Sports and Spinal Bike Clinic at Hains Point

In conjunction with Sports and Spinal PT, Cyclelife racers Sonja Evers and Christina Briseno put on the first of many bike clinics which will be held Wednesdays from noon to 1 PM (excluding next week.) Today we practiced double and single paceline drills and discussed proper group riding etiquette. In two weeks we will practice cornering and bumping (in the grass.) The turnout today was great and we all had a lot of fun! Come and join us next time at Hains Point at noon on the Wednesday, June 8th. 

Tour of Washington County

Worker Chicken with Goat and LJ in tow

Last laps of the TOW crit

 TOW was a great success! Cyclelife powered by Specialized put it down and dominated. Check results here:

http://www.usacycling.org/results/index.php?permit=2009-1380

Fat knees and bruised hips

As the events of last weekend slowly fade into memory, two more items to share. The above picture is one. And second, Michelle informed me last night that as I was sitting in the middle of the hot pavement, post-crash, shell-shocked, I made the comment: "I knew I was going to run over either a person or a bike..." It was only after Mitch got home that she realized I chose her.... I blame that decision on my alter-ego.

Mitch's fat-knee is healing up nicely. Fortunately, I did not require any stitches in my fat-hip, but the bruising is still pretty darn awful looking....and feeling.

I ran over my teammate today

So it's a great day when you can get off your bike and walk, knowing tomorrow, you have the ability to get back on and ride. Unbroken, but for your spirit.

Considering the recent wrist fracture our teammate Wendy has had, I cannot complain about a severely bruised hip, a little-bitty road rash on my elbows and waist and an egg on my inner right knee. The advil and Pinot are already helping me along. Unfortunately, Michelle had to make the dreaded hospital visit for some stitches to her knee. I think some of her knee skin is still on my 53 tooth chain-ring.

Church Creek: Women's Open Team Time Trial. All we had to do was finish to win. Even if one of us got a flat, just two had to finish....

15km from the finish, Sonja riding in the front hit the lip (1 inch drop) on the surface of the road and with the skinny tires on a TT bike and less ability to maneuver to stay upright, it was a slide onto her left shoulder as she slammed into the paved road. Michelle, second in line, and an inch from Sonja's wheel, hit the pavement next. She likely would have survived more unscathed, but for me, third in line, on aero bars, an inch behind in her draft. I recall hearing screaming, some carbon scraping, and then watching in slow-motion as I rode over Sonja's new Specialized TT bike (on loan from Chicken, sorry Chicken!) and those nice wheels. It hurt me to ride over those wheels, in the half-second my brain thought about it, before it hurt more to fly my Specialized ass over handlebars onto the black sticky-tar road.

Big thanks to Michelle from All American Bicycle Club (?) who scooped me up from the burning pavement to place me in the grass. More thanks to the local couple driving by in a large pickup truck who picked us all up and put our three bikes and Sonja and me in the back of their truck bed. There was a lot of blood in this truck bed. Not ours. It was deer blood, some guts, and smatterings of deer hair...and a big trash bag of beer bottles, which I grasped onto so it wouldn't fly out into the road as the couple carted the three of us back to the school and our cars.

We tried to think of a cool story.

Yeah, we were out there pacing at 27mph and all of sudden these three deer darted across the road and took us out. Yeah, that's what happened. You think we look rough? You should have seen the deer.

You'll note my chain ring tracks on Michelle's skinsuit. Unfortunately, I left a chain-ring tattoo running from her torso straight down to her knee... (see above picture) ; (

So we don't take ourselves too seriously...

Courtesy of the Washington Post (http://comics.com/affiliate/washington_post/?ComicID=70). Thanks to Maile Neel for sending my way.

A Vengeful Mistress

Bike racing...it's addictive, all consuming, when it's good there's nothing better, and when it's bad it can boil your bunnies.

On the plus side for the team this weekend...

The 1/2's had a large, competitive field at the RFK crit. No crashes. A very generous prize list. All the ladies worked hard and CycleLife had a top 10 placing. A very good day. Oh and in case you care about the actual results...LVG 1st, Tina Pic 2nd (ed. note: copy & paste for future race reports).

Click here if you want to see the video of the finish hosted on Hub's website.

Even better, our Cat 3's dominated their race at RFK...

With one lap to go Sara launched a solo move that stuck all the way to the end!










Jen won the field sprint for 2nd place and stared down the competition. Meanwhile Robin came in for 5th and Christina followed after putting the hurt down.







On the downside...

