us. Unfortuantely we popped out onto the fireroad in no mans land. The fastest mens teams ahead and our normal group behind. We should have eased up until they caught us but no, we decided to chase down Garrigan and the leaders of the Master category. SOOOOOO close. We got within 5ft but missed the boat. It was too long of a day to kill ourselves so we settled in with Team WORC. Until I flatted. I was pissed off! We had worked so hard to get ahead of all those teams in the singletrack and they all blew past us while we fixed my flat on teh side of the road (including Team Clif bar). The only cool thing was I saw a marmot trying to cross the road between all these teams. Funny! He had no clue what was going on. We caught up to Katerina and Steve and rode with them for a big chunk of the day which was pretty fun. It was obvious they were getting stronger. That was until Steve crashed hard on a rocky descent and broke his thumb. Ouch. Norm was there when it happened so he made sure they were Ok but they decided to keep riding. Hard core. We felt a bit cheezy winning the stage against a broken thumb but Micaal and Dallas were riding strong so we had to keep racing.

Day 7 Crowsnest Pass to Fernie
Last day. I am usually a "cracker" on the last day of these multi day stage races. Norm gets stronger mentally and physically as the race goes on whereas I seem to start strong and deteriorate. I think its mostly mental. Its not that I crack completely and lose the race on the last day, but moments of weakness show through that could potentially unravel all of our hard work. So I told myself all morning: "dont shit the bed, don't shit the bed". The stage "only" had 2500m of climbing. After yesterdays stage it sounded easy. But it started straight up the local ski hill and Team Clif Bar was on us immediately so we knew it wasn't going to be an easy day. We got a bit of a gap and found a solid group of mens teams to work with. But everytime we looked back on a big climb we could see the yellow Luna helmet coming for us. Both Norm and I had mixed feelings. Part of us (the tired part) didn't really care too much if we lost the final stage as long as we kept our overall but this stubborn, hyper competetive voice kept reminding us of our winning streak. If we won today we would have won every stage of our last 3 stage races (TR 2007, BCBR 2008 and TR2008). That was a pretty strong voice so we pushed on and kept the winning streak alive. 21 stage wins in a row. Not too shabby.

Notes:

-Marty is having a great time! Lots of time in the creeks and rivers, road trippin’ with Rollin, the occasional leftover steak thrown his way (special occasion) and lots of buddies to hang out with

-we have been riding the Hei Hei Supreme’s all week. The 29ers hardtails are on standby but our bodies are beat to shit so the full suspension has been pretty sweet. We actually don’t even lock out the suspension on the climbs all the time…..too bumpy!

-Kona Team mate Kris Sneddon (Mr. Five) took the stage down today ironically the 5th stage……

-The race is taking a good toll on our equipment so far we have thrashed: 3 tires, 3 tubes, 1 FR DR, 1 chain, grips, cassette, shock lock out, brake pads…..that is all I can think of right now but I am sure there is more things that we have killed now.

2008-08-05T21:54:00.000-07:00

The Future

So the best part of my 2 weeks in K-bec was meeting these 2 little rippers – Marine and Ariane Lewis. I spotted them decked out in full KONA gear on matching Kula Supreme hardtails so I rode by and gave them a big thumbs up and yelled something at them to acknowledge their KONA loyalty. Jerseys, gloves, sox, stickers, they had it all. Nothing is cooler to me than seeing little girls on mountain bikes and if it’s Kona’s they choose all the better. Little did I know that gesture would get me two superfans for life.

I was racing the Nationals course the next day and there they were, the two of them, screaming my name on the steep climb. Cheering for me madly. And after the race they came over looking for my number plate and Kona water bottles to autograph. I chatted with them in my pigeon French for a bit and found out they were racing the “kids race” the next morning.

Well, I called it the “kids race,” but as we watched the call up for the Nationals races the next day I soon realized this was no follow-the-wicknasty-circus-clown “kids race”. Marine and Ariane were the real deal. They were called up 1-2 for leading the provincial series in the Pee Wee category (under 13). And their faces on the start line said it all: they were fierce! I gave them a quick wave but I didn’t want to throw them off their game. My brother and I rode around cheering them on at different sections of the course (I think he was checking out the competition for Hannah). They were flying! Picking off boys every lap and ripping up the downhills. When they heard us calling their names they would go even faster (a la Sneddon). The two sisters were battling back and forth for the first 2 laps. Blood meant nothing when they were racing. It was going to come down to the last lap to see what sister would take it but unfortunately Marine flatted and had to run. She looked pretty upset so we encouraged her to keep running and finish strong. Her sister Ariane pulled into the lead and won the race with a big grin on her face. Marine ran it in and finished in top 10 but on the verge of tears. We found out from her dad that she had been sick that morning but still wanted to race. Tough cat!

We got some photos together because I figure the Lewis sisters will probably be taking over Marie Helene Premont’s spotlight in the future. Kona should keep these 2 on the roster.

The whole Lewis family came back the next week for the World Cup at Mont Saint Ann with custom coloured signs saying "Go Wendy". As much pain as I was in on that steep climb, I HAD to look over and check it out. And the whole family showed up again in the POURING rain in Bromont to cheer me on again. Wow. That is dedication. Unfortunately I didn't put on much of a show for them on that day but they still cheered me on. Thanks guys!

2008-08-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

Rain, rain, rain.

Bromont World Cup

It pretty much rained ALL week in Bromont, K-bec. Not just drizzly rain but mighty east coast thunderstorms with torrential downpours, crazy lightening and hard core thunder. When it wasn't raining it was humid. The course was a bit of a mess so we didn't ride it very much. Huge bogs that you couldn't ride through, giant puddles that could swallow your front tire whole and lots of sklick off camber roots and rocks. It did more damage to the bike (and my ego) so it was best to just stay away. Everyone was sick of the rain and a bit cranky as we had all been away from home for close to a month and wanted desperately to wrap this trip up. It didn't help that everyone was raving about the weather back home. It wasn't the best attitude to have so we tried to stay busy. We went go-karting, outlet shopping, ate local pie & poutine and we watched a LOT of Discovery Channel. At least it was Shark Week.

Wicknasty ready to rumble

When the race did finally come around it rained all morning. Surprise surprise. At least there was no question what tires I would run.... I had an OK start. For what the start was worth. 10m through thick awkward mud than a left hand turn and start climbing a looooong steep climb. I rocked the first 10m. And apparently the first couple minutes of the climb as a whole bunch of girls got bogged up in mud and had to get off their bikes and run. It wasn't because I had rockstar legs it was because I stayed on my bike. And that first few minutes was about the highlight. I climbed sloooowly and everyone passed me and I rode what I could in the mud and ran the rest but not fast enough to make up too many spots. I seemed to find a groove on the last lap but it was too late. I passed a couple of girls and ended up 20th in a slow motion mud sprint against a Japanese girl. However I WAS told that I won the muddiest person award. Thats worth something isn't it??

My slow motion sprint finish for 20th. That is me in the "white" kit (#23). They are still not clean. photo by Lizzie

Lizzie and Geo were my saviours and took me to the airport right after the race so I could jump on a plane and get home that night. So good to me! Norm was kind enough to plan a 4hr mountain bike ride coined "the impossible ride" the next morning at 8am. But it was a blue bird day so I could not say no. It wasn't my smoothest, fastest ride ever but it was one of the grandest. Nanaimo's best trails, great friends, and hot summer sun. Exactly what I needed.

2008-08-05T20:55:00.001-07:00

Mont St Anne World Cup

It was pretty sweet not having to travel after Nationals. Too bad the week was full of rain. I get enough of that on the west coast, no need to throw more at me on the east coast. Lame. So the big debate (for a tread nerd like myself) was tire choice. The course was sloppy and wet in the woods but as soon as the sun came out it would dry up pretty quick in the open sections. Lucie from Kona brought in some new tread for me as my old tires were not hooking up. After testing them out I had my mental flow chart established. No rain: small block 8. Rain: karma. Rain the night before but dry when I woke up: half and half. But at 11pm the skies opened up and absolutely dumped its load on us. I hadn’t added “tropical monsoon” to the flow chart but my guess was no morning sun was going to dry that up by 11am. Go with the karmas. I turned my brain off and tried to go to sleep but the postDH “Bleu Nuit” rave in the village was going strong and I could hear the DJ until about 6am.

Everyone had assumed that they would shorten the number of laps from 5 to 4 with the downpour the night before. Even 2 mins before the start girls were whispering about it. But they stuck with 5 laps so it would be a long haul. I had a great start! Almost no effort and I was sitting in 5th on the first start loop. First climb a few girls were starting to swarm but I was still top 15. When we hit the first singletrack and it was a mess. A long line of girls in the mud. Georgia Gould (Luna) snuck by on foot but then everyone tried to duplicate and the holes closed up. Once the course opened up things started to move a bit better. I was riding the technical pretty well and climbing steady, working hard to make up a few spots and ride in 9th. But I must have burped my front tire at the start of lap 4 because I started to feel it fold in the corners. I checked it on the run and it felt like I had enough air to get to the pits for a wheel change. But then I hit a rock on the descent and flatted. I ran to the bottom pulled over and got out my air cartridge to try the quick fix. Amanda Sin (3 Rox Racing) passed me. Damn. But the quick fix worked and I was on my way. I passed Lucie on the course and told her I would need a new front wheel. Not too bad. Not much time wasted and still top 10. I was feeling pretty smug but then I could feel that the tire wasn’t holding air and I rolled it and ate shit on the fast bumpy downhill section. A small hole in my knee, bruised ego and then 4 girls passed me. Not so smug anymore. I just needed to get down the hill to the pit. Alive. So I scaled back my speed and limped down. I made it to the pits and pulled into the Shimano neutral support and got a new wheel. At this point I was pretty bummed because I had worked hard to get past all these girls and now I needed to repeat the effort. I didn’t have that much energy left in the tank so could only muster 13th. My best world cup finish to date but hard to choke down as I was hoping for a top 10.

