Well, this week has been not too eventful. My first women's MTB ride got postponed until next monday due to up to baseball size hail that fell in Duluth. Quite a few of our friends experienced some hail damage to their vehicles. Trek sent me some cool stuff to hand out for the women's ride. I am trying to spread the word. We'll meet every second monday night of the month through the summer in conjunction with the ski hut Monday Night Ride - the women will go on a separate ride, but meet in the same location.

Training has just been ok. I must be tired from racing these past two weekends. Scott and I race tomorrow in Cable WI for the Cable Classic. I love that race! Really nice singletrack. Scott's 67y/o dad will race as well (along with his brother that he battled with last year in the race).

Better get to cleaning the bikes and getting the VW all set to go........

This past weekend we were at a UCI race at Maplelag Resort in Callaway, MN. The course was phenomenal - a real mountain biker course and one that will make you a better racer and rider.

I raced the Pro race. There was a small field, but most of the women have been racing nationals and racing since end of March. This is my second race of the season, so I know I am not in top form, but I like to go fast and hard.

I got a good start, but one minute into the race, my legs started to feel sluggish. I had a difficult time pushing gears and getting the cadence I needed. I got passed and was 5th or 6th into the first small section of singletrack. A gal fell in front of me and the leaders gapped the rest of the field. Then I dropped by chain right before the big uphill wall and had to run up. I passed two riders in the lake section of singletrack, but then it took me a while to get passed the rider in third. I finally got past her in the singletrack, but by then the first two gals had a gap. I felt I rode the singletrack pretty well, especially considering how little I had ridden it this spring due to the snowmelt, wet trails, etc. My legs burned the whole race and I didn't really ever feel fast, just felt like I had to suffer to keep my spot and not give it up to the gal not too far behind me. I could see her from time to time as the course double-backed on itself, so I knew she was trying to catch me. I held her off for third place. I was satisified from the race as I did the best I could given how my legs felt.

My bike was set-up perfectly as I took some air out of my rear and front shocks since Iola and switched tires to the Bontragger Revolt X. I had perfect traction in the singletrack.

Sunday, us gals did a long group ride. It was really fun to ride with other fast women (although we rode slow)!

Scott and I drove down early yesterday to the WORS race at Iola. The first race of the year can be kinda painful and a bit of a learning experience, so we opted to race this weekend before the UCI race at Maplelag next weekend.

The race course was fast and unbelievably dry. They started the elite women 15 seconds behind the elite men. Kim Eppen and Anne Grabowski showed up for the race, along with 16 other elite women. Great to have a relatively big field. I always get nervous for races and knew I had to go fast....and hoping I could go fast. It is always hard to know that first race.

From the gun I was off the front and thought I would get caught as I was trying to get around some elite men. I had caught up to the tail end of the men while going up the first climb; maybe a minute or two into the race. I tried to go really hard on the ski trail-like sections and then not lose much time in the singletrack. The tires I chose were super fast, but didn't have quite enough tread for me to take the corners at greater speeds. I almost two-wheel skidded into a large, unmoveable, pine tree during the race. Quite exhilarting to pull out of that one. I caught up to Joe, from the ski hut, 1/2 way into the first lap and we basically played cat and mouse all race. He'd pass me on the uphills, and I would catch up on the down's and singletrack. At one point in the race, Joe asked if I needed a gel; evidently I must have slowed down a bit. Then I realized I hadn't taken anything to drink for over a lap. There were some nice sand pits along the course. A few crashes in front of me to avoid, but no crashing on my part. It was fun to ride my bike fast again! The last lap of the race I was focusing on going hard and not getting caught by other elite women or laped by the top elite men. I didn't see either one; finishing first. Kim, Holly, and Anne rounded out the top four.

Scott finished his race in 11th after having a bad time of it on his first loop. He couldn't get going the first lap and was breathing really hard, but going backwards. He came around and was able to race the last four laps. Well done, Scott!

Scott's step-dad makes carvings for a living. This was the first time he carved a biker. It's really cool! All the houses on our street look alike, so I think people will know which house is ours with this out front.

