Chubbies

Today was the MABRA championships, hosted by family Team Lea. Small showing for a cx race. The morning run race didn't even draw in the spectators I thought. Not sure what the excuses people have for not supporting and racing their local races, especially a championship race. Those of us that came out, especially Jeff Anderson, Brewer, Root, and the usual PVC suspects, had fun and got that much more practice. The course flowed and had a few mud pits to develop your skills, but the rest was smooth and fast. A good ride on a great day.

Betsy, Gunnar, Judd, myself, and Jay Downs made the trek across New England and 1/2 of the Keystone state overnight. Poor Jay did the early race but the other two boys decided to skip the usual elite masters in favor of the later race. Because Judd was doing the elite race I had to eventually summoned the support of the Roger Masse to pit for me. Thank you to Morgan and Jeff who were willing to help as well. Roger Masse was so sweet though and even got me a footlong with mustard and a hot cocoa for post race recovery food. Yum!

For the start of the elite women's race they allowed a mass start with the master men, juniors as well as the women contending for the age-graded awards. I was hoping Christina Briseno would triple up and do the elite race as well, but she was already spent from doing the running race and her own race earlier in the day.

Once again I bobbled the start and clicked through my SRAM drivetain as fast as possible to get the power to make the 180 turn and to be first through the mud swimming pool. Betsy and many others didn't have a chance to pre-ride the mud-bog to determine the lines so I wanted to have a "clean" line to ride through. SPLASH! I floated through the pool every lap but still it made quite a mess as the mud flew up all over and covered my face. It was fun though. Plenty of grass and gravelly stuff to knock the mudd off the tires before the next small bog.

I forced myself to work really hard and to try to accelerate hard after every corner, which nearly all required coming to a almost a full stop to negotiate at speed or break tape. My weakest sections I tried to dig extra hard and stand up and pedal hard. Feeling the leg muscles start to burn I would tell myself I could recover in the easy stuff like the turns. You never know what will happen and I kept thinking it would suck to get a flat and have to run 1/2 the course. In the event that this should happen, my plan was to already have a bunch of time put in the bank that I could use if need be. Fortunately that never happened and I was able to keep the time bank to the end. I heard I was only 10secs shy of the winning time of the B men for the same amount of laps. I guess I race faster when I don't have to worry about others and be bogged down at the start. I defintely rode harder today than I have all season, despite the slightly sore and tired legs from yesterday's grass time-trial.


Ended the weekend with a visit to the best barbecue in western MD, Chubbies. It was the topic of thanksgiving dinner discussion and I'm glad I happened to see it on the side of the road. Joked about the name and then I yelled to cxrcr, "Hey that's the bbq place that is supposed to be really good!" so we invited the Peacock and Nater and had a grand ol' time talking about promoting races and planning for next year.

Homestretch. It's almost sad, three weeks left till the end of cx. I'll probbly be coming into great form for Nationals and beyond. However Europe is off the plate. Wish there were more local races in Jan like there used to be. Oh well. Time to make the next three weeks count. Weather should be okay (in the upper 30s low 40s) for morning rides - as long as it is above freezing. Too bad it'll be near 70 in the afternoons though. Acclimation I'll call it.

Checking in

We've done a lot of traveling this season up and down the east coast. Checking in from bad american chocolate capital of the world, right now....Did the New England series race in Sterling MASS today and will do MABRA champs in MD tomorrow. Long drive in between. Hopefully cxrcr will be doing the later race so we can sleep in and then get some diner food for breakfast somewhere.

Today was a decent race. I'm kinda bored with riding solo around a course trying to catch the girl ahead and not get caught and we all end up riding the same position the entire race - me gaining time in the corners and technical stuff and losing time on the easy stuff like the road. Did manage another 6th for New England race. Can't seem to break into the top 5 up here.

Ace truly schooled the rest of us gals. She gave herself a lesson in suffering like never before but the results truly paid off for her. Her hometeam course and she rocked out. I'm really happy for her.