2008-07-26T12:55:00.000-07:00

GMs "midseason" pep talk.

"despite the fact we're still in the middle of the Tour, the fact is that road racing season's basically over anyway. The astute rider has already written it off and begun focusing his or her attention on cyclocross. The key to a successful racing season is to always live a minimum of four months in the future, mentally-speaking. That way you can dismiss your poor performances as simple preparation. Sure, you may not get anywhere near the front of the pack in a road race this summer, but you're just trying to get some intense mileage in so you'll be ready for cyclocross season. Poor mountain bike racing is even easier to rationalize--you're just doing that to improve your bike-handling. And of course once 'cross season does begin, you're still under no pressure to get results because, really, you're just doing it to maintain your form during the off-season. With the right attitude, you can surf an entire year of racing like a great big wave of mediocrity. Winning is for dopers and sandbaggers."

2008-07-21T17:20:00.000-07:00

East coast sweets. I guess you could say I celebrated. What the hell would I have eaten if I won?? Maybe a big bucket of lard.

2008-07-20T14:15:00.000-07:00

photo by Rob Jones www.canadiancyclist.com

National MTB Champs

I have never really been a mastermind peaker, which means I have never had really had a rockstar Nationals. It's not that I crumble under pressure and tank the big events (except that DNF at Nationals when I was crapping my pants for ten days after getting home from Belize...but thats another story). But some people just seem to be better at eeking out that extra few % on the right day. With the help of my brother Kevin we have gotten much better at the peak. During this time, I have discovered how to squeeze out what I like to call my "faux peak". Its a pretty easy recipe. Do a shitload of miles, rest, and then do some short, hard cyclocross workouts (or races) and voila - I trick my body into thinking that have a winter base under my belt. So, with the 7 day BC Bike Race in my legs I knew I was primed to pull out a Simms faux peak for Nationals.

Unfortunately, with a 2 day delay on the arrival of my bike (thanks Air Canada) my faux peak was thrown off and my legs felt pretty noodley at the beginning of the week. But I did all the right things, all week long and hoped for the best. The morning of the race I started my warm up and assessed how my legs felt. I started with "good", moved onto "pretty good", and ended my warm up with "(potentially) great legs". I guess I was still a bit skeptical....

I was pretty realistic for Nationals. Marie Helene Premont (Rocky Mountain) is number one in the world cup series, has trained on this course for a decade (everything in the area is named after her) and has been National Champion for 5 years running. Catharine Pendrel (Luna) has had a phenomenal year cracking the world cup podium and mastered the Nationals peak when she was in diapers. My chances of beating these gals was pretty slim, but my goal was to get on the podium. I had to race smart and not blow it chasing down our Olympic MTB team to end up fourth. You know how much I hate fourth.....

photo by Rob Jones www.canadiancyclist.com

With only 23 girls on the start line it wasn't exactly world cup aggression at the gun. I went into the first climb without blowing any matches. None! First goal - check. Marie was already waaay up the road on her new carbon hardtail but I blocked out the rabbit and concentrated on smooth. I got a small gap right away on the descents and focussed on riding steady. Don't blow, don't blow, don't blow. I saw the chasers close behind but kept them at bay on the downhills. On lap 2 I saw someone come out of the tech zone right ahead. I didn't really recognize her because she wasn't wearing her National Champ kit (she has been in it every race for 5 years except nationals so you can understand my confusion). Marie was having some technical troubles. It was a good little carrot so I kept her close. When she stopped in the next tech zone and I got ahead I decided to up the ante a little bit to see where Catharine was. But there is a reason Marie is #1 in the world and when she sorted out her fork issues she caught and dropped me in one fell swoop. I had to stay focussed on my goal and not blow my good position. I only had 30secs on Amanda Sin (3 Rox Racing) in 4th so I went back to riding steady and grew my gap bit by bit. I kept it together and rolled in 3rd, my first podium finish at Nationals. A long time coming....The faux peak came through.

photo by Rob Jones www.canadiancyclist.com

Lizzie and Geo finally got to witness a good race out of me at Mont Saint Anne. They have been watching me race national and international events here for years but I have never been able to give them a good show. Throw the Thibaults in Quebec on holiday with Norm's godparents and Norm shipped out last minute for his birthday (thanks Stefan!) it was a family affair. But.....

Unfortunately I may have rubbed my fourthplaceitis off on Norm as he finished 4th in the Masters race Sunday........he hates being 4th!

2008-07-17T18:38:00.001-07:00

Underpantless in la belle province

After the NY NMBS we high tailed it out of Windham to get to Georgia Gould's farm where the boys were staying all week. From what we could tell, the Gould's pretty much owned half of NY state as the family had properties scattered all over. They were hosting the Kona team, the Luna team, family from Italy, family from out of state, and maybe a few random people off the street to bring the party to an even 50. We had a yummy BBQ, drank wine, played ping pong and looked for bears. Unfortunately I was flying out to Quebec Monday afternoon so I had to get a childhood's worth of memories in just one morning so we trucked down to the river to see "the Forge", the coolest swimming spot ever. I wasn't really planning on swimming before my flight but when I saw how awesome it was I dove in with shorts and a sports bra. I jumped off the high rock, swam upstream and checked out the crazy rock formations smoothed out by the river. We hit "the picnic rocks" and skipped rocks, tested out war paint colours, picked berries and looked for "pollywogs". As Ben said, "its like Narnia!" Too bad for me I had to take off to catch my flight. I was freezing so I changed into some dry clothes on top of my packed luggage. No time to dig for dry underpants. I figured it was a short trip so I went to the airport commando, smelling like river. Its not like I was flying to europe or anything. I could take my wet clothes out of my bag and get some underpants on soon enough. It was worth squeezing out a few extra minutes at the river. easy peezy lemon squeezy. But I was wrong.

I arrived in Quebec with spare wheels. No bag, no bike, no underpants. I had been on 2 small planes so I figured they just didnt fit and would be here in the morning. I filed the paperwork and went to the airport hotel with my parents. My mom offered me her "flannel nightie" but I took her up on some HIGH waisted XS shorts and an XS tank to sleep in. Its not a fashion show OK? We headed to Mont St Anne the next day with no bike or bag and no clue where they were but I wasnt too worried. Delayed luggage is pretty normal. Two days later I started to get worried. The airline had no clue where my bags were and the dudes from India that were manning the "help" lines appeared to be quite useless.

I had washed my clothes by then (while hanging out in my high waisted shorts) but I still had no underpants and no bike. It was time to stop hoping for the best and get proactive. My legs felt like crap and I needed to ride. I tracked down the local Kona dealer but he only had DH bikes to loan me. He did take pity on me and gave me a good discount on a chammy and sports bra and suggested renting a bike from the hill. The shopping selection wasn't exactly prime in Beaupre (unless you want cheese curds) but I found some underpants and something to sleep in (no, not a nightie) and a change of clothes. Then I rented a bike. Not exactly your finely tuned race machine with heavy ass wheels and 40psi in the tires but my legs really needed a spin. It was a $150 spin. But I did get some good looks when I ripped down the trails and nailed the skinnies with my rec rider attire.

Of course once I shelled out some cash my bike and bag showed up that night. I had to wash everything in the bag because it smelt like dank river water but at least I had my own underpants back and my sweet sweet Hei Hei. Traveling is so glamorous.

2008-07-17T17:13:00.001-07:00

New York NMBS race report

I wasn't exactly feeling snappy after the BC7, even after taking most of the week off the bike. Surprisingly enough I had gained a few pounds after 7 days of racing. I would like to think it was a few pounds of pure muscle but I dont have the documents to back that up. I knew all those hours (and extra weight in gold) would come into form at some point, I just wasn't sure when....Flat or not, I knew I had to get some efforts into my legs to make all those hours worth something so I took off for New York.

Check out those pipes! Maybe all that BC singletrack made me a wee bit top heavy?

photo by Dave McElwayne www.trailwatch.net

Even though I had a 3rd place finish at the Fontana NMBS, I had flatted in AZ and missed the last 2 races so I had a pretty rookie call up position. Lets just say there were only a few girls behind me when the gun went off. The jist of the course was that it criss crossed UP Windham ski hill and then criss crossed back DOWN. It was a really fun course but had a good chunk of climbing so I didn't want to blow what shred of form I might have in my legs off the start line so I took it a bit easy to feel it out. At the first bottleneck into the singletrack I wondered if that was such a smart plan. But my legs felt OK so I started to move forward and pick people off. The leaders were long gone but I was warming up and moving forward. I burnt a few matches to get by gals but I think my legs needed it. My third lap was a bit flat as I lost my 8th place position to Emily Batty (Trek VW) on the climb but all in all not as painful as I had expected. More importantly, my legs felt better than when I had started. A good sign for the STX.

The standard STX "pain face" had not shown up yet

photo Dave McElwayne www.trailwatch.net

STX

The short track course wasn't much to look at but it made for one of the best STX races I have ever done. Although I had another mediocre start position, this time I chewed up the rhubarb in my big ring to move into top 5 off the line. As per usual, the Luna gals jumped off the front but on this course, they could not seem to open a very big gap. We had about 7 gals in the chase group that could taste the blue train. Heather Irmiger (Subaru Gary Fisher) lead the chase for the first chunk of the race. It always amazes me how much power that wee body can churn out. After the race, she complained that I gave off a crappy draft because I was too skinny, uhhhhm how much draft do you think I get, a saquatch behind a bunch of midgets? I felt great but I didn't know how long my legs would last so I played it smart and resisted my own impatience and let the wee one work. We caught Georgia Gould (Luna) then Katerina Nash (Luna) charged ahead. We caught Katerina and then Georgia took off. Damn team tactics. Even Catharine Pendrel (Luna) bridged up and tried to work us over but we were too many and too strong for them to get away for very long. We were actually making them work pretty hard for their podiums. Finally the chase group lost a bit of steam so I decided to take my fresh legs to the front. But I was torn. I didnt want to tow the group up and get spit out the back but they were so close! I made a push on the second last lap and got a bit of a gap. I wondered if it was too early but had to go for it. I was closing in on Georgia in 2nd when Micaal bridged up and then I made my first error. I tucked behind her to get a bit of rest for the final sprint but there wasnt much room for sprinting. So I ended up 4th. But my legs felt great so maybe those extra few pounds from BC7 had gone to the right place.

