The night before...

Can anyone guess which race we had this beautiful moon?

it can't get any better than this

SUMMERTIME

Sweet tooth

Get home from work, instead of hitting the frig I hit the candy drawer. Shit, looks like Ty beat me too it on his lunch break today.

Never fear! Always a backup stash in this house.

My friend has found eternal peace

Robert S Stefaniak

April 30 1947 - June 22 2008

Reforestation Ramble

Started off on Friday night with dinner for two at our favorite Italian villa. We had enough leftovers to feed an army. I also tried for the first time, this bottle of stuff called" MONA VIE" that Marcum surprised me with. I guess someone gave him a free case of this stuff and it cost 45.00 a bottle. It's tastes pretty sweet and heavy almost like a syrup. I think it would mix well for a Martini.

Saturday morning we had a few pit stops to make before heading up to Greenbay for the race. Our first stop was Lake Front Brewery one of our team sponsors. We picked up a few cases for Trail days this week in prep for the Alterra race. We thought maybe we can bribe people with beer to come out and help clean up the mess that Mother Nature had left us to deal with.

Another stop at our other sponsor, BENS CYCLE off 13th & Lincoln street on the fashionable South side of town. Vince's new shop is up and running and looks pretty cool from the curbside.

Last minute, I decide to get a new chain before the race and Evershed was so kind to help the damsel in distress. Luckily I checked, it was stretched to the limit. Thank you again for the last minute service call!

And I can't forget the stuff to save my ass on Sundays big ride.

Finally off to Green bay as the sky turns a lovely shade of grey

Just as we enter town from sunny skies south of here, the rain had welcomed us.

The smart race director Shawn decided to close the pre-ride for the day to make sure it was fast and fun for Sundays Big Show Down.

So Ty and I decided to spin out on the road for a pre-ride before Sundays race.

Rusty's lovely map of the 12 mile course

Friend Sue who came to watch at Big Ring, again showed up to watch me this weekend with her husband. This was sure a nice surprise.

photo courtesy of Greg Krieger

I was not feeling the love on my warm up before the race and was nervous that I was going to have a shitty start. Sure enough after DON said GOOOOOOOOOO I was suffering and could not wait for the motor to start running on cruise control. The first lap was a challenge since I did not know what to expect without a pre-ride. I knew the single track was about 5 miles to the hole shot last year and Sean had told me that it was 4 point something this year and it seemed like forever. I axed the heart rate monitor for the race thanks to this smart fellow and went with how I feel. I have to say I felt pretty good out there and had a lot of fun. Amelia and I raced together for pretty much the entire race, trading off pulling, catching COMP wheels and pulling a few others to victory.

Photo courtesy of NACHOBAR.COM

I learned quite a bit out there on Sunday and remember every moment so vividly. Every turn of my pedal every cheer on the sidelines which kept me motivated. Thanks Stephanie for saving me with hand ups! Thanks to my husband for all his love and support! 4th in age 9th overall minus the pros. 15 minutes or so behind an x-pro. Props to Ben Griggs and crew for a great race event and the great flowy single track which made the long race all that more sweet!

Elite Men Overall

The ride home was perfect and I could not wait to have a glass of vino to celebrate!

not to long ago...

it was very dark

and bitterly cold

dreadfully dead

Wisconsin Winter

Burrito 101

Burrito assembly line featuring Ty the master of burrito rolling.

Subaru Cup Race Report

Pre-race dinner#2 at T.W. Martin's in downtown Waupaca with the Alterra gang. Yes, even the Iowa Duster was once a trophy on our team. He still claims that us WORS peeps have the best dam race organization in the country and not to forget it!