Scout also had an awesome race with an amazing start and still managed to push the pace of Dickey and Ms. Peta but just missed out on winning a point but definitely made a point to the field that she is an aggressive and tactictal racer.

Model cheered everyone up with her Cheerwine. That stuff is delish. I need to find out if they sell that stuff in DC area. If not, I'll have to wait until Nats to get some more!

Time for bed.

Tis the season.....

Call me grumpy! I was looking forward to going home for turkey dinner and listening to the stories about various family members. After sitting in traffic on 15 for 2+ hours I decided to turn back. It's raining. It's cold. It's windy. And now it's dark. I had hoped to have an enjoyable relaxing two day trip but it all went to hell. At least I could sympathize for the poor souls still sitting in traffic after I turned back and did the 40min drive home. I have never seen the holiday traffic that bad. I wish I had a camera phone, but I'm sure you all had your own traffic woes. Well at least the bikes got washed.

So I got home and ate some of the Rhubarb pie I intended to share with the family. I bought it at a store the other day and was pissed off when I heard them playing Christmas music. Christmas music never makes me angry. It usually makes me smile and I start humming along in public. I actually cursed it when I heard it the other day. I guess I am waiting until after the cx season to think about the holidays. Until then it's just work, training, racing. Except this week. Which has all gone to heck.

I don't have a very good poker face when I get angry.

A little sparkle

Sometimes it's the little things that can make a kids day. While lining up at the start for Saturday, we all 'awe'd the little girl that just finished the kids race and rolled down to our start line to ask Grasshopper for an autograph.

The next day I made a point to talk to some of the future big-girl bike racers and offered them 'official' Velo Bella necklaces. One was so excited she said, "My mommy and I looked you up on the internet". AWH!!!! I lturned to her mom with a startled look on my face. (I forget that our persona on the internet isn't necessarily personal.) Her mom explained that they looked up www.velobella.org and was trying to see who's who on the cx team. That's really encouraging that little kids are inspired enough by us to look us up. This gives me an idea for a website at some point if I get around to do something with it.

Four sparkly necklaces handed out to future big-girl racers.

North Carolina recap

Last year went south to NC for the Grand Prix and enjoyed it so much went back to NC 2 more times this past year (for racing of course). All year made sure to tell everyone how awesome a job T. Robbins does at putting on this event and how nice Hendersonville is.

Cxrcr and I p'd the bosses off by taking Friday off of work to do the 9hr drive. Arrived mid-day in Hendersonville at the venue and saw Sonic and T Robbins and crew staking and setting up the most professional looking start/finish and pit on the national circuit. They even had the entire course marked with white lines and the course stakes set for easy changes for Sunday's course. Impressive prep for the small handful of laborer/racers.

We ventured out for a short road-ride on the country roads, my first real road ride in months. Didn't need to look at a map because NC has bike route markers so we followed bike route 3 to bike route 1 and turned back after a while. Thank goodness Cxrcr has a sense of direction because I'd still be lost in the apple orchards and trailer parks of western NC.

After an hour of riding on the road we got back to the park and did a few laps of the course which feature everything cx (but no sand). We noted that after two laps of the course we were actually warmed up. Makes me wonder why I even ride on the road if after an hour I'm still freezing and legs feel stiff. Much more fun to go out and bomb around the grass like a bunch of kids in a backyard.

Course features: >100m asphalt start/finish, a few 180s, off-camber, wall barely ride-up, sweeping grass and pavement, 4ft wide up/down hill trail with some small roots, CURB!

Yes Mail Order I hopped the curb, after much persuading by cxrcr. I think I had my eyes closed and held my breath too. I will admit - last year I ran it. It's totally easy though. Granted it's slightly rounded so my actual hop (which is about 2inches) doesn't matter cause you can just roll over the damn thing. But I'll still say I hopped it.

Saturday: Velo Bella-Kona vs. Cheerwine. With three of us in the top 10, I think we beat them on their home-course. I wish they did team scores. Grasshopper hopped away from the start and the rest of us were left to our own individual races.