After the race I went to grab my vest and the men were getting ready to start. A voice in the start blocks sheepishly said "Hi Wendy, uhm I am your stalker". Awesome! I finally get to meet my stalkers. Even Joy was there. I think they were a little nervous at first but once they knew I wasn't creeped out we were all BFFs.

Super D

I decided to sign up for the super D at the last minute. I had my plush Hei Hei Supreme and the XC descent was a blast so I figured the super D would dish out more of the same. The fact that the course was being described as "terrifying" and "unsafe" just spurred me on. Unfortunately those reports meant that a lot of girls decided not to race because nationals was the next weekend and they were playing it safe. Barry and I prerode the course right after the mens STX race and it was fine. I would have liked to have had a bit more tread as it was pretty DH oriented but no time for that. I lost the Lemans start to a DHer. Ouch that hurt the ego! So I pedalled my sticks off to get ahead. The plan was to try to work the upper portion that required a bit of fitness and get into the tight singletrack first then try to hold on for as long as possible. I figured the DHers would catch me on the fast open run into the finish. But things went better than planned and I rolled into the finish with over a minute buffer. I even beat Barry by 5 seconds! As tim.goater would say, he got "bloused". No financial gain, no glory, just bragging rights.

2008-07-06T14:07:00.000-07:00

BC Bike Race recap

BC Bike race. photo by John Gibson

Day Zero - Shawnigan Lake school

Logistics. A seven day point to point race has a LOT of logistics and day zero is the time to sort it all out. Norm and I drove down to Shawnigan Lake with my sisters friends Mark Duk and Brad Marlborough (Pain for Pleasure) from Calgary. Brad mentioned he had packed running shoes so that he could go for a jog every morning. Norm and I snickered and bet how many days that would last. I bet zero days. Norm bet one day. Later in the week a weary looking Brad got a little embarassed when we asked how his running program was going. Zero - I win. We met up with the Kona crew Dave McNaught (mechanic and driver), John Gibson (aka "the Gibtron" our photographer) and our fellow Kona team of Barry Wicks and Kris Sneddon. It was going to be a fun week. We picked up our big bag of schwag and listened to the pre race logistics in the dining hall of Shawnigan Lake school. Nobody rides alone. Watch out for cougars in Whistler. Carry your rainjacket even if its 30C. Got it.

Stage 1 Shawnigan Lake to Lake Cowichan - approx 90km

There was no staging for Day 1, first come first serve. Norm is always aware of these important details so we hovered around the sign-on area until they opened it up. We were fast enough to get a second row spot mixed in with all the big wig boys. Rubbing shoulders with Tinker. I was a little worried because I had done a run workout on Thursday and my hamstrings still hurt to the touch. I wasn't feeling so spry. Stupid lunges. But we needed to start fast and get into the singletrack before the other 400 racers bunged it up. Unfortunately everyone else had the same game plan. The start of the race was supposed to be nice and easy - two short loops around Shawnigan Lake school before hitting the trails. A chance for the photographers to get some cool shots from the helicopter. But it was absolute mayhem. Everyone had pent up excitement from months of training for this event and there was chaos from the gun. Crashes, swearing, bumping. That would have been fine but unfortunately the school groundskeeper had decided to cut the long grass in the field we looped through so 5 minutes into the race 400 people were frantically removing grass out of their cogs or worse - trying to repair broken derailleurs. We finally pulled out of the chaos and settled into a long hot stage. My legs felt like crap so we had to go pretty steady to start but it turned out OK as people were cracking all over the placein the heat. We haven't seen much of the sun this year so it was carnage. I know a lot of tough racers that cracked that day. Our slower start may have saved us as we finished strong on the rail trail into Cowichan. 4:51 for stage 1 and into the red leaders jerseys with a solid gap. Top 10 overall. An A&W recovery burger and a dip in chilly Lake Cowichan made us feel much better before heading off to our homestay with Larissa.

Stage 2 Lake Cowichan to Port Alberni ~125km

There was a bit of grumbling about this stage because of the lack of singletrack but I realized that people will grumble about everything. Its too easy, its too hard. It has no singletrack, it has too much singletrack. At 30C the heat was going to be a major factor for this long stage. We wanted to be with a big group for as long as possible. The only problem with that plan was there was some pretty jiggy riders in the pack. I was riding my Kona Kula 2-9 Deluxe which was perfect for this kind of stage. Unfortunately I was goofing around with the Optimus Prime mask we had borrowed from Larissa's son Kierce so I did not notice that my fork was blown so the ride was a little rougher than it should have been. Not my most professional race day prep. In my defense, the mask had a built in voice mutator! We had a great ride and stayed with a big group without mishap for most of the day until about km 85 when the first of very few hills blew the pack apart thanks to Wicks. We pace lined it into Port Alberni on the hot dusty Bamfield road for another stage win. 4:42. We exited the venue immediately as a sweet homestay with Tom on Sprott Lake was waiting for us.

We hit the awards after a yummy BBQ and found inspiration from the "President" of Port Alberni. A jolly drunk cracker with a bad sunburn, straw hat and big belly who was married to Miss Port Alberni 1963 ( oh you can only imagine!). After he invited us down to the local pub for some "brewskies" (he was going to be there all night) we took off in the Kona truck in a blaze of roman candles. The Harbour Air truck followed us out and we thought we would get in trouble but they just smiled and passed us two cold beers through the window. Back to Tom's for a chocolate fountain desert and we all went to bed pretty happy.

Stage 3 Port Alberni to Cumberland ~80km

The buzz about camp was that today was the first day of "real" BC singletrack. The president of Port Alberni lit the canon to start our race and we made our way towards Cumberland where some sweet trails awaited us. With a good buffer on our lead we didn't have to worry as much about racing so we got to enjoy the ride. Unfortunately Norm was starting to get sick with "the funk". Sore throat, green phlegm, thick head. Its pretty hard to go through these stage races unscathed. It was only day 3 and you could already see that consecutive hard efforts were taking their toll on teams. Catastrophic mechanicals. Sickness. Heatstroke. Cranky pants. Tears. Fisticuffs. And it would only get worse. We rolled into Cumberland in 4:11 with big grins and went straight to Dave and Erin's cold basement. The heat was starting to catch up with us too.

Stage 4 Cumberland to Sechelt~60km

Hump day. Although today was a bit shorter in distance it was a loooong day because we had to wake up super early and catch a ferry from Comox to the Sunshine Coast, drive down the coast and hop on another ferry into Earl's Cove. Jump off the ferry and start racing with dead weight legs 30 minutes later. At 7am I had told Norm that I felt like I had rockstar legs but by the time the race started at 11am I felt like crap. My window was gone. I was also feeling a bit queasy after my "sunshine breakfast" (it will blow your mind) but we eased into the race pretty well. Norm had finally admitted he was sick and I was starting to feel the tickle in my throat so we backed off a bit. Just that little bit and Katie Compton and her husband Mark (Spike Shooter) came a chargin'. We battled it out with them for most of the race but managed to gain a few minutes in the lush Sunshine Coast singletrack to keep our winning streak alive. 3:41. Four for four. We were getting a good collection of jerseys. Up ahead teammates Kris Sneddon and Barry Wicks had taken the stage win and moved into the overall lead so they would be in yellow the next day. Kris Sneddon was from the Sunshine Coast so it was a matter of pride. His parents lived 5 mins from the finish so we blew off some fireworks and headed to the Sneddon's for a BBQ.

The boys looking good in yellow with Demo Dave. photo by John Gibson

Stage 5 Sechelt to Squamish~65km

Another "short" stage with lots of travel. But this was a racer favourite from the year before so everyone was excited. The course ended with a 12km downhill into the Langdale ferry that heard many hoots and hollers. By now Norm's cold was full blown and Katie and Mark were finding their groove so we always had to keep looking back to keep tabs on our lead. At one point Norm said "Spike is right behind us" so I said "well, shouldn't we pick it up?" and he responded "I HAVE been picking it up! can't you tell??" 4:12. Dave shot off some more roman candles as we crossed the line but a few wayward sparks lit his rocker hair on fire! (FYI he may look rocker but he is all country). Onto the ferry and a drive up to Squamish and we were all fried. Everyone was tired and a bit cranky. Gibtron cranky. We got to Malaika's house and were pretty much socially retarded by the time she got home. Communicating through grunts and clicks. Five days of racing was making us stupid. But both Kona teams were wearing the leaders jerseys so we couldn't complian. There were teams that were out riding twice as long as us everyday, some with head injuries, stitches, eye patches and beat up bikes so we had to keep our mouth shut. Demo Dave and the Gibtron were keeping us glued together.

Kona in the leaders jerseys. photo by John Gibson

Stage 6 Squamish to Squamish ~65km

Kona had 4 guest riders for this stage (Mark, Dik, Pat and Eddy) so Kona jerseys of varying vintages were scattered all over the course. Pretty cool bike company if I do say so myself. The boys had been drinking into the night so they were a bit fuzzy on the start line. (I am pretty sure Matson was still drunk as he had a stupid grin on his face and a glazed look in his eyes). Apparently Matson blew chunks so violently at the top of 9mile climb that the rest had to turn away with goosebumps for fear of puking too. But we missed all the antics. Until he drank a beer at the finish and dry heaved under the trees. This was my absolute favourite stage. The Squamish crew had given us the best singletrack of the Gearjammer and the Test of Metal to pull together an absolutely amazing day. 3:53 of BC's best riding. Two more jerseys for the pile. Norm's new rule of new clothes in=old clothes out was going to devastate my closet.