Today is was 40 degrees and cloudy when I went for my ride. I had long underwear, long sleeve jersey, jacket, winter riding pants. Winter gloves. It was super windy out. My goal for the ride was to get my bike set-up better for tomorrow's race. My positioning feels a lot better.

We were out this morning helping clean up Skyline Parkway with some of our neighbors. It was fun to have so many kids along. Can't tell you how many beer and pop can we picked up, along with hordes of other stuff. It'll be nice to put my feet up this evening and relax a little.

Womens bike night at the Ski Hut was a success! There were over 50 women that showed up. I talked a bit about where to Mountain Bike in Duluth and let the women know of the women's ride starting the second monday of the month. We had 'stations' around the store where women could learn how to tune their bikes or about some of the latest equipment. It was a good event and chance to see some people I have not seen in a while and bump into a few women I sold XC skis to when I worked retail while in college.

Today I will probably have to ride my XO1. It is raining out and my bike is all set up for this kind of weather. Fenders are wonderful inventions. I love my cross bikes. I got this one so I could save my XO2 for fall racing, especially as I have been riding it in the rain. Duluth weather can be a bit unpredicatable and we tend to get more rain and fog and cold than the twin cities, so my CX bike is a nice option. We have some road clean-up to do this morning to clean up Skyline. COGGS clean-up is going on as well this morning. We hope to continue buiding some new trail - and from what I hear COGGS should have 15-20 miles of new trail in around Wheeler Field in West Duluth by the time the club is done putting it in. Scott and I have been members of COGGS forever. It is a great group of bikers that do a lot for the community by putting in new trail, maintaining the trail already built by the club, and putting on The Dirtspanker race in June and PowderMonkey race in July, here in Duluth.

We race tomorrow in Iola as part of the WORS series. Not sure If I am going to sign up for the series yet, depends on how I feel this summer. I will be working a bit less than normal this summer so I am hoping to race a bit more. I find it challenging to balance work and racing. Probably cuz I want to do a good job at both.

This is an updated photo of my 2007 Trek Fuel 9.9 racing bike. I still can't get over how light it is. I aslo included a photo of my front shock lock-out. Works fantastic in this location. I am getting my bike close to being ready to race this weekend. A few more saddle adjustments and I should be ready to race. This has been a super busy work week for me, so we'll see how things go. Tonight there is a Women's Bike Night at The Ski Hut. There will be reps from the bike industry there, including Trek. Myself and some of the other local women riders will give a brief presentation on biking in Duluth along with some hands-on opportunities to get familiar with women specific bike equipment and some general information.

In May I will be starting a Women's mountain bike ride. It will start the second monday in May and run through the summer/early fall. We'll be meeting in conjunction with the 6 p.m. monday night ski hut ride, but will go our own direction and pace. I am hoping we get a big group of women that love to ride, or are just curious and want to check it out. Should be a great opportunity for women to find other riding partners or just chat and ride for an evening, work on skills, etc. I am looking forward to it!

Scott and I had a fantastic ride today. A bit longer than we had planned....a little over 4 hours....but we managed to avoid the rain. We got rain at our house while we were gone, but the weather while we rode was fantastic! 70 degrees. First time I have ridden all year and have not gotten chilled riding down the last big descent to our house. I love my Madone. I swear it is like pedaling air. With the road dried out I have gotten reacquainted with all my bicycles, plus an additional XO1 I just got a week or so ago in order to train when it gets wet. I have fantastic little fenders on it so I have no excuses not to ride. Nice! We also got one of those little ipod shuffles; makes a hudge difference to get me motivated to go riding and listen to music on those days when I am not so motivated. I have only used it once to get me out the door, but its great just to have along anyway. It is easy to hook up to our JBL creatures and listen in the house. I wonder what our neighbors think sometimes.

I finally got to ride my new Fuel 9.9! I can't believe how smooth and fast it is!! I don't like to ride my good bikes on the roads if there is still salt and water on the roads, so it was really nice that the roads dried up. Scott and I joined the ski hut ride tonight for a road ride on our mountain bikes. We joined a really nice group of 20 riders or so. I got a chance to meet a few people and catch up with others I hadn't seen in a while. It was a blast! It is hard to believe that my racing season starts in roughly a month. I just got our taxes done and I need some sleep! Nothing like waiting until the last minute.