I'll admit I went to NC hoping for a win or a 2nd, but was content with a podium still. More happy that my gals were there and we too were able to represent, but on the east coast, while the other half were out slopping in the mud at the USGP. I was pretty pleased to see a few other MAC and NE faces there. I hope they come back next year as well.

Post race clean-up: You can sort-of dress them up, but definitely not take the boys to a fine french restaurant. Bistro 501 (sorry they don't have a url) was very kind to give us a table in the center of the room, next to guy playing classical guitar. There we were - VBK team and associates, and half of the Wittwer dynasty, dressed in sweatshirts and jeans while the few other patrons were dressed all nice in jackets, ties, and dresses. Doh. Was entertained by the chair slide contest.

On the way out of town stopped at Black Bear coffee to grab a coffee and steal the page out of the local paper with the write up of the race. The cx race didn't get pics this time in the news, but there was a full 3 page spread on local BMX racing, just as well.

Be Like Betsy

Last year at Lower Allen I arrived with only a few hours of sleep because of working late and was just miserable. Topped it off with a broken thumb from wiping out in the gravel in the middle of the second lap trying to stay on Mo's wheel, but went on to finish 9th - my worst result in the MAC all season last year.

One notable from last year, Lower Allen is where I first really got to meet my now teammate - Steph White. Last year before the race she was trying to teach me how to bunny hop the wood curbs in the mulch pit. I still can't bunny hop curbs or logs and was hoping to practice before the race this year. Never had a chance to and I was so happy they had removed the suckers for this year's go-round at Lower Allen. Thank you Hebe. And thank you Steph. I'll keep hoping to learn to hop soon. I didn't want to be the only elite rider to have to run over those things.

The course this year at Lower Allen was the same - grassy with a sandpit crossing and a road slight uphill finish and tons of switchbacks and offcamber turns much to my liking and would prove to be the only places I could pass people in front of me.

The race got started and we barreled across the soccor fields straight into the course tape. Someone forgot to give us an opening on to the course to end the prologue lap. Thank god I wasn't first because I would have turned the Wrong-way. Wellons exclaimed aloud and stopped for a sec. Meanwhile Betsy came around and charged right on over the tape that was 3 ft high in the air. And so we followed.

In the sandpit on the first lap I took a header and landed like an upside down turtle and couldn't get back up. I was thoroughly disoriented and confused that I crashed. I was third at the time and my crash only helped my teammate Dee and Mo get a little more of a gap on the field because I was entirely blocking the path forcing everyone to stop behind me. As I rolled around in the sand, I was cursed by the both of the School-teachers and had the Model yank my bike across the pit as it was entangled with her handlebars. There were a few pushes from behind, a few more curses, and someone running over my wheel before the sand settled.

I could finally see again and what I saw was that I had a ways to run to the pit and the whole field to chase. I tried to fix my rear wheel which had slipped out and was seized by the brakes. Ugh. What would Betsy do? I put the bike down and to get a better grasp on the bike to start my run to the pit like she did at Nationals. Luckily the wheel popped back in as I set the bike down. Yay. Be like Betsy. Over the past few years of racing with Betsy she has taught me that when you get dropped or when you have a mechanical or slip, you get back up and keep going and dig deeper to get back to where you were. So I tried for the first time to get back to where I was. Two laps later, just as I was about to pass Betsy, I fell again. This time I couldn't catch up and had to battle my own friend to the finish and had to settle for ninth.

My favorite picture from the race. The Model and Ace throwing elbows.

What's in your bowl?

Yesterday at the Tacchino Ciclicross race the Velo Bella-Kona gals had all sorts of treats available to entice passerbys to our tent, thanks to one stellar Coppi gal who filled up our bowl with chocolate. One asked, "What's in your bowl?". My response, "breakfast".

Yes it's true I don't have the best diet, and you can't even see the chocolate because the picture was taken after I had eaten most of it - hershey's caramel kisses - omg! they are so good.