The Kona crew. Pre-puke. phot by John Gibson.

Stage 7 All Whistler, all day ~47km

Everyone was pretty shattered going into this stage but the distance was "only" 47kms so we all planned for a shorter stage. I was pretty queasy at just the thought of gels and gatorade so I hoped I could keep my energy intake to a minimum. But this was by far the hardest day of the lot. They sent us STRAIGHT up Whistler mountain. Ouch. This was followed by 40kms of pure singletrack which, when your body is battered, is a tough feat. At one point Norm asked me if it felt like I was drunk because we felt so fuzzy and slow. I bounced off roots and rocks like a pinball. It was definitely not my smoothest day on a bike. At one point I hit the dirt so hard I was frazzled into submission because I had no clue how it had happened. 3:37 of absolute great singletrack that I could only grit my teeth through. The only thing that kept me going was the push to keep our top 10 overall position.

Finally done. photo by John Gibson.

The post race party was a great success as Sneddon sealed the deal and noone puked. But we all felt pretty dull and beat up the next day. Thanks to Demo Dave and the Gibtron for being the best support support crew ever. The bond of fireworks is a lifelong bond. Thanks to all of our homestays for keeping us well rested and well fed. Thanks to the BC Bike Race crew for pulling together such an incredible event. And thanks to Kona for letting us race in memory of our friend Denis Fontaine. He popped into our thoughts throughout the week.

2008-06-16T15:19:00.000-07:00

TEST OF METAL

The Test of Metal is a classic mountain bike race in BC. A Canadian Epic as they say. And it is. A 67km point to point mountain bike race thats been running for over 15 years on some of the best singletrack in BC. Plus they have one of the biggest prize purses. With 10 x $100 primes along the route for the first male and female rider, it always attracts a lot of fast racers.

I have raced this event as a newbie pro and a seasoned pro. I always knew I wanted a win but it had to be put on the back burner as it often conflicted with other mountain bike races or Norm's Half Ironman. But this year, with no worlds invite (bastards) my dance card was wide open and I was just starting to hit some good fitness. I had the win in the back of my mind but really just wanted to have a fun ride. I looked in my stable and chose the Hei Hei Supreme. Yeehaw! Time to play.

A big crew from the island was heading over for the race which always means a good battle. I have a long standing feud with our friend Justin Mark. He is currently killing me 3:0. Also Norm had thrown it out there that his goal for the race was to beat me. Where is the love?? And I can never dismiss Dik Cox who always seems to catch me on the descents with his big ol' Dawg.

The cool thing about the Test of Metal is that it is dominated by the weekend warrior. Mass start with maybe 50 pros, maybe another 50 ex-pros, 100's of hard core closet trainers, and 100's more weekend warriors. All shapes and sizes, ages, bikes and backgrounds. I think its cool we all race the same course but when I was registering I heard this poor girl freaking out at her boyfriend when I walked by in my perfectly matched white Kona kit. "Look at HER, she looks like she is really fast HOW COME YOU MADE ME RACE AGAINST HER?!" the pitch was getting higher and higher. I thought she was going to crack. Tears were definitely on the way. Apparently some beginners don't think mixing the pros and warriors together is all that cool. I told her not to worry about me, I was a different category so she would be fine.

With 900+ racers the start chute is usually pretty congested. The self seed had hundreds in the estimated "under 3 and a half hours" sector and maybe half a dozen in the "over 5 hrs" sector. Hmmmm. Everyone is always pretty jiggy off the line. Noone wants to be behind on the singletrack so its a mad rush up the first big climb through the residential neighborhood. Plus it might be joe blow's only chance to make $100 on the first prime. But as I looked up the road, who did I see towing the entire train of 900 racers?? - my teammate Kris Sneddon! Surpise, surprise.

I was nearing the first prime at the top of the big climb when I started to hear some exceptionally femine breathing on my left. Uh oh. I was being challenged. I felt like crap so Jean Ann McKirdy crushed me and made the first $100. But up and over into the first singletrack I pushed past and never saw her again. I found myself in a group with a few island boys (Norm included) so the trash talking began. Justin Mark would pop but not die. Norm tried to drop me up the climb but I reeled him back in. I asked him if he had been doing some secret training without me. He shot back "no, have you?" I dropped the island boys at the top of the climb. Norm claims it was because the drunk boys gave me an extra long push at the top. I guess he didn't hear them say "don't worry we are pushing everyone, but you have the nicest ass out of everyone so far"

I could catch glimpses of the boys closing in on me but they never caught me. I looked at my watch through crumpet woods (also known as crampit woods) and saw that I had a chance to go under 3hrs! I was pretty sure no girl had ever cracked the 3 hour mark so I pushed past chatty joe and didnt stop when Norm's friend Graeme CRACKED and pulled over on the sideof the trail to pull it back together. A long look behind to make sure the boys couldn't catch me and I pulled in for a course record and $900 in primes! Not too shabby.

2008-06-10T15:48:00.001-07:00

Fort William World Cup

Saturday I was in sunny Scotland getting a tan racing the Fort William Mountain Bike World Cup and Sunday I was in Vancouver freezing my butt off watching the Triathlon World Championships. Crazy time travel.

I will back up....Sandra and her mom and I left our relaxing little resort on the coast of Spain Wed afternoon to head to Scotland. We were sad to go but it was probably best as the buffet was going to catch up with us sooner or later. My belly has been out of practice this year since I am no longer eating roast lamb lunches and cheesecake for lunch at Malaspina. Ryanair was a little sticky with my excess baggage but we shuffled it around and voila - nothing was overweight. The check in gal couldn't quite get her head around it either but she let us through.

We arrived in Scotland at 7pm and picked up some Scottish pounds (2.2 exchange rate - ouch!)and the rental car. Sandra was the lucky winner for driving on the left hand side but after hopping a few curbs and missing a few left hand shifts she started to feel a bit more comfortable. I was the navigator and the second brain "stay left...stay left..LEEFFT!"Google maps had suggested a 3hr drive but we hit a detour and ended up arriving after 1am. The crazy twisty, narrow roads were a bit terrifying, especially when you started to focus in on the deer munching in the gutter or the sheep sleeping in the small gap between the road and rock walls. But the second brain was vigilant. "sheep...sheep..SHEEP!"

We went to put our bikes together the next morning and got eaten ALIVE by the midges. I had HUGE hair from swatting at them biting me up around my hairline. I hear big hair is in. When we prerode the course it was kind of freaky looking at volunteers with screen faces to keep the midges out. I am sure they would have gone mental without it. I have a couple seasons of tree planting experience and I know that biting insects can drive you to a. drink or b. kill. I guess it just depends on your personality which direction you sway.

Sandra's mom did a solo summit of Ben Nevis in less than 3 hours, without oxygen, and in flip flops. Ok she had hiking boots on and there were 100's of other tourists but she looked like she was out for a stroll in the park compared to the HUGE packs some of the people were carrying when we dropped her off at the trail head. She just got back from hiking in Patagonia so I think she was a bit disappointed in teh difficulty level....

The race course was super fun. Completely different than 2 years ago when I had one of my best World Cup finishes. It wasn't as technical but it had great flow. It was basically one huge climb, one super long downhill and then a flat double track bringing you back to the start area. Repeat. The talk of the town was the hot sunny weather we were having. The course was built for rain and lots of it so the hot, dry, dusty conditions were unexpected.

Race day: I had a great start and was climbing pretty well in the top 15. I fell behind a bit on the climb every lap but would usually catch them on the twisty downhill. Unfortunately this meant I was at the back of the pack for the flat doubletrack section so I was yo-yoing after every corner. I was feeling pretty good though for the first few laps and then I started to fade. I am starting to realize that my 7 weeks base training after CX worlds just wasnt enough for the world cup mountainbike circuit this year. I could fake it for about an hour and a half but then I would be exposed for what I really am: a 45min CX racer that prefers short punchy climbs to long mountain passes. I slipped backwards the last two laps to end up 29th. But I felt like I was actually racing in the first 3 laps, so I took it for what it was: another step at bring back my MTB endurance. I should be flying by August....

No time to watch the mens race this week as I had to pack up my stuff and catch a train by 6pm. A 3hr train ride was an amazing way to see Scotland. I saw lots of sheep, wooly cows, wild purple rhododendrons, Scottish broom, a few rabbits and lots of lush green grass. They couldn't fool me with their hot sunny weather. I knew it rained a lot here.

Sunday 6am I was on a flight back to Canada (first class wahoo!). Norm picked me up in Vancouver at noon and whisked me off to see the World Triathlon Championships. Team Canada was hoping for some medals. I was listening to all of the politics associated with that sport as the Olympic team would be decided immediately after the race and announced that night. Rumour had it one of the athletes had a lawyer waiting....

I was pretty fuzzy from jetlag and I don't think the 2 cupcakes helped but I was happy to be home. Now I am trying to get some miles in so I am ready for BC Bike Race. Home court advantage. Bring it on.

2008-06-03T10:19:00.000-07:00

Spanish hot chocolate. Chocolate caliente. Its pretty much as thick as pudding. Yum!

The castle at Tossa da Mar

Sandra and the sasquatch at the top of a climb on the coast. I am not a monster!

The Kula Supreme kickin' it on the Costa Brava

The Cataluyna ass

The hike to Tossa da Mar

2008-06-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

Costa Brava

So I had 3 choices on what to do between the world cups

1. Stay in Andorra at altitude and train in the rain in the Pyraneese

2. Go to Scotland right away and train in the rain at Ben Nevis

3. Go to the coast of Spain and train with Sandra in the sun

hmmmmmm tough choice.