Plenty of blue sky

Dry dirt


photo courtesy of Edge Photo

Equals a great weekend of racing! 3rd in Age, 16th overall XC

I went out and did my own thing this weekend and I surprised myself. I love this course and remember how much fun it is to ride. The single track downhill sections are my favorite especially the HEE HAW section! Plenty of sections that were wide open to cut loose made it even more fun! For once I was not alone out there and actually had fun going back and forth with April, Amelia and MK, it made for a more interesting and challenging time in the cross country race. I don't remember all the details of four laps and who did what, when and how but going into my final lap I was feeling pretty good and the legs were still there. Not too bad for running mud tires on a dry course:)

Sundays events were a blast starting off with the Super D. The course was basically the cross country single track run in reverse which made it familiar (especially after racing four laps of it) but in a backwards way. The start was a Lehman style and us elite women were split into two groups. Thankfully, the faster girls went in the first group. Don called us up one by one to set up our bikes at the top of the hill. We started off running uphill to our bikes about a hundred yards or so after Don called GOOOOOOOOO. I had a good start and even though I was in the back, us girls were pretty much stacked on top of each other in the single track going down. I was not to sure how the 1.8 muds were going to handle this but I had no choice but to suck it up and go for it. I know not having 100 % confidence in your tires can put a damper on your fun. Pretty interesting race from my perspective, since I never saw some of these women before in a race up until now, given we were doing a downhill race and gravity was my friend. I was pretty much on Lindsay's wheel all the way down until we broke off in the open sections at the end of the single track. I had a blast and thought it was a pretty close race for most of us girls.

The short track race was fun and painful. I think it would of made for a more interesting race if they did not have that fricken hill in it:) This was my first short track race and experience is what I got. Trying to corner fast on those 1.8 muds was tricky and I almost took out the flag section at the bottom of the track near the parking lot. With each lap, the power started to dwindle and I could not wait for Don to ring that dam cow bell. I finally got lapped by the pros and the agony would soon be over. I started to fade really bad on the last two laps and I could see Gina was gaining time on me. We got to the final climb and she pulled out super powers and beat me to the crest of the hill and momentum was in her favor after that. There was no catching her unless I had wings and flew down the hill to the finish.

Great weekend and PROPS to DON EDBERG and CREW for an awesome event! Thanks also to CLIF BAR for the constant re hydration and recovery drinks and energy replacement food that was available non stop to all us racers!

Elite Overall Subaru Stage Race Winners 08

More pics here

Weekend race report to follow

The Viagra Miracle

DRUG STUDY
Viagra might help cyclists cheat

The University of Miami is testing whether Viagra is a performance enhancer for cyclists.

Subaru Cup 07

Subaru Cup 07 shots here

Damage Patrol Ride

I know you are all tired of hearing about the flooding but I found it to make my ride a bit interesting this evening. Here it looks like the water is drying up a bit compared to yesterdays report from Bubba.

The ride along the lake, opps I mean Menomonee Parkway way just beautiful.

As I rode past the ducks, I had told myself at least someone is enjoying all this water.

Then I ran into these two kids having a good old time paddling away. At first I thought they were fishing for golf balls but I happen to find out that they are neighbors of Bubba, Scott and his son Josh. I guess it was fun as long as you stay away form the current. I mentioned to them that not too far away was officer friendly and they best not get caught.

I guess they did not care.

Once a nice place to golf.

The Menomonee River is way beyond the tosa trails. This area to the left of that little white house is pretty much near the trails.

The picture here is the bridge over the highway, just turn left and dip down into the secret Bubba Trails.

I wish I could go further to see what it really looks like down there. Pretty scary.

This was pretty much the scene around the area. You can tell the folks that got water damage to their basements. I never saw so many mattresses on the curb, at first I thought they had a bed sale somewhere. But if you look close enough, most of the stuff lingering for Garbage pick up is drenched. I feel sorry for the Milwaukee Department of sanitation tomorrow morning.

River Trails underwater

Total rainfall for Wauwatosa, 5.6 inches. This was nothing compared to other areas of Milwaukee that got 9+ inches.

Check out JS on LINE photos

So much for my mountain bike ride today.