My race day food intake routine varies race to race. For Beacon, it's kind of pathetic because although I consider myself an athlete, I think I had taken in almost every 'bad' food you can imagine. Breakfast:McDonald's, bagel with egg, no cheese. Pre race - gel. As soon as the race was over I ran up the ampitheater of pain to the grillin' guy and got me a kielbasa sandwich and had half a hamburger. Grasshopper's husband offered Cheetos but since they didn't have the cute mtn biker cat on them I passed - yes I'm a total sucker for advertising. On the way home stopped at Starbuck's had an espresso bar with my skim mocha to enjoy while sitting in construction traffic on I-95. For dinner, Taco Bell. Junk food overload!

For the Tacchino race I did a 180 and actually had a giant salad for breakfast. Mmmmm vegetables! Then the rest of the day was fueled by candy, cookies, bread with almond butter.....

**********
Today's Race Pace was the last race in the MABRA series. The winner of the series wins a white jersey and free entry into the MABRA cx races next year. John Brewer showed true grit and just missed taking the whole series but rode an impressive race. Little Coppi Jake-the-Snake Thompson won his first MABRA series! Whoo hoo Jake. He's the Coppi kid in one of my earlier posts. The B women's series was already locked up by YBR, but my friend rode a really strong race to finish 2nd on the day. The men's A race was really exciting to watch, despite the only spectators being us top three elite women. It was an all out battle to the last lap between Hammer, Fort duo, and veteran Marini constantly change lead and attacking one another. I think Wes won the series. In the elite women's event, I rode off early and despite my win in the race, the Major helped her teammate Vible take the series by working together against The Horsewhisperer. It was a nice win for the series for C3/Joe's/ADG team.

Support your local series....

Made a very difficult decision to stay local today to do a race 35 minutes from home and part of my local regional series, vs a 7hr drive to New England for two of my favorite east coast races and chance for UCI points. The choice was made more easy by my local Mid-Atlantic teammates, supporters, and friends that wanted to come out to watch and cheer.

My former local team, Squadra Coppi, was hosting the race. The race director put on another great race and designed a very fun course which flowed beautifully and had just enough of a challenge for each lap to be entertaining. Coppi had the most impressive team support that I have ever seen at a 'cross race. Nearly the entire team, and the other halves, were at the finish line area ringing Tacchino Cicilicross cowbells and cheering on the beginner racers. If they weren't cheering then they were out working to make the race a success, some even roped their parents and friends into helping make the race one of the best races in the MABRA series.

Coppi is predominantly a road based team, but some members were even cool enough to borrow a bike or race a mtn bike just to get a taste of what we love. Also impressive is the guy that rode in on over 50 miles one-way on the bike trail just to watch his very first cyclocross race.

With the Velo Bella-Kona tent in a prime spot it was easy to run up to the course and cheer and ring bells with the other Velo Bella cheering team as the racers went by. We had many visitors to the tent stopping by to inquire about the the team, SRAM Force, Easton parts, Kona bikes, if the treats on the table were free, if they could have a sparkly necklace....It was really nice to see so many new faces and familiar faces at today's race, and some friends and racers I haven't seen in many months, some even years :-)

For every one person you can entice to try the sport and help them get the equipment and even start racing, there is a chance they will like it enough to come back, and maybe even help grow the sport by encouraging their kids to try it.


On the women's side, I enjoy racing with these women all year on the road and mtn bike races as well. It's really nice to see them come out for cyclocross in either the B or elite race, as long as they are out there. I hope these women do a few more races this season and then start looking forward to next year's racing adventures.

At the end of the day the Velo Bella ladies couldn't help but to stand around cheering on the elite men. Quite a fun race to watch as the Fort men, my former college teammate and the member of the Wittwer dynasty were the two dominant forces controlling the race. We of course had to crash the podium.

Southern Belle

Cyclocross, southern style......This young lady demonstrates barrier technique that has both grace and style and a little flair.


Let's get her in a Velo Bella jersey and a bike in her hand.

CX is an ideal family sport, and not just one for those of us age 25 and older. How do we get youth interested in this sport and any other bicycling disciplines? By bringing your kids out to the races. Keep it up and let's get those kids on the start line rather than at soccor practice.