Month: August 2008

Andrea

Pink Elvis Glasses and Broken Darts

I’m not usually one to go out to bars & what not, but my Warthog friend Steve convinced me to meet him & some friends up at Flying Saucer (great selection of beer) for Elvis Night. I wasn’t sure what Elvis night meant, but I found out later that they were serving beer in pink & silver commemorative Elvis glasses. Very cool…

After finishing those off and having some surprisingly good bar food (only bar I know of that offers a couple of vegetarian selections!), Jo broke out the darts. She and a friend played a round while Steve and I laughed at Jo trying not to cry as her friend repeatedly launched the darts at the board crooked enough for them to fall onto the ground, causing the tails to fly off.

Here we are- I’m surprised that she is smiling, because behind the camera, there is dart carnage in progress…

Even though I stayed out a little past my bedtime, it was still a good time. Plenty of Elvis, good company, and delicious beer!

Andrea

Last minute addition to my race calendar

So yesterday I get an email from the team manager. He wanted to know if I can go to Downers Grove this weekend… to the National Criterium Championship. Well, I’d love to go, but it’s an 8.5 hour drive… and, well, as awesome as the Fit is on Gas mileage, it’s still pretty expensive.

Fast forward to yesterday evening. I post my predicament on the Road Bike Review message Forums in The Lounge, and almost immediately, one of the members took it upon himself to start a little gas money fund raiser. Less than 24 hours later- BAM- I got gas money! I can’t express how much I appreciate you guys!

So- now that THAT’S out of the way, I’ve got to get prepped for the most humongous race I’ve ever witnessed. Updates to follow…

Andrea

The fleet

I took this photo Sunday morning before I checked out of the Days Inn. It was a little dark, so a tripod would have been nice to make it a little clearer, but you get the idea…

Andrea

Cleveland Race Weekend

I went to Cleveland, TN (just on the other side of Chattanooga) to chase some TBRA points and to do some course recon for the River Gorge omnium that’s in Chattanooga in a couple of weeks. Learning experience ensued…

Saturday- Criterium
So only 4 of us showed up. When the race started, I waited a few laps before attacking (the course was sketchy- one corner was a <90degree turn that included a mystery oil slick that had been taking riders out in every field up until my race). When I did attack, only 1 other was able to stay with me (Mary Mayhew). After a couple of laps of putting time between us & the other two, we play “let’s make a deal” and decide to work together until the last turn of the last lap-Â I figured it would be an OK move since I wanted good legs for the Sunday TT, and I also planned on doing some climbing as well.
Fast forward half an hour- Mary attacks coming out of the next to last turn rather than waiting for the last turn as we’d agreed. I get gapped and can’t cover before the finish. I get 2nd place and very pissed off at myself for being a weenie and making a deal in the first place. I was mildly annoyed at Mary as well, but I feel that I’m more to blame for putting myself in that situation to begin with. It should have been a work-my-ass-off solo finish, but I tried to take the easy way out & got burned.

Sunday- TT
At the state TT, Mary beat me by 8 seconds, last week at Allanti, I beat her by a fraction of a second. Sunday, she shows up with a sweet TT rig/disk/etc. (read- a few second’s worth of aero equipment). I was still feeling confident, but I can’t deny that our past close finishes were in the back of my mind somewhere.
I felt good warming up, and once I was on course, hit a good rhythm. If you’ve ever watched footage of The Tour, you’ve likely heard the phrase “Pedaling in Anger” from Phil Ligget. If you are wondering what this means, just search for a photo of me in this time trial (not sure if one exists, but you get the idea). It’s the first time trial that I’ve really rocked since I got my TT bike. I ended up turning a 34:14 for the 14 mile, rolling course (which would have placed me well in most of the men’s fields). I felt somewhat redeemed…

After waiting for a couple of hours for the results & payout, I joined up with a couple of the Velo Vixens (and a few others) and headed back to Chattanooga to pre-ride the River Gorge road race course. It’s gonna be tough, but it should be a fun race this year (as long as I can make it up the final climb before I finish singing “99 bottle of beer on the wall” in my head to keep tempo).

Andrea

Another reason to shop at Ibex

Not only is Ibex wool wonderful, their customer service is awesome!

I ordered some arm warmers back in June, only to find that they were too big. I sent them back to exchange them for a small, but somehow I left the return address off of the return form (I guess I was assuming that if they’d sent it to me, then they’d know where to send it back).

Well, the replacements were sent to the only address they had in their system- my former apartment. I realized today that I hadn’t received the replacements (I hadn’t been thinking about winter clothes because it’s been hot). I emailed them, and figured out what happened. Even though I was the one that screwed up- they’re sending small arm warmers to me (at the correct address) anyway.

You guys rock.

Andrea

SRAM Hoods

When I put the white saddle on my bike, I immediately decided that the black hoods would have to go. Luckily, SRAM sells both red and white bartape/hood combo packs. For now, I’m just going to stick to the hoods…

Andrea

Today’s Headline:

Girl at Bike Race Scales Bridge and Throws Bike off the Top

Well, I thought about it, but then I would have been copying this guy, who was wandering around on Nashville’s Gateway Bridge with a bible and a bottle of water during our races Sunday morning.

My race was not so spectacular. After getting 3rd in the Saturday afternoon time trial (behind Kirsten Sass and Debbie Milne), all I could do was hope to place well enough to hold on to 2nd in the omnium. However, sprinting for too many primes would be my downfall. There were 4 offered, and I went all-out for all of them (losing each to Debbie). By the 4th one, Debbie countered her own attack and dropped the rest of the field (including me). We actually had a pretty good chase going, but as soon as the officials gave us the “3 to go” sign, everyone sat up, and Debbie’s 11ty-billionth solo victory was in the books.

How’d I finish? Well, I’d done 4 all-out sprints already, so of course, I didn’t have a whole lot left in the tank and ended up finishing 3rd in the pack and dropping me to 3rd overall in the omnium. I keep telling myself that I can’t expect to be kicking a ton of ass at the end of a couple of pretty tough weeks of training, but it doesn’t make poor racing strategy any easier to swallow. However, a 24oz Fat Tire at Mellow Mushroom does help a little :)

Ryan raced a couple of hours later with several of his teammates. They were all pretty tired from their 60 mile race the previous day, and a 3-man break (not including any of the Memphis Velo guys) stayed away, leaving Ryan in the pack to sprint (though he did make a couple of valiant efforts to get away from the group when it looked as though they were going to quit chasing).

I’ll post some photos soon!

Andrea

State Championship Road Race

I’m pretty tired, so I’ll keep this brief-

Debbie got away from the field about 1/2way through the 1st of two RR laps. I was chasing with a couple of other girls who didn’t seem too concerned with catching The Milne since she wasn’t from TN (so she wasn’t a threat to the championship jersey). So, I threw in a little attack on a little hill and got away from them. The course was tough, and the temp was over 90, but I managed to stay away for the remainder of the race (though I never caught Debbie).

I was 2nd overall & won the State Championship. It would have been nice to not get beaten so badly, but considering I am training through this race (over 200 miles for the week), I can’t be too suprised that I couldn’t keep up with her attack. It’s aight- I get a nice, new TN state champ jersey for my troubles :)