My energy is pretty low this week and I am sure I am fighting some sort of cold. I finally cleaned our house with the extra time. Doesn't take nearly as much energy as biking. I am hoping to come around tomorrow as there has been some snowmobile activity on the trails and it gets cold at night (between 8-12 degrees) so the trails set up really nicely. People here are sick of winter, so it is not likely to see other people out. I rode on the roads a few days ago while the wind was blowing and drifting snow across the roads. Crazy. Duluth has gotten snow in July, so it is not too surprising.

Hope everyone has a good Easter. :)

This is a photo of our last snowstorm, but this is what it looks like again after it dropped 8-12" two days ago. So in the two weeks we have gone from 70 degrees to ice storm to snow storm. I am hoping the snowmobilers were out to pack in the snow on the trails. It is 8 degrees outside, so I'll wait til it warms up to 30 this afternoon. Amazingly, race season starts in only a month or so. Before this snow I was hopeful we'd be on trails before then, but it staying cold so maybe we'll still have snow!

If you have never been to Charlie Farrow's blog, you've got to check it out. He's hilarious! His blog name is CPFarrow. He pay's a little tribute to Wayne and Garth, has political cartoons, etc.

The weather is crappy outside (ice storm) so I thought I would post some photos from earlier this winter. We got 20" of snow in one storm couldn't leave our house for two day via car. We snowshoed on the creek - which was phenonmenal.

Last monday we went on a great road ride through wrenshall, carlton, and back to duluth. It was 70 degrees out when we started our ride at 4 pm. There is really great riding in duluth, if you know where to go (both for road and mountain biking). There are some pot-hole ladden roads to avoid, but some others with brand new pavement. Today I succommed to going to the gym to work out. I finally got back into the pool (I am not a good swimmer, but it is a good workout).

I am planning on being involved in some women's clinics this summer to promote mountain biking. Last summer I did one clinic, which I enjoyed. It is fun getting to know other women that ride. I was impressed with their level and willingness to improve their skills. We have a May 3rd Women's Clinic planned at The Ski Hut in Duluth where there will be reps from the bike company's there to promote their products along with some of us local women racer's to give a presentation. Should be fun and I hope a lot of women show up. Of course, the Trek rep will be there!

I read in Velonews a while back that bikers that don't blog don't ride. That is not the truth. I have been so busy with work this past year that I can either blog with my free time, or ride (or some form of exercise as allowed in the great North). We didn't get much snow this year, so could ride our bikes most of the winter. Up until we got an ice storm (I don't have studded tires) and then again up until we got 20" of snow all at once. The skiing was fantastic for a week and then it warmed up right away and now it is all gone. We have another ice storm that started yesterday. By the time I left work, by office window had a good 1/2" of ice covering it completely. Poor Scott had to scrape the ice off the car before he picked me up at work.

I got my New Trek 9.9 a little bit ago. Beautiful bike! I am fired up for to race it this season.
This needs to be a short post as Scott and I just got the car unstuck out of the yard. The grass is so frozen.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! This fall has been busy. I took some time off the bike, about a month, and then started riding frozen trails. The lack of snow has not hampered good riding. The ice patches are a little sketchy. Our ride yesterday was fantastic, lots of variety. This one section of trail was lined with bright green moss along both sides of the trail as it climbed out of a river crossing. It was a beautifully sunny day.

I read in the last Velo, that riders that are serious about riding, typically update their blog daily. Huh! I usually have the choice of riding, or posting on my blog. I think most people with dial-up understand.

Well, I hope to bring my digital on one of our next rides. The streams and creeks in duluth are beautiful in the wintertime. The ice formations are really neat. I am always pretty thankful we live in Duluth!

I finally got back on the bike today. I took a break since the Iceman. My legs have felt really bad for the past few weeks, along with the rest of me. The weather was beautiful today, sunny and in the 40's, the sun rising up over lake superior, so I rode my bike into work. I left a little late from work to get home and had to ride home the last bit in the dark. That was dumb. Cars don't look for bikers in the daylight, much less the dark. I plan on mostly just biking to commute for a while and still not doing any sort of specific training. My commute is a little long to do everyday though. Otherwise, we have been hiking a bit and building some singletrack. It is a good time oof year to do nothing or low level actitivies. The hiking in Duluth is fantastic, and Scott and I have been hiking through the woods to scope out where new singletrack should be. The potential seems endless. Well, not much else going on at this point.