So we are here at a “fitness resort” called Giverola just north of Barcelona. Sandra used to guide the bike tours a few years ago so she knows the area and everyone at the resort. Its awesome! We have a little apartment overlooking the beach cove and there is everything we need and more. The Swisspower team is here too but they are making us look bad, handing out trading booklets with postcard sized autograph cards to all the kids.

Recovery mode

Sunday was spent washing clothes (my white kit came clean!). And eating. They have a huge breakfast buffet and theme night dinners. We considered a road ride but it was raining pretty hard so we hit the gym for some stretching and a spin indoors. At least it was probably warmer than Andorra and Scotland. A swim in the mineral pool and a Jacuzzi pretty much made my day. AND it was only Sunday! I am not used to racing Sat so it seemed like “found time”. Sandra figures its just as valuable as found money. I agree.

Back on the program

Monday we had to do some serious bike cleaning. We had pressure washed the bikes after our race in Andorra but there was still a ton of mud in everything so we spent an hour at the bike wash station. Frischy rode by and joked that he was going to bring us his bikes to wash next. Ha ha ha ha. Dick. Afterwards, Sandra took us on this cool mountain bike ride in the hills behind the resort and we found some “extreme” terrain (yah right) for us to ride in the sun.

Euro massages

The legs still felt pretty tired so we booked a massage with Ali the moroccon massage therapist. Now I know us North Americans are a little body conscious compared to the euros but I am pretty sure I got felt up. His wayward fingertips strayed a little too far off course a few too many times to be coincidence. And I seriously didn’t think my groin needed to be stretched THAT much. And who ever heard of a stomach massage that conveniently strays close to the boobs?? Yvonne doesn't have that one in her arsenal of tricks. I made a comment to Sandra and she said the same thing! Her mom panicked and cancelled her appt.

This morning I did a road ride into the next town. It was along this great highway that twisted up and down along the coast. And the cars didn’t freak out if they were behind you. Then we went into Tossa de Mar and checked out the castle and took a glass bottom boat back. Off to dinner. Tonight is Greek night. One more day here then we are off to Scotland.

2008-06-03T04:46:00.001-07:00

Quote of the week

Sue Haywood (Trek-VW) describing her crash while pre-riding the course in Andorra:

"it was like the hand of God came down and SMACKED me...."

2008-06-01T12:43:00.000-07:00

Regula Walter (Sandra's mom) was the official photographer for the trip to Andorra.

Wildflowers all over the place in the Pyreneese

Post race Sandra with a little extra mud.

The start of the women's race - 2 Canucks on the front row, one in the leaders jersey. Impressive.

Our accommodation, the Velvet Apartments, nestled in the Pyreneese mountains. Not too shabby.

A helicopter crew dismantling the chair lift towers outside of our Velvet Apartments. Geo would have been glued to the action all day with his binos.

2008-06-01T07:27:00.000-07:00

Andorra World Cup report

I wasn’t really sure if I was going to come back to Europe again after such a disappointing trip in May. But I shook off the funk and remembered that I had taken the year off work to travel to cool places and race my bike against the best in the world. So I quit my whining and booked a first class ticket on points. May as well travel in style. I could easily be a 5star girl. I DO like my luxuries. Traveling first class is sweet! They treat you like gold, they give you chocolates and wine with your meal and they practically tuck you into bed when they are done. Ahhh. It makes for pretty smooth travels and is much easier on the legs. The only problem with first class is you never want to go back to economy.

Andorra

The drive from Barcelona to Andorra was a bit more of an adventure. Mapquest had estimated a 3 hr drive however it was closer to six with a crappy map, poor navigation skills, my lack of Spanish and a super twisty drive through the mountains. But the car rental had upgraded me to an Audi3 TDi so it was a pretty fun drive, especially with the 80s tunes pumping out of virtually every radio station. I finally got to Andorra and even in my jet lagged state I could appreciate how incredibly beautiful it was. Well, except the 5km stretch of Robson-like shopping that I had to drive through many times before someone finally pointed me in the right direction to the mountain. As Rob Jones said, “they may as well put a dome over it and call it the biggest shopping mall in the world.” I finally reached the Velvet Apartments. I stayed awake until my travel buddy Sandra Walter (XO-Felt) and her mom arrived after midnight and then I crashed hard. I was so tired. But… I was wide awake at 5am. Jet lag is a bitch.

Altitude

The race in Andorra was at 2000m. Altitude sucks. Well, I hope that is what made my “3 blocks from the water” body feel like crap, otherwise its ME that sucks. It felt like someone was sitting on my chest. And I was drinking as much as I physically could but I still had headaches. Come on! It wasn’t even THAT high. But lots of top racers had decided to skip this race because of the altitude. Many are getting ready for the Olympics so it doesn’t fit into their grand master plan. I am usually affected a bit by altitude but I had nothing to lose.

UCI Trade team perks

Kona is a UCI trade team. I don’t have the receipts but I am pretty sure Kona pays THOUSANDS of dollars to the UCI for this designation which seems to get them 1. a spot at the expo 2. the team name on results 3. a coveted rainbow pass for the manager (often includes drinks and snacks) and 4. parking passes for the team. Sounds like a great deal. I asked for a parking pass at the registration but they said they couldn’t get me one, limited parking so everyone was supposed to park at the bottom of the hill and take the gondola up. Huh. Nice perk. When we drove up to check out the venue and preride, the police stopped me on the way up and said “no pass, you park here” (this was ~750m down an 8% grade hill from the venue). But, but….."NO PASS, YOU PARK HERE!” he yelled. Ok. I should admit he was pissed at me because I happened to be accelerating up the hill when we came upon him. And he was telling me to slow down but it took me a second to come to a complete stop. BUT, in my defense, he was wearing a BERET. How I am supposed to take the Andorran police seriously when they wear berets?? It would really suck if we had to park down the hill and haul all of our gear in the rain on race day. That afternoon I went back to the registration and asked for a parking pass again. We gave the beret wearing cops a BIG thumbs up when we parked at the TOP of the hill race day with our thousand dollar parking pass. Thanks KONA! I don’t know if it was worth thousands of dollars but it made my life easier.

Sweet Sylvain

So I was checking all my bolts the night before the race, as I am prone to do (ha ha, Norm knows he is the one that usually does that!) and I noticed that my rear brake caliper was totally loose. Yikes! Close call. But when I tightened it I had some serious brake rub. I tried to fix it but needed a bunch of spacers. Norm packed me a few but it wasn’t enough. I didn’t need altitude AND brake rub slowing me down. It was almost 10pm but Sandra texted Sylvain to see if he could help me out. Not only did he fix it FOR me, but he showed me me a trick on what to do next time. Thanks Sylvain!

The race

I woke up race day and the fat man that had been sitting on my chest seemed to have taken a break. Or so I thought. It had also started drizzling a bit so the rooty rocky course was probably getting slipperier as we ate breakfast. Hmm. To pull out the mud tires or not? When it opened up and poured an hour before the race the answer was obvious. Everyone scrambled. I had to do my warm up on the course in the trees because it was pouring. I was soaked and muddy by the time we were called to the start. But I knew the bigger tires were a good call.

I didn’t want to blow up at altitude (been there – its painful and impossible to recover from) so I had a conservative start. I got caught behind a big line of riders in the technical sections as a result of my conservative start but I told myself to not panic and try to make up time in the last 2 laps. Ren (Chines rider) was apparently a little more stressed out as she screamed "WHY!?!" when a girl crashed in front of her. Well, I guess its good that they are learning some English. I was riding technically well but I felt so slow on the climbs. My bike weighed a ton with all the mud on it. Neil Ross was feeding me and it felt like he had time to knit a frickin' sweater from the time I crested the hill to when I took a water bottle from him. (thanks for the feed Neil!). By the last 2 laps I soon realized that my speed wasn’t picking off any riders and noone was blowing up and coming back to me. The gaps were too big and I didn’t have the extra energy that was supposed to available according to my master plan. Dammit. Hopefully it was the altitude. Otherwise I might start losing my stalkers to someone faster….

2008-05-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

where's Wendy?

I know, I know. How come I wasn't racing Santa Ynez last weekend?

According to the pre-race report I was third in the series (not true, I double flatted and posted a DNF in Arizona) so why would I no-show? The little rumour bees were flying. I am sick, I am injured, I have run off with my stalker, I am anorexic (seriously! I am the SAME weight as last year! my jerseys were just too big).

But the truth has less drama. I won't be in the running for the NMBS series because I am doing BC Bike Race with Norm in July and will miss the Deer Valley NMBS. So why would I want to fly to California and cook my brains out on a lame course with zero spectators to witness my potential glory?

I much preferred my weekend racing the local Vancouver Island boys on my shiny new Hei Hei Supreme on a sweet course made up of 100% single track. And then Monday, when I would have been in airports all day, I took my shiny new Kula Supreme 29er out for a spin to get used to the BIG wheels after reading about the carnage that was Santa Ynez. Yeah, I guess you could say I was happy with my decision.

Sometimes I just need to go back to my local grassroots events to ride some fun trails with some great people and remember why I got into this sport in the first place.

Thanks to the Port Alberni crew for putting on such a great race. Although the course did not meet UCI code (with its le mans start, logrides and unmanned feedzone in the trees), the singletrack was sweet, the competition was fierce, and the burgers were delicious!

2008-05-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

My name is Marty. And I like to party.

2008-05-07T13:29:00.000-07:00

Stalking is the sincerest form of flattery...

I'm huge in europe. I keep trying to tell KONA that, but they don't believe me. I thought I had met my ultimate super fan in Belgium (not the one with the unibrow, he likes Barb Howe) but apparently I have a couple here in North America.

I am back in Canada now (the west coast not PEI) so I should take the time to answer your questions seeing as you are such big fans and have done such a great job stalking me. Your efforts should be rewarded.

http://joyonbike.blogspot.com/2008/04/q-and-with-wendy-simms.html

I have included the entire original post for your reading pleasure.