After having a good day at RFK, Wendy, Melanie, and I traveled up to Somerville, NJ. The race is not the most selective and ended up with dangerous mushrooming on the backside. With two laps to go a huge crash took out about 15 riders ...including Wendy. A second crash on the last lap almost took me out too, but I was lucky and had just enough room to squeeze through. I like to think it looked ninja-like, though probably not so much. Tina Pic won.

We spent a few hours at the hospital where we learned that Wendy had broken her wrist. After hours of waiting, they then performed what can only be described as medieval medicine - yanking Wendy's arm back into place. Wendy is very, very brave. I cried much more than she did. Though Mel swears she could hear the yells in the waiting room.

The good news - Wendy may not need surgery and is taking good drugs. The bad news - the drugs only do so much and she won't be on the bike for a while.



Wendy with a sad face at the hospital. Note the puke bucket. Fortunately it's empty.

















This is a rough sport. One day you can be on top of the world, and the next you question the point. For now, we take it one day at a time and hope that Wendy heals fast.

An unintentional time trial

The ladies of CycleLife powered by Specialized survived a physically challenging race weekend with the Wilmington Grand Prix NRC race on Saturday in Wilmington, DE and then the Kelly Cup/Bike Jam in Baltimore, MD on Sunday. Both fun venues and fun courses, but for the accidents that always seem to go hand in hand with your registration packet at Bike Jam.

We know crashes happen. We hope to escape them unscathed. For the most part, the team survived this weekend, although PJ is nursing some bruised ribs and torn cartilage from the Womens' Pro race crash pile up at Bike Jam. We think the bike is ok. And PJ has been prescribed a big bottle of percoset. (I saw it.) So all it right with the world. Or just sore and really fuzzy. I know she was planning on doing hill repeats up Illchester this morning and her last words to me last night were, "It's okay to ride while taking percaset, right?" Talk about devoted to this sport and the training it requires. Geesh. I'd be shoving those percasets inside my daily ice-cream chipwich and calling it a day...for at least 5 days.

(Photo courtesy of Chris Kelley) (Photo links courtesy of Jim Wilson)

Thanks to Joe Jefferson for the MABRA shout-out for my first win this season in the womens' 3/4 race at Bike Jam. First, I could not have gotten the W without my awesome teammates: Chicken, Jen C, and Sara. They knew I wanted to win--and made sure to keep the pace high and me off the front throughout the race. Race report below.

With two laps to go, Chicken rode up to the front and passed me sitting at 5th or 6th wheel. She winked at me--more than once---so I knew she was communicating something to me. Though I wasn't sure what. I decided lots of winks meant I should follow her. (I assure you this was not how my fiance snagged me.) I tried to move up on Chicken's wheel and it was being securely drafted by Dori (Artemis). The woman knows how to draft a wheel. So I patiently tried to maneuver myself onto Chicken's wheel while the pack moved along the back side of the course.

Right before the chicane, Jen attacked up the left side and caught the pack by surprise. Like a greyhound spotting a rabbit, I jumped off Chicken's wheel and grabbed Jen's. At that point I started barking out encouragement like a drill sergeant, "Come on Jen. Keep pedaling. We've made it away. Keep going. Just take me as far as you can." Jen put her head down and drilled it through the chicane, up the back stretch and round the final corner to the uphill finish. At that point, my adrenalin was coursing through every vein with every pedal stroke. We had opened up a sizeable gap on the field and I knew I had the jump and the legs to finish strong. I pulled off Jen's wheel and said, "We've got it babe. 1, 2. You and me. Come on." With that I sprinted up the hill. As I crossed the line and sat up, I heard the familiar bell and in that split second looked right to see the lap card displaying 1. Oh shit. And oh yes I did think that was the last lap. I repeat, oh crap on a cracker.

So I dropped back into my drops and put my head down and went on, muttering to myself, "Great. You hate time trialing and look where you are now. Left to time trial this darn thing." I heard the call of "8 seconds but closing in" while on the back side of the course and I saw my watts drop below 210 which means I've got more to give for a real TT effort. So TT effort it was and I managed to pull off the W with a solo finish across the line and kept the field at bay for the remaining lap.

So, did I unintentionally win. No. But did I unintentionally win on a solo 1 lap effort. You betcha. But in retrospect, I suspect the pack thought Jen and I were nuts to be drilling it up that incline with still one lap to go. That was, however, enough for me to get a gap I could hold. But I owe it to my teammates for believing in me, making the attacks throughout the race, and controlling the front of the field. Thank you chicks.

By the way, I saw this picture on Jim Wilson's site and I want to know where these were at Bike Jam. I'd have sprinted for pie primes all day long. Note to promoters - I do not speak for my team. They like cold hard cash.