Well, unfortunately the Iceman didn't go so well for me. No triple crown this year, anyway. I didn't feel very good from the start. After the race, Scott told me he knew I wasn't going very fast today based on our warm-up together. We usually do a hard effort and he said he could tell I didn't have 'it', but thankfully he waited until after the race to tell me so. Races where I don't feel fast and don't feel like I can push myself are the toughest for me mentally. This year the Iceman, Ore to Shore, and Sheboygan were all highly mental races to stay in and get to the finish line. Iceman was particularily difficult because I lost my left contact about 10 miles into the race. I couldn't see anything! I could tell I was taking bad lines and had to slow down a lot on downhills and in the singletrack to avoid crashing. It was really tough and pretty dangerous. I think I was pretty lucky to hang onto second as it could have been a lot worse. Probably the most tired thing after the race was my left eye! It felt super fatigued.

Scott was in 4th/5th place early on in the race, tried to bridge the gap to the lead group and blew for the first time at about 10 miles in. He was still in the top ten until mile 22 and then blew again. Scott finished, so that makes his 4th race all year. He is looking foward to next year already, as some of his health issues are resolving and he is feeling better and able to train.

It was good to see some of our bike friends and have some closure to the season; catch up with a few people before settling into the off-season. I know I need a break. I feel really tired and my body has wanted to be done since Chequamegon. I have not raced well since. I was sick for about 3 weeks after Chequamegon, then got hives which lasted another almost 2 weeks. Training has seemed like work, so I know it is time to be done. I was really fired up to cyclocross race this fall, but it is not going to happen. I finally got my XO2 all set-up, but I think I am going to commute with it this fall and winter as much as possible. I have some really sweet winter riding bike shoes Scott bought me for Christmas last year. He always seems to get me great gifts; he also bought me my first pain of MTB shoes and shorts when we were first dating.

I can still be thankful for winning the races I did this year, especially Chequamegon! I think that will forever be one of the highlights of my MTB racing career. I was really fired up to get mentioned in Velonews a few times this year. That's really cool!

This week has gone by really fast. Last weekend was the big WORS Sheboygan race. Unfortunately, I developed Hives the friday before the race and was unsure if I would race on sunday. It's a 7 hr drive from Duluth to get to Sheboygan. Luckily, Scott planned on racing as well and we met Doug part way there to ride share. It gets to be a long drive and Doug is pretty talkative. I always like it when Scott comes along. It's much harder to travel without Scott, as Doug has found without Anne. When Scott and I were first married, I rarely traveled with him to races, and then I would only go to races if I were racing (which back then was not often).

I was still itching sunday of the race, but decided to race anyway as we had traveled so far to get there. I didn't feel great at any point in the race, but I was able to hold on and win. The race course was a little different this year than last. They added some singletrack and a stream crossing. The leadout wasn't as long before the racers hit singletrack. They had added a section early on in the race. It created a bottleneck early on. The elite women only started 15 seconds behind the elite men. When we got to the singletrack there was a line of men waiting to get through. I found a line around the group and had passed around 10 men within that first section of singletrack. The stream crossing had a steep hill coming out of it (last year we rode a bridge across the stream). The hill was really slick and then all the momentum was lost to get up the longer hill on the other side. I would have liked to have felt better and push it harder, but I was pretty thankful that I wasn't trying to get out of my skin during the race. Afterward, I started itching again. I still have hives, although they are slowly getting better. Turns out I am allergic to oats and that is what seemed to cause it. Oats are in alot of foods, especially powerbars. I told myself no more racing until the itching stops, but there is a CX race at Spirit Mtn in Duluth tomorrow that I may just race anyway. Because of a tatoo convention at Spirit, the race will be held at the bottom of the hill last I heard.