Windy Simms, hands down my favorite top pro mountain bike chick. Pictured here at a Cross race (although i DO NOT condone CX events, she looks pretty tough here. Like she could eat you.) I took a moment today to sketch out some questions for this World Class Athlete regarding her recent and continued assault on the World Cup Circuit.

I have found it tricky to contact her, especially since she is prepping for race #3 in Madrid. However, I did have a missed call on my cell today from a 902 area code. I called 411. They said that is a Canadian area code. Prince Edwards Island to be exact. Now Wendy is Canadian, so that could have been her. Thanks a lot, meeting chairperson, one missed call equals a lifetime of missed opportunity. Since Wendy is unavaible at this time (good luck to her for SURE though) Matt Freeman offered to step in and answer as best he could. Pretty close second I think.

Hi Joy,It’s Matt Freeman. Most people don’t know this, but I’m president of the Wendy Simms fan club. I don’t publicize it because she rides for Kona and I ride Fisher bikes, so it’s kind of a conflict of interest. Plus Wendy and I have never actually met, talked or even exchanged emails. In fact, I’m not allowed within 50 feet of the Kona truck and trailer at races anymore. Anyway, as you know Wendy is in Europe racing World Cups right now so she can’t answer your questions, but I can do my best. I’ve followed her long enough to know how she may answer.

J.O.B (Joy On Bike): Wendy, you used to ride for the Velo Bella Sorority Club, and now you are the token female on the Kona Factory Team. How do you feel about this transition?

MF: Since both teams ride Kona bikes it wasn’t much of change for Wendy at all. And I don’t like to consider her the token female on the team. I consider her more the queen bee or dominatrix.

WS: I was kicked off Velo Bella because I didn't wear enough "flare". Kona said I was the girl that looked best in orange so I made the team. The boys made me feel welcome though, they put a sticker on my locker that said "the girl" and gave me XL sized clothing to help me feel as skinny as them.

JOB: Did you select to race with these boys because they are all taller than you?

MF: Wendy raced cyclocross on the Kona Factory Team, so her transition to the mountain bike squad was seamless. It actually came about as a bet during a pick-up basketball game Wendy was playing with Ryan Trebon, Barry Wicks, & Chris Sneddon. Wendy dunked on Trebon & Wicks to earn her spot on the team. I got it all on film if you want to see it. She’s got hops.

WS: I just wanted to race with Ryan because he is so dreamy.

Lucky guess on the basketball MF - no points too easy

JOB: Do you break as many seat posts as they do?

MF: The last time Wendy broke a seat post she was riding a Specialized, so no, she doesn’t break seat posts! What kind of question is that anyway, Joy?

WS: I mostly break stuff when I smash it after getting angry because I suck as a mechanic. Nice pullout on the Specialized though MF - my first mountain bike. Bonus points for what colour it was and who gave it to me. Then I will let you sniff my chammy.

JOB: Do you find it stressful racing in the USA? Do you feel like your competitors constantly have the “Blame Canada” song running through their minds?

MF: Wendy doesn’t mind racing in the USA, just as long as it’s not in the Hell of the West otherwise known as Fontana. A couple of the Sobe Cannondale girls have been known to hum Blame Canada when Wendy puts the hurt on them, but for the most part Legs by ZZ Top runs through most people’s minds when Wendy’s around.

WS: how can it be stressful racing in the US? there is usually no technical riding on any of your courses....

JOB: A recent post on your blog has a hinney shot of a girl’s shorts that has “MOIST and CHEWY” emblazoned on them. Are they sponsored by some sort of Nougat?

MF: We (Wendy & I) aren’t really sure what the deal was with the “MOIST and CHEWY” shorts, but personally, I believe those shorts belong on Wendy and no one else.

WS: I was hoping for a brownie sponsor

JOB: Your blog also boasts fantastic race shots of the Pro men on your team. How do you find time to race your heart out, cool down, then hike to such places as the “snake pit” and “wolf drop” to support your teammates? Your resilience is enviable.

MF: Don’t let her fierce competiveness fool you. Wendy is selfless, loyal, and dedicated to her friends and teammates. Aside from her long legs and goddess good looks, that’s what makes her a beautiful person and a treat to be within 50 feet of her presence.

WS: I like to watch the mens races so I can feel like a total loser on my bike. Or to watch Ryan because he is so dreamy. MF has obviously never been closer than 50feet to me when I am hungry. This "beautiful person" can scratch your eyes out....

JOB: Do you find it difficult to get the mud out of your new, mostly white, racing kit?

MF: Wendy hasn’t actually had to wash any of her new white racing kits and skinsuits yet. Some weirdo keeps swiping them from the Kona trailer before she can get them home.

WS: Some wierdo keeps stealing my kits so I haven't had to wash any yet....

JOB: You got a new bike, and I must say, its pretty much the cat’s meow. What’s the history on the skull and cross bones on the down tube?

MF: The skull and cross bones is a superstitious thing that is meant to scare off her men male suitors. It only works on some of us.

WS: Reminds me to be a badass on the bike. Otherwise I might forget.

JOB: You had an unfortunate run in with fate in Arizona with a crash in STXC and a flat in the XC race. What were 7 things that went through your mind as you hiked your bike back to the pit areas?

MF: I can’t really read Wendy’s mind, but she was probably thinking about how hot it was because the sweat was glistening all over her body. She also kept looking back, so she probably knew that she was being followed.

WS:

1. Who the hell is that nutbar on the Fisher following me?

2. I hope I don't starve to death out here.

3. Good thing I won't freeze to death out here.

4. stupid pretty flowering desert plants giving me allergies

5. crazy lizards

6. what can i use to fight that nutbar on the Fisher that is getting closer?

7. is that a vulture?

JOB: I see your biggest fears in life are starving to death and freezing to death. Let us understand a little bit more about these phobias.

MF: I too read this on Wendy’s blog and was delighted because those two things are my biggest frears also. This is what draws me even closer to her. Although, if I did have to starve or freeze to death, I’d want it to be with Wendy.

WS: Hopefully MF has some sweet calves and an extraordinary large abdominal cavity because if I am with him when I am starving to death I am going to eat him and if I am with him when I am freezing to death I will cut him open and crawl inside to stay warm.

JOB: I completely agree with this statement from your blog: “In other news. I gave up on my chocolate boycott. It wasn't helping. Perhaps even hindering my results. I think my glycogen stores were depleted without chocolate to top them off. Seriously. I think I race better on chocolate.” What was your first choice of chocolate? Walk us through that initial bite.

MF: I can’t answer this for sure, but I’d like to think Wendy caved with some good old fashion chocolate syrup. You know, the kind that sometimes spills and you have to lick it off your arm. I’m thinking that’s the kind of chocolate Wendy likes.

WS: Neuhaus chocolate - caprice triangle - dark. For $129euros you too can have them delivered to your door. Syrup is for pansies. Who like to lick arms.

JOB: I like your style. When “Susie Colnago” pulled a fast one, you wanted to punch her in the head. Solid. You said video footage could be found from Newt. Who is this guy? Where can he be found? And can we watch that video ASAP?

MF: Newt, or Newton, as he’s known to the authorities is another one of Wendy’s admirers who follows her (from a court-mandated 50 foot distance) and films her every move. For some unapparent reason that I can’t figure out, Wendy has taken a liking to him and now allows him to fetch her chocolate, lattes, etc. It’s kind of like that paparazzi photographer guy that Britney Spears has let slip into her life. It’s driving me nuts because Newt really doesn’t care for Wendy. He’s just trying to make a buck off of her.

WS: coming soon to youtube I am sure....my Dad is first in line.

Nice work superfans. Impressive research. BUT you are not a Jedi yet.

one strike. I dont't drink coffee

2008-05-06T13:51:00.000-07:00

Mish Mash Update

(written on the long flight home so there may be a bit of verbal diarrhea as I am trying to waste time)

Belgian bribes....of the chocolate variety

Norm eventually had to go back home (one of us has to support Marty) so we made a trip to our favourite chocolate store, Neuhaus before he left. I was pretty giddy when we saw the big N as I swore off sweets for a few weeks there. Johnny Salami was with us and showed incredible willpower. He has been working on his “abs of steel” so he didn’t want to cave. I cracked at the first free sample. 15lbs later (not on me! in the bag…) we had a little something for everyone – including us. Our stash is at home. Alone. With Norm. Hopefully he hasn’t eaten it all. Afterwards, we went on the hunt for stroopenwaffles (mini waffles sandwiching tasty caramel) for Corey but alas, they only had some healthy fruit version so we left them on the shelf.

Madrid Madness

With Norm gone, Sue Butler was promoted to full time travel buddy. She isn’t as cute as Norm (or mechanically inclined) but we were on the same wavelength. We had decided to stay in Belgium late because I had basically found Madrid to be a pain in the ass. I am sure it’s a great city to be a tourist, but as a bike racer it sucks. Expensive hotels, crazy traffic, business siesta closures when I am hungry, no grocery stores and a race venue that also serves as the hot spot for hookers isn’t really where I wanted ride my bike for a week. We flew from Brussels Thurs and everything was going smooth. Suspiciously smooth. Flight arrived early, 22C and sunny, no overweight charges on luggage, bikes delivered safely, free shuttle to our hotel, but…then the hotel informed us that we were booked in at the OTHER hotel (of the same name). Sofitel Airport. Sofitel Centrum. Dammit! Rookie maneuver. I am getting slack in my travels. The old Geo motto “double check triple check, that’s what I always say” was fading away. In North America it would have been fine, just call us a taxi and we will head to the correct hotel. But the hotel staff were freaking out because Sue’s hard bike case was not going to fit into any cab according to them. Finally, after some high speed Spanish, a lot of head shaking and storming around we sorted it out, but by that time we were hungry and cranky. The emergency nuts had worn off long ago. I took the regular bags in one taxi and Sue waited for what sounded like the one van taxi in all of Spain. Not as smooth as originally thought. We dropped the bags and went for food at 10pm, right in the middle of the Madrid dinner rush. I knew I shouldn’t eat too much because it was late but I couldn’t help myself (my big guts were eating my little guts). I cursed my lack of willpower while I lay awake in bed digesting.

