I saw this guy speak at Bike to Work day 2009.

Also featured at Bike to Work day, the Tune Ups: DC’s premier (and only) bicycle choir.  Video is forthcoming…Heidi?

The Tune Ups - Bike to Work Day 2009

Check out the latest issue of Spokes Magazine, a free monthly magazine “serving cyclist in the Mid-Atlantic States.”  We’re the cover story!  The issue features a great article about my Team Kenda teammates, so go check it out (warning: link is a 7 MB PDF), and be sure to ask for Chris Kelley’s autograph the next time you see her.

The Mid-Atlantic Team Kenda women pose for Spokes Magazine

A month and a half since my last post? Ouch. Sorry loyal fans (…hi family!), life’s been a bit hectic as of late. Never fear though, I have a feeling I’ll be back in the blogosphere soon.

Guest post by Tracy Rankin

For scholars of the Old Testament, this is the appropriate time of year to consider plagues and salvation.  And while tropical storm force winds were not one of the official Plagues of Egypt, I was certainly awaiting a messianic Chuck Heston to part the atmospheric waters.  Sadly, he didn’t seem to have received the memo.

But I get ahead of myself…
 

(Night before the race, at SushiKo in Chevy Chase)

Met John for dinner and had some nice raw fish and seaweed.  John got wine off the menu by talking up the sommelier.  Of course.  He brought my race bike (kept at his house-much safer than my ground-floor apartment) and a set of wheels for Walkersville.

Tracy:  “Which wheels did you bring?”

John:  “The Boras.  They’re nice”

Tracy:  “Well, of course, but it’s supposed to be really windy tomorrow.”

John:  “Well, they’re still faster than the clinchers.  And they’re nice.”

Tracy, pursing her lips:  “Yea, I guess so.  We’ll see how they do.”

 
(The next morning, just after warming up with Liz)

The wind was beyond description, really.  The Boras were definitely not the preferred wheelset.  So, I pulled off the front one, kept the back one, since my weight helped keep it on the ground, and replaced the front with the Neutron clincher.  I had commented to Liz the week before at Jeff Cup that Walkersville was a fine course, as long as the wind wasn’t too bad.  So much for that forethought.  And to give you a sense of how gusty it was, one of the girls was blown over not once, but twice, during staging.  It was going to be a long morning.

There were about 40 or so who braved the conditions to race.  Unfortunately, for us, a big chunk of them were from Team CycleLife.  Way too much green in front of me.  And not the soothing, Enya green of Team Kenda, but the in-your-face, emetic green of CycleLife.  Liz estimated eight or so.  With Marni arriving on the venue Just In Time, and Janelle under the weather, we were a bit out-numbered. 

Chris tried to get things started at the first turn into the cross-wind, but quickly realized that this would be equivalent to pushing Jello uphill.  Not happening.  On the first lap, I was in Let’s See Who’s Feeling Good mode and pushed the pace a bit up the hill, just in time for a Little Gray Rider to launch a break.  She carried a couple of CycleLifes with her, unfortunately, and I couldn’t bridge up (damn!  Where is that Turbo Button?).  The little grouplet stayed out for a lap and a half or so, thanks to the blocking efforts of CycleLife*, until we were able to bring them back in.  With the wind wearing folks down, nobody else got very far until the last time up the small hill on the back stretch.

Robin Z. and I were in the front, trash-talking, and Leslie went dashing around us, carrying her teammate Melissa and Jen from HP.  At that point, I simply didn’t have the legs to get on board.  With ABRT and a few others, we did manage to close a bit, but not quite enough.  They had their three-up sprint and the rest of us came in about 30 s later.  Liz did great and was in the mix the whole day.  Great job!

I found it amusing that the results posting included our race ages.  I started racing when the winner was about 4 years old-barely on a trike.  But, hey, the Team Kenda MA motto:  We Love Our Wrinkles and Will Kick Your Butt Anyway.  Soon.

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* We were informed repeatedly that Team CycleLife was not “blocking”, but I did miss their actual terminology.  I suggested “bollixing up,” but I believe it was rejected.  Although it was an accurate descriptor.

For some reason I’ve been having a major mental block getting this post up for a variety of reasons – tired from racing, distracted by new job, actually trying to train, the usual suspects. Chris and Tracy have already done a good job of documenting our shenanigans in Charlottesville, VA so I’m just going to keep this short and sweet.

Jeff Cup was my first race of the 2009 season, as it was for most folks. 40 miles (four 10 mile laps) of rolling terrain with one medium length climb in the middle. My training has been pretty spotty the last few weeks, so I wasn’t expecting much from the race.  I think this actually worked to my advantage because I had no race day nerves nerves and my annoying race = vomit habit from last year wasn’t an issue.

