Tour 2

Read this article, le Tour makes le Onion!

Watch TV

Nature Valley Grand Prix Highlights Program Airs (Press release)
(St. Paul, MN, August 15, 2007) - TV coverage of the Nature Valley Grand Prix is set to air. This stage race, ranked at the top of the USA Cycling National Racing Calendar, is part of Minnesota's GreatRiver Energy Bicycle Festival. The 2007 Nature Valley GP included a unique mix of criteriums, road races and a time trial, and featured Stillwater's 20 percent Chilkoot Hill, part of the "Hardest Criterium in North America."

In the men's race, the battle for the yellow jersey turned into a shootout between two teams. Toyota United held the Nature Valley Grand Prix lead, but HealthNet presented by Maxxis won five straight stages to try to take it away. Minnesota's pro bike race came down to the hilly last day to decide who would win the title and the jersey.

On the women's side, World Champion Kristin Armstrong (TEAm Lipton) wasn't content to sit in and wait for the win. Armstrong attacked every single day to dominate her race for the women's title.

The Nature Valley GP attracted a "Who's Who" of U.S. racing. In addition to Toyota-United and HealthNet, the men's field included Jelly Belly, BMC Racing, Kelly Benefit Strategies/Medifast, Jittery Joe's, Priority Health, Colavita-Sutter Home p/b Cooking Light and Navigators Insurance. The Nature Valley GP was also the second stop of the Women's Prestige Cycling Series, which saw racers from TEAm Lipton, Webcor Builders, Aaron's, Cheerwine, ValueAct Capital and Team TIBCO. These fields were complemented with international riders from the Colombian and New Zealand National Teams.

Versus (formerly known as OLN) will air the full program of the Nature Valley Grand Prix. The action is called and analyzed by legendary announcers Bob Roll and Dave Towle.

Versus

Sunday, August 19 at 3:00 PM
Tuesday August 21 at 5:00 PM
Times are Eastern Daylight Time. Check local listings.

Crazy Kids

Friday night was a cheap night ($7.50 total) of laughs and a different kind of adrenaline rush at Lakeside amusement park with girls who race road and the track. Funny that some of the track racers were worried about going on spinny rides. Here, though, is Kate and Renee, unafraid of the Tilt-A-Whirl. I was just worried I would squish someone. There were 5 of us who fit in this car. I was so happy to not have to stand in line.

...and watch some people plunge to what, luckily, wasn't their death. It was hard to watch them!

Click on the picture to see the Amy, Renee & Kate relieved to have lived.

Not bad for a run-down ol' amusement park that I used to love as a little kid. Already looking forward to next year's trip!


And there was some awesome, epic riding this past weekend. A little over 13 hours in the saddle, 17,000 feet of climbing...super fun riding in absolutely gorgeous parts of the mountains. I didn't take my camera, very, very sad!

Why it's good to be over-the-hill

It came as a total shock that 30 means being over-the-hill. Certainly, I feel too young to have that designator. However, after thinking about it, isn't that the best? The first 30 years are more of an uphill battle. Leaning to walk and talk are pretty challenging. And then there's middle school. College, finals...working the first job...(what? this is what I got my degree to do?) Figuring out where to live and what kind of lifestyle to have. Not easy, especially when looking back on it.

30 is a way of designating that the really hard life-learning stuff is in the past. Now, it's all downhill from here, for the next 70 or so years. Cruisin' with some awesome friends at 30 mph with the wind at my back.

Pic above: A group of us got together last night for happy hour at Dazzle (a jazz club).

Bannock

Wow, all sorts of cool stuff happening these days that I'm not blogging, because too much is going on! Bannock is traditionally one of my favorite races and this year it didn't disappoint due to family and friends coming to watch. A highlight to me was my Grandmother coming and enjoying the race. It was special to have her there considering bike racing is a whole other world she has never experienced prior to today. This was the first race Mom and Dad saw this year, too, and I was very happy to see my legs showed up today (they decided not to come to Salida with me so I was a bit skeptical as to what to expect from them). The race was fast, agressive and very fun.