It has snowed off and on for three days and is finally accumulating. They sure like to use salt in duluth! Scott and I were almost going sideways up Mesaba when we hit a patch of ice on our way to work today. We had to finally turn the heat on in our house. We could almost see our breath inside yesterday. I usually have to wear a hat and scarf, along with a wool sweater in our home. We should be getting our wood pellet stove hooked up and ready for use next week.

This has been a rough week for me. I have ridden one day thus far - on weds. I am fighting a cold, but my energy is finally coming back. I need to leave here soon for a ride in Hartley. I love Hartley. Great trail with a little bit of everything. Recently the Superior Hiking Trail took some of our trail, put "foot travel only" signs up on it, and then contacted the local bike group - COGGS - to have them tell riders to stay off the SHT. The SHT even went so far as to cut down trees - which is a major no-no to deter riders on the SHT. My only question to the SHT folks, is how do they think the original trail got there? Duh. Trails don't make themselves.

Anyway, I have a few items for sale. I have a certificate good for a 2007 Trek Fuel Ex 5 WSD that I would like to get $1000/b.o. I will throw in a WSD jersey and shorts (still in new packaging) and some size 39 MTB shoes (if they fit). The second thing I have for sale is a Reba World Cup carbon fork. First $600 takes. I have a Reba on my bike and love it! It's stiffer than the fork that comes stock on the Fuel. I will post photos soon.

Off to Sheboygan this weekend.

Better get riding..

Scott is still riding the beamer to work and myself the suzuki. It poured rain yesterday, so thankfully we commuted by car. We've both gotten stuck in the rain before. It's really not that bad once you get out there.

Last weekend was the Fall Color Festival. Good event. Alot of peoople showed up for the event. None of us Midwest Trek team members got a warm-up, nor did Scott. I felt pretty bad for the first 3/4 of a lap and had crashed 2x in the first few miles. I realized after I had crashed the second time, that I didn't have a rear brake and my front brake was really grabby. My fault for not maintaining my brakes better. I felt good for about 1/2 a lap then kinda slowed down. I felt kinda bonky early on. Doug mentioned later to Scott and I that it was because we didn't eat any McDonald's breakfast burritoes. I hate McDonald's. The only thing worth eating maybe once a year is their ice cream, and I am not an ice cream eater. Scott has read the book "Fast Food Nation". It's nasty what they put in that food and if the general public knew, I think McDonald's would go bankrupt. I got passed by two guys going into the last lap and held onto their wheel for the last lap. Scott finished his first race since Cable Classic in May. He is starting to come around. He didn't push as hard as earlier this year cuz he had DNF;d so many races that he didn't want to do that again. A good thing at home is that he no longer naps for 2 hours after work.

We drove back on saturday and got to Scott's cousin's wedding reception by 10 pm. We stayed until midnight visiting with family and the cousin's almost 90 year old grandma. Sunday was a wash for me. I was so tired all day from staying out late, that I just spun a little and cleaned the house.

I got my cross bike almost two weeks ago, but haven't gotten to race it cuz of this Cheq cold. I still have a few more MTB races yet this fall (Sheboygan and Iceman), so I don't want to race extra races while sick. Cross is super fun. Our friend Charlie was at a cross race this past weekend, got their 10 min before the start (so no warm-up and no course pre-ride). He was riding at high speed when he launched himself over the first barrier. Just before he hit the barrier, he thought it was kinda weird that the guy next to him was getting off his bike.

Better get some work done. Lots to do today. My new job is going well, but I am more busy than ever.

Scott and I took our new CX bike for a ride today. The bike handles really well and the tires stick like glue around fast corners. We rode both my mtb and the CX bike and took turns. It rained since friday night, so the ground was pretty tacky. The CX bike accelerates really well. We would have raced the st. cloud CX race today, but we are both still sick. Scott got up in the middle of the night last night and changed our sheets cuz he was wheezing. I didn't hear him after that. We are both looking forward to getting over this sickness and trying some CX races.

Here is my new CX bike! Trek XO2. I am fired up to race CX this fall. I did one race last year on my mtb and had a blast (except for the barriers, my legs are short!). We'll see how it goes. Scott is fired up to ride as well. Should be fun.