Food woes

The next morning we were looking for a good place to have breakfast as we thought there must be something other than the 26euro breakfast at our hotel. Wrong. It’s a 4 day weekend so most places were closed. Except the 4 Starbucks within walking distance. Starbucks? I am not a coffee drinker but lucky for me they have one of those giant OJ juicers so I got some liquid gold to hold me over. We finally found a breakfast place and who in all of Madrid do we bump into as we sit down? Dave McE. He has been here all week so after “breakfast” (the fried toast and a mashed egg I got looked nothing like the glossy menu photos) he offered to show us the downtown grocery store as I was already hungry again. My stomach rules my life. It was closed and there were 2 bums sleeping out front. We hit what I think is the Spanish version of 7-11 and got some crusty white bread (I wonder how many bums have touched it) and some cheese. I hear Kevin in my head “make sure you eat well and stay on the food program this week.” So I scarf down some Sport beans instead and hope there is something better at the venue. The free granola bar in our race package saved my butt. I calculate 2hrs max before a major melt down will occur. I would never make it on Survior.

Racing in the city

We hit the venue and my bike gets a tune up from the euro Shimano team as my trusty Norm is not here to help and we all know I am a crappy mechanic. We do a couple laps of the course. A fast 8km loop with a couple short steep climbs, one steep chute and not much else to report. I had a strong race here 2 years ago so I liked it. Its like a long cyclocross course. Sue missed all the hookers showing off their “wares” (think T & A, pretty hard to miss) and I missed the giant roller coaster. Not a very observant duo.

Maxxed out on Madrid

Dave wanted to take us out for dinner and show us everything he had sussed out in the past week so we weaved through Robson Street-like crowds behind him to his favourite pasta place. The people watching was great! I would love to come back here and shop. But my focus was food. Unfortunately the kitchen was not open, only pizza was being served. Sometimes you just have to give up and go with the flow. Like when you have been starving all day and you cant think and you just want to eat your arm. Sorry Kevin. After dinner, Sue hit H&M for 5euro Tshirts (you can tell Dave has 2 daughters), got ripped off by the bank machine that said “thank you for your transaction” but did not dish out the 300euros and that was it for Wendy. I was pretty much maxxed out on Madrid. The next day we found a restaurant that had good salads and pastas, did not close mid day so we ate every meal there for the rest of the trip.

The race

By now you have seen the results. 40th. No mechanical. More like a biomechanical. I basically went out fast and detonated. It was my last chance this trip to go for a top 12 result so I went for it. Top 10 start. I was on Marie Helene Premont’s wheel and thought “its now or never” and I tried to follow but it went backwards from there. Ouch. Losing 30spots is hard on the ego. I was pretty bummed since I had felt so good at the start of the season and I hadn’t managed to pull it all together this trip. I was sitting 26th ranked in the world but I was pretty far from my goal of a top 12. I went through all the emotions. I suck. I want my mommy. Bike racing is stupid. I am too old for this crap. But the good (or stupid?) thing about me is that I go through the whole gamet of emotions pretty quickly and then move on (with help from Norm). Its less than 2 days after the race and we already have a new and revised plan for the season and I am gung ho to get back on the bike. Maybe this time I will keep my goals to myself so I don’t feel like a total dud if I fail.

Moose gathering

Sunday night after the race, Sandra Walters from Pedalmag.com took the Canadian athletes out for dinner. Thanks Pedal! After I managed to spill red wine all over Alison Sydor, we settled into a yummy feast. It was a great chance to socialize with everyone that was over here in Europe going for it via totally different routes. Over the ox loins and ice cream we talked about racing (obviously) but had time to move on to other topics in life, which was a nice change. I am sure the story will have lots of great quotes!

My last snack of the flight is here. Meat pie. ? Back on the food program tomorrow in the comfort of my own country and home.

2008-04-28T08:37:00.000-07:00

Sneddon through the "snake pit"

Barry concentrating. Don't poop 'yer pants now....

Whhhhicks through the "snake pit"

Wicknasty riding the "wolf drop" that even Bart Brentjens was WALKING

A salty Sneddon gapping out after the race

2008-04-28T07:48:00.000-07:00

Offenburg World Cup Report

Round 2. The Offenburg World Cup race is one of my favourites. HEAPS of singletrack, great crowds, steep hairy drops and a short 5km loop. You need fitness, strength and technical skills for this race so it seems more like old skool mountain bike racing.

I had a decent start. Didn’t gut myself too badly and moved forward to about 15th on the two start loops. Once we hit the singletrack it was a big line up of traffic and I could hear the crowd cheering the leaders up the trail. 18,000 strong. Once the traffic thinned, I got into a rhythm. Until all hell broke loose.

Some Colnago chick tried to pass me on the left with zero space and hooked her bars on mine and sent me full speed into a tree. Hardwood. It did not move. I smashed my head and shoulder into it before wrapping my extra long limbs around the tree. I was pretty frazzled as I hit it hard and the crowd had gone silent waiting to see if I was ok. But the Simms’ have strong bones - lots of milk growing up. It took me a second to pull myself together but when I saw her get back on her bike and take off the anger hit me. I was PISSED. I sped off to catch Suzie Colnago. The adrenaline was pumping. I caught her and yelled some obscenities at her as I passed. I am pretty sure she knew what the jist was, even if English wasn’t her first language. If not, she can get the full video footage from Newt. I really wanted to punch her in the head but even in my rage I knew that would not be cool. Not that yelling obscenities is that much better…..Allright, it wasn’t my most shining moment in sport, but she had pulled a moron move and needed to know it. Super agro passes, on lap 3, for 18th position, is not really necessary. I did not see Suzie Colnago again. Maybe I was faster or maybe she was just terrified of what I would do if I saw her again.

After the rage subsided, I assessed the condition of my Kula Supreme. My left shifter had been smashed down quite a bit so it was hard to access and my gears were jumping. But it all worked so I decided to skip the pits. Not much Norm could do for me that wouldn’t take too much time. I just had to be careful on the descents because my brake lever was hard to access. The adrenaline lasted for a little bit but then it wore off and I was left with tired legs. I rolled in battered and bruised for 22nd place. Could have been worse I guess.

Watched the boys race against the other 248 men. All gunning to be the first into the singletrack....the Kona boys had a tough gig starting FIFTEEN rows back.

Off for some dinner in town. Schnitzel is a pretty hot item here. I wonder if they have chocolate schnitzel? (they have chocolate covered bread, its not that far off). I will have to get German fluent Sue to scan the menu.

Next stop Madrid, Spain.

In other news. I gave up on my chocolate boycott. It wasn't helping. Perhaps even hindering my results. I think my glycogen stores were depleted without chocolate to top them off. seriously. I think I race better on chocolate.

2008-04-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

Guest Blog: Normon Thibault
April 26th.

Wendy is doing her pre-race casual routine watching German MTV: Pimp My Ride so it is up to me to do a little post for Wendy's Blog.

Adventures in Zwembad

Traveling in other countries it is always tough to get a good swim in. Finding the pool (It is left of the windmill.....nope......it is near the center of town.....nope). Figuring out the schedule (No swimming on Sundays or mondays......not a long schedule during schule times.....). Negotiating with the locals.......you get the picture. 95% of All Belgium swimmers swim breast stroke 95% of the time.....I think it is so they can keep an eye on everything. Knob suits. Speedos. Banana hammocks. That is all the boys wear. If they are working on maintenance, lifeguarding or actually swimming. I saw this one 30 something ripped-runner-triathlete the last two times I was at the pool. The guy was water running back and forth in one of the lanes. Back. Forth.....repeat over and over for more than the hour that I was there. Well the last time I was there I was swimming by and well.......his "Junk" was hanging out of his swim suit.......there was probably 100+ people in the pool. Situation remained the same for 75m more before his business was put away.........

Pool temperature was 28c......I was cooking after an hour. I think it is even warmer than Beban.

Unfortunately some of the elementary school girls that were swimming had more pit hair than me.....yuk!

Zolder

At a race track south of where we are staying on Tuesday and Thursday nights from April to October there is a night ride that I can only call the SWARM. Starting around 6:30 riders start heading around the motor speedway in one group that gets more and more strung out until it breaks into smaller and smaller pace groups until people start peeling off and heading for the exits around 8:00 or so. The kicker is that there is probably 300+ cyclists there. There is guys on full 10k race rigs right down to guys with panniers. Everything inbetween. MTB's with knobs, MTBs with slicks, TT rigs, old road rigs....everything and all ages from 10 to 80. The race track has a permanent cyclocross course in the infield.....that is up year round.

Just one of the girls.

Cycling in Belgie.

To put it in perspective; We see more people riding bikes here on 1 day than a whole year combined in Nanaimo. On our ride the day before Wendy's 1st world cup we came across the U23 Mens Liege Bastion Liege. This U23 race was bigger than any race in Canada.........25+ motos, 50+ cars. Team busses.....HUGE. Several days a week there are informal group rides near where we are staying that have 100+ riders in it. At the recent Tour of Flanders citizen race there were 18,000 participants. We went to the Mid Week Classic the Fleche Wallonne and there were so many spectators that Wendy asked, "Is anyone working in this country"? Cycling is huge!

Enjoying a "saucisse" in the beer garden at Fleche Wallone while watching the race on big screen. Typical Wednesday in Belgium.

2008-04-21T12:51:00.000-07:00

Moist and chewy??

Maybe next year we can get "moist and chewy" stenciled on our ass like this chick. I wish.