The race organizers really didn't do a great job, though. There were four fields racing at the same time (ie different speeds made for near-crashes when girls from different fields met in the corners) and no primes for the women. Funny, since all of the other men's races that I watched had plenty of primes offered.

Time for sleep. That 45 minutes of riding today has me tired... and there was a b-day celebration with family, I'm going to be 30 in 3 hours.

On Sale Now!

The Astana team jersey is on sale. Wonder how many they'll sell.

Kazakhstan Not Helping Themselves

Seeing as though I'm not yet a world traveler, my first impression of Kazakhstan came from watching the movie Borat which wasn't particularly positive.

This article just came through VeloNews:
Kazakh federation expresses support for Vino'

..."We are going to support the position that the results of the A and B samples were a direct result of the violent fall Alexander suffered during the fifth stage of the cycling race," said the executive director of the federation, Aleksandr Antychev.

Dumb move. I, like most everyone else, thought Vino was a great cyclist and great person. Though at this point, let's forget about him and the others who have doped and spend valuable press space on the clean winners and upstanding individuals of the sport.

While on the subject, it's important for everyone to keep the doping scandals in perspective. The sport can be cleaned up internationally, and locally, we can all keep having fun racing and not worry about what's happening with the really well paid pros who are overseas and may or may not dope. This is not the end of the sport unless we, the amateurs, decide to leave it.

Imitation...sincerest form of flattery

Being at a loss for new blog material, I keep finding good stuff on other people's blogs. Today's food for thought is:


"To win, you must be willing to lose." If this is true, I should be winning a lot sometime...maybe something about patience should be tossed into that quote.


I have many weeks worth of photos still on my camera. Call me an uninspired blogger. No, I just want to minimize after-work computer time. This is such a perfect time of the year! And, tomorrow marks the best day of the year!!!

Found quote

I found this off of a forwarded email.

"Far better is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

-Theodore Rosevelt

It's so absolutely true, though it would be possible to take out the "to win glorious triumphs" and it would still mean the same. To me, it's the process of daring and trying...it's the trip that's worth all of the effort. If it ends in failure, hey, it was still an experience that made like more interesting than it would have been otherwise. If it ends in victory (and that can be defined in many different ways), that's just icing on the cake.

Speaking of cake, I'm getting hungry...

Longmont Crit

Twin Peaks did another fabulous job of promoting the Longmont crit today. I'm not just saying this because I'm on the team, it's true. What other race can you go to and get free beer? (From the Lefthand brewery, too...it's GOOD beer.) Unfortunately, my race was at 3:50, so no free beer for me. Also tons of other quality stuff was being given out. My day was made when Jamba juice gave me a really cold smoothie.

The Longmont crit was the state criterium championship race, so it started (and stayed) fast and there were attacks all over the place. It was really exciting and I had a great time out there. This year, I didn't get intimate with the pavement and it was pretty safe. The heat out there, though, was killer. I can usually survive an hour crit without drinking, but today I had to drink a few times just to get through. The after-race hydration was ugly. Had to drink, but everything upset my stomach, so I drank tons and felt sick for a few hours.

Congratulations to Vitamin Cottage for taking the state crit title...they deserve it considering how well they race as a team. At one point, I was in a break with one of their racers...neither of us was working all that hard, but the rest of the VC team was doing such a good job blocking, we gained a decent gap on the pack quickly. It only took a lap or two for the pack to catch us, though, which was just as well.

My Twin Peaks teammates and some friends (Amy, Cari, Julie, sorry if I didn't realize who you were) were awesome cheering and keeping it fun! It was so great to have you all out there. I think I absorb the energy from the crowd, it means a lot.

That's it for racing stories from this weekend. Yesterday I slept and did an opener ride & watched le Tour with Cristienne & Scott. There have been a few weekends now where every day hasn't been all-bike related and it has been a pleasant change, though I'm starting to look forward to base training (long days on the road) again.