It wasn’t actively raining when we took off at 9am, but it had been raining all night and we were still fogged in.  I entertained myself throughout the race by pretending I was in some hardcore Euro spring classic.

The race was pretty hot from the gun and my heart rate was sky high going into “the climb” on the first lap.  I was too far back in the field of 40-ish women, which was a tactical mistake as the pace was lifted and gaps opened up.  Then I totally imploded on myself about halfway up, a total lack of fitness mistake.  A group of 11 women, including my teammate Tracy, got away and the rest of us reconstituted into a larger chase group.

The 15 or so of us chased for the next lap but then most people gave up the ghost for laps 3 and 4 and we settled into a leasurely pace.  The most entertaining moment came when someone rode up next to me and politely asked, “Excuse me, but do you know there’s a worm on your butt?  It’s kind of distracting.”

There were a few attacks on the last lap, but nothing stuck.  Coming into the sprint I had a great position, but the last mile or so was a bit of a false flat and I was spent by the time we got to the actual sprint.  I stood up to attack and had to sit right back down.  Again, total implosion of the legs and I ended up coming in at the back of our group.

In the end, I placed 24th.  Doesn’t sound so bad considering 40 some started, but according to the results only 25 finished in our field.  There were a ton of flats as someone had purposely broken bottles along the course the night before.  So my finish wasn’t that spectacular, but I had a decent race other than that and am looking forward to finding my form as the season continues.

Congrats also go out to my teammate Janelle who placed 2nd in the 35+ women’s field.  It was the Virginia road age graded championship (first race of the year a championship?  best answer I got was that VA doesn’t have many road races!) and she was just nipped on the line.

…but not really. Some (insert your favorite expletive noun here) stole our car. It was parked out front yesterday and this morning *poof* it was gone. Just gone. No broken glass, no sign of a struggle. Poor Lil Car!

We’re quite bewhildered as our car is pretty average for the neighboorhood – not on the nice end or the really crappy end of the spectrum – but I suppose one shouldn’t over analyse these kinds of things.

The insurance company said that 60-70% of stolen vehicles are found and returned, so our hopes are still high that we’ll get it back. We live a pretty car free lifestyle day to day, but we’ll really miss being able to get out of town easily if Lil Car doesn’t come back to us safe and sound.

I would love for this to be a super elaborate April Fools joke and for the car to magically reappear out front tomorrow.  Come back Lil Car! We miss you!

Lil Car looking really little amongst the California Redwoods

 

I woke up this morning at o’ dark thirty with a start. I was like a kid on Christmas Day, too excited to sleep. After a little breakfast and passing the time until an appropriate hour came, I rode over to my new office for the first day of my internship. It turns out that it was…just like going to work. It felt totally normal. The office is super friendly and I felt like I fit right in. They had a report that had to be done today, so I dug right in helping out. That’s about all there is. It was work. And it was awesome!

Last week I had to pull myself out of my pjs and leave the house to run some errands one evening.  I was a little grumbly about it, but there’s no use in complaining about things that must be done.  Riding downtown, I was struck by the beauty of the sunset on the mall.

On the way home I realized, hey! I live a 5 minute bike ride from this:

That’s pretty cool.

One last shot taken over the weekend now that we’re having this great sunny weather.

Living in the Capital is still pretty novel.  Sometimes it makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.

Yesterday I was spinning my wheels, looking for a path forward.  Today I have a direction and a solid plan, at least for the next four months.

I am ecstatic to announce that I have been offered an internship with FINCA International, an international NGO that “provides financial services to the world’s lowest-income entrepreneurs so they can create jobs, build assets and improve their standard of living.”  I have wanted to work in the microfinance sector ever since I did a study abroad trip to the Dominican Republic in 2004, a desire that was cemented during my recent travels in South America.  I will be working with the research division and will also involved with the 2009 Annual Microfinance Symposium next month.

I could not be more excited about this opportunity.  It is more or less my dream internship.  I start this new chapter on Monday, so stay tuned for more enthusiastic updates as I get settled in!

…here the season comes. I renewed my racing license and signed up for my first race this past Sunday. The Mid Atlantic season kicks off on March 29 with Jefferson Cup, a rolling road race, 40 miles for us ladies. I’d be lying to say that I feel ready. With the pressures of moving and trying to figure out our DC lives, my training has been pretty spotty this winter. Time has been plentiful, but so has stress. I am looking forward to racing though. As someone told me last week, what could be better training for racing than actually racing?