Rat tails are alive in Europe. Which means we should see them make a comeback in North America in a few years

2008-04-21T05:35:00.000-07:00

The chaos of the mens start. ~260 in line

Kris all smiles through the feed zone

Barry punchin' it through the feed zone

Barry and Kris show off the new Kona kit

The Kona tent was hopping

The euro Kona gang

2008-04-21T03:37:00.000-07:00

Euro tour

Norm and I figured out that this is my 5th trip to Europe in just over a year. My carbon footprint must be approaching sasquatch size. Sorry Earth. Do my cloth bags at the grocery store make up for a few minutes of those flights?? What about when I sneer at people driving their big SUVs when I am on my scooter??

The trip over was pretty smooth. It could have been brutal as we sat down right next to a newborn. Uh oh. The girl flanking the other side of mom & newborn politely cooed before she asked "Does she cry much?" When the answer came that this was their first flight, the chick was out of there SO fast. But mom & newborn moved to the back of the plane 30mins into the flight to find a row of seats to themselves so we had quiet and some extra elbow room in our bulkhead row.

We are staying with the Swift Racing team in Tielt Winge outside of Brussels. I have raced CX with Helen Wyman for a few years and she and her husband, Stefan, have helped out many a "moose" as they call us Canadians. It is a pretty global house as our first dinner we had 2 Brits, 2 Kiwis, an Auzzie, 1 Irish gal, 2 Moose and an Amuricuhn. We spend a lot of time making fun of each other as we are all speaking English but you sure as hell can't tell it most of the time.

It was absolutely freezing the first day we went out for a ride. Cold, wet, dreary. I was worried I didn't pack enough winter clothes. It was even freezing inside the house. I tried to crank the heater in our room but it wasn't even on. We asked the girls (all wearing 3-4 layers, toques and hoods) why the hell the heat wasn't on and they said someone screwed with the central heating so Stefan turned it off until the culprit came forward. Norm took one for the team and said it was him. But he was busted as the night it happened we weren't even in europe. Dammit! Everyone knows my biggest fears in life are starving to death and freezing to death! Eventually someone admitted to knowing who did it and the heat came back on. Stefan is going to be one badass dad someday. I pity their kids.

Houffalize World Cup

I felt great all week. I seemed to get over the jet lag pretty quickly this trip and my legs felt really good. We went to Houffalize Friday and felt the buzz of the first world cup race of an Olympic year. The course was wet and slick in a couple of sections but there was so much road that I stuck with my Cross Mark tires. My new Kula Supreme was climbing great, my legs felt rested, my head was strong and I was seeing my lucky #22 absolutely everywhere so I thought "bring it on".

My pre-race confidence was worth shit

Unfortunately all the good vibes did not pan out into a good race. I woke up Sunday morning and my legs didn't feel so snappy anymore. But I ignored it and went about warm up. My call up was #39 on the 5th row, but with a loooooong 20% grade climb out of the gates there was time to move up before the singletrack. I wanted to be there early because a lot of the girls could not ride it. Everyone obviously had the same idea as the pace off the gun was fierce. I hammered up the climb and moved up to the low 20s. I thought it was worth it (and I thought I was being conservative) because I got through the singletrack with only one girl in front of me holding up the line as she ran the descent. But I could not seem to recover from the start. My legs felt like cinder blocks and my breathing did not settle down. It was going to be a long race so I had to back off a bit for fear of blowing up. I got into a steady pace but it wasn't fast enough to catch people. I had to spin the climbs and in a world cup race steady just doesn't cut it. I ended up 26th. 5th Canadian. Not the result I was looking for.... But hopefully it was just one of those days when you don't have the legs and you can't explain why. Damn the complex physiology of the human body.

China eventually dropped me. Must have been the drag of the baggy jersey

So 26th is a long way from my goal of top 12 which is what I need to be on Canada's Olympic short list. I also told myself no chocolate and baked goods unless I get a top 12. Now THAT was just stupid......especially since I just discovered that my favourite Belgian pastry boat is sold in the bakery 500m from our place in Tielt Winge. Crap!

Thanks to the euro Kona crew for all the support. Thanks to euro Rock Shox who fixed my fork and had it running perfectly for the race. Thanks to Helly Hansen for keeping warm when the heat is off. Thanks to euro Norm for being here with me. He will write some updates soon.

2008-04-12T22:24:00.000-07:00

New ride.

My new Kula Supreme. Shiny and new.

The new paint job - pretty flash.

Norm added a little bling to my SID

Rockstar.

Back off bitches!

Marty protesting us leaving for Europe. He parked his butt in the bike case. We kept telling him that his buddy Rollin would be here to take care of him but he did not trust us.....

2008-04-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

Arizona sun

I LOVE racing in Arizona! Its always hot and sunny, the trails are totally different than my regular west coast rides and there are always cool plants and animals to check out. I headed to AZ right after the Fontana race as I wanted to maximize my time in the AZ sun. Unfortunately it had been a "wet" winter in the desert so all of the plants were blooming. It was gorgeous to look at but apparently I am allergic to some desert plant and my head felt like a big ball of ooze. I had itchy puffy eyes, a stuffed head and a constantly runny nose. I pretty much wanted to shoot my head off after the first day. I shelled out a lot of cash (and spent a lot of time on the athletes drug information database) to try to fight it. Claritin. Breath Right strips. Acupuncture. Vitamins. Saline spray. Neti Pot. In the end, the breathe right strips at night, the neti pot after I had been outdoors and eucalyptus in between seemed to help the most but only for short periods. I just had to deal with it like everyone else that was suffering. Its hard to believe that people with bad allergies used to move to AZ to get away. Damn the pretty flowering plants!

The likely culprit...it was everywhere

Other than the allergies, I felt great and had a blast riding in Arizona for the week. Our kick ass Japanese mechanic "Bassman" and I poached Sue Butler (Monavie/Cannondale) and Emily Van Meter's (Sobe/Cannondale) homestay for the early part of the week. We stayed with their Oregonian friend Paul, who has a place just outside Fountain Hills. Paul is 67 and is riding across the US with some of his buddies in May. CRAZY! He downplays it and claims they will take their time and only ride 50miles a day but how many 67 year olds can do that?!? Hell, I don't even know if I could do that. Paul showed us some great trails in the area and impressed us all with his downhill skills. I hope I am still ripping down the trails at 67. Even Bassman got to ride. He borrowed a bike from Sue's hubby Tim (who had to go back to Portland for the week - poor working sod). Bassman was pumped! Although after our 4hr ride Tuesday he said "no more biking!" when we asked him if he wanted to join us the next day.

Bassman!

After a couple of days riding outside Fountain Hills, racing the whiptail lizards down the trail, listening for the swarms of bees that would go by and keeping an eye out for rattle snakes (none - sorry Tim) I decided to go to McDowell Mountain Park to check out the race course. It was pretty similar to previous years - fast, twisty and fun. No huge climbs. A perfect Wendy Simms course. As if the allergies weren't enough I swallowed a bee while riding and got stung in the back of the throat midway through the long loop. I dont have allergies to bees but if ever my system would go into overload it would be now. I imagined my throat swelling so I couldn't breathe and someone finding me twitching on the side of the trail, but it was OK. Even six stings in the armpit after a bee flew down my jersey didn't put me over the edge!

Super D time trial

This year the race was a mandatory stage race. Unfortunately teammates Barry Wicks and Kris Sneddon were unaware of this so they showed up just before the start of the race. It was an Omnium format, but noone really seemed to know how they were scoring it. The super D was perfect for me, slight downhill with lots of power sections. The key was to not go too fast and blow out some of the loose corners. I find it hard to stay focussed during time trials. Ten seconds into my race I saw this crazy fast road runner type bird racing me down the trail and I almost blew out a corner. Focus Wendy! I got back on track and caught my 30sec rabbit, Catharine Pendrel (Luna) but I think that made me feel pretty smug so I may have let off the gas a bit. I still managed to get third place behind Luna teammates Georgia Gould and Katerina Nash. And I was place buddies with Ryan Trebon! But for some reason they did no podium for this event. ??. WTF?

Short track

After getting played by the Luna gals last week I wanted to race a smarter short track. The course was pretty simple except for a hill that had deteriorated so much it turned into a run up. I had a good start and found myself sandwiched between the Luna gals. Deja vu. BUT this week I was smarter and stayed second wheel! Everytime one jumped I would respond to get my second wheel. We had a pretty big gap mid race and I was expecting another jump so I looked back to see where Georgia was and buzzed Katerinas tire and went down. Dammit! When will I get my shit together for a short track?! I was pissed off so it took me a second to gather myself together and realize I still had a gap on the chase group so I jumped back on my bike and started to chase blue. Frustrated! The Australian National Champ Dellys Star (Spot Racing) bridged up to me and helped a bit with the chase but by the last lap I was in front. Uh oh. Not where I wanted to be. I tried to drop her a few times but she was super strong. She lead out of the last corner and we had a killer sprint to the finish but she snaked me. 4th place. Hard to swallow when you go from a perfect position to hamburger meat road rash and a lost sprint. I was OK but my ego was a bit bruised. No podium for this event either. ??. WTF??

Cross Country

According to the race organizers, call up for the XC was based on Omnium points so I was slated for 3rd call up. Perfect for the short sprint to singletrack. There was not a lot of passing on this course and a good start was essential. BUT some UCI official changed everything at the last minute and based on UCI points I ended up second row. That, plus a crash off the start saw Georgia Gould riding away on her own less than a minute into the race. When I finally got around a few gals I started chasing hard (too hard?) and flatted on the rocky backside. I used my sealant and it seemed to hold so I kept riding but the rocky section was too much and by the time I stopped to put in a tube I didnt have enough air left. I had a long hot hike back to the start/finish area. DNF. Its been a long time since I have not finished a race.... Ryan says I should have just rode the rim.

So with some bad tan lines and pollen residue in my nose I am headed back to the cold wet spring of BC. Perfect for my last week of training before I head off to the cold wet world cups in Belgium and Germany.