whew!

So, after stage 3, which was a bit of a hilly affair up Cooper Spur Mountain, the entire peloton was shocked from the sudden spike in temperature. We went from cool and grayish with rain to smoking hot and humid. Many girls were dehydrated and cramping, and almost everyone pitched themselves into the freezing river for an ice bath afterwards in their shammies!


The next day was an individual time trial, which ALSO contained climbs, happily, there were some decent descents to go with it. Tina said Jeannie Longo blew by her so fast that she was positive she had won it. Turns out there was some kind of holdup at the start with Jeannie's tt bars and she started over a minute late and still got third!!!!

Well, lets just say, that the rest of us did not fly like Jeannie in this particular venture....our little Tiffy put in a solid ride to score a top ten place, moving her up into 8th on GC. We went to dinner that evening at a spectacular house (friend's of Dotsie and Kirk) with a view and tried not to think about the suffer-fest that was to come with the next day's stage.




So, the famous Mt. Hood Meadow's stage was indeed filled with climbing.....over 9000 feet of climbing. The heat wave in Oregon continued and our plan was to keep our climbers as fresh as possible until the business end of the race when the climbing turned steeper. Dotsie, Tina and Iona covered moves during the race. When the climbing pace finally got harder and harder, Tiffany managed to come in with the first set of girls after Mara Abbott and Jeannie Longo, holding on for 8th. Our next best climbers were Kristin and Andrea a few places back. There was snow on the top, which Tiffy and Tina sat in to cool their aching muscles!!
The final stage was a criterium and we were stoked at the chance to get another stage win. We thought it would be aggressive with other teams also looking for the same thing, as well as some of the GC people were separated by seconds, so getting up the road would translate into time and therefore a move up in overall classification. We had to be alert. Right off the bat, there was bad luck - Andrea came down in the last corner and had to retire from the race with a pro-rated time. We also lost Dotsie to that crash. Both girls are alright. We were now down to 4. The way it worked out was that Tiff found herself covering moves at the beginning, then Kristin and Iona were taking care of the middle portion of the race, and then by the end, Tiff was recovered to be able to get up front to give Tina a lead-out. Tina took it 3rd out from the last corner and never looked back. We finished this very tough stage race with 2 wins, a podium, and a top 10 on GC. All in all, we were pretty satisfied, and now go home for a bit of a rest before the next races.

They call that a crit?

Stage 2 of Mt. Hood is listed a criterium in the race bible. I think everyone will agree that it was really a circuit race as it was a 1.4 mile affair that was uphill for half of it and downhill for the rest. Since we had been expecting a regular type of crit with maybe a bit of a hill in it we were a little shocked when we did the first run-through in warmup of the course. Then we were thinking: ruh-roh, maybe this could end up in a selection, we had best be very attentive near the front.

It worked out really well for our team though. The first 3 laps Tina, Dotsie and I (Iona) were berating ourselves individually for being too far back and making things harder on themselves. Riding like newbies is what we were doing. Fortunately, Andrea, Tiff and Kristen were riding up front and not getting themselves into a kerfuffle with people pushing and riding a bit frantically. So, after we got ourselves together and started riding as we should, all 6 of us girls were always represented and taking turns monitoring affairs at the front of the race.

The race came down to a field after unsuccessful attempts at breakaways, and Tina pulled off a win again which now puts her tied with Joanne Kiesanowski (Tibco) on time for the lead of the race. Tina actually gets to wear the yellow jersey tomorrow though as the more recent stage winner. She also has the lead in the sprint and Mountains competition as winner pretty much took all on the line for bonuses.

She says she doesn't know how her climbing legs will be for tomorrow's stage, but geez.....one day at a time...who cares - today was FUN, and we will deal with tomorrow.....well.....tomorrow.

Prologue - Mt. Hood

Its RAINING!!!! Oh stop it already, its mid May, WHY is it still winterish weather here? We warmed up in the rain on the course and at least it stopped raining by the time the prologue started, but the roads were still wet. It made it a little iffy on the turn around, but Dotsie made the podium within fractions of the leader's jersey!! Yay Dots!
SO fun! We were the goober teammates and cheered her at the podium, I don't know why we were so giddy this afternoon, its not like we haven't been on the podium before or that Dotsie has never been on the podium.....

Photos from Joe Martin

Ecstatic to win the TT and her first NRC race, Mackenzie jumped up and down screaming in a high pitched Mackenzie scream voice or about one minute before Kirsten Robbins could interview her.


We became a strong trio day after day.
Sam took me through the last corner blazing fast and I quickly sprinted up to Cheatley who launched Laura into the final corner. As soon as she (Cheatley) started to open up a gap I went. I carried the momentum from Sam’s lead out and soared past Laura. We were soooo excited to win the stage. Winning two out of the four stages with only three riders felt very satisfying and to top off the day, the Colavita boys won the criterium as well.




Thanks to our wonderful hosts (Joel and Erika) who opened their home to us during the race.












Look at Mackenzie....she can TT and sprint. She almost passed Laura at the line in stage 3.

Joe Martin Stage Race

Yay Nikki! She won the final stage of the stage race, with good support from Kenzie and Sam. That made it two stage wins out of four for the team (Kenzie won the opening TT). However, those girls neglected their blog updating duties, which is why there are no photos or reports...LAME!!!!!


So, this means that any kind of picture shall be inserted for these girls......!!!! Ha! You shall have to send in proper pics and make a proper report!!!!

Joe Martin Crit

Yay Nikki! She won the final stage of the stage race, making that two stage wins out of four for the team after Kenzie (Goofy pic above) won the opening TT.

Snow in May???????

Yes that's right you read it correctly it's May, it's Spring, and we got snowed on today! Where else but Boulder Colorado!

Andrea is visiting for the week in between Gila and Mt Hood races as her Brother lives here and she's keeping up the altitude training whilst Tiffany is living here whilst in the states and not racing!

On a lazy Saturday morning what better thing did we have to do but get up for an 8am local race up a mountain the race was Sunshine Canyon Hill Climb a tough climb that starts about 2 miles from the heart of Boulder it is 9.14 miles long average 7.6% gradient with a maximum gradient of 23.1% starting elevation 5509 feet and climbing to 8426 feet with total elevation gain of 3226 feet and the last 3.5 miles on dirt. So we knew we were up for a challenge and also questioning our sanity of racing up a mountain early on a Saturday morning on recovery/rebuild week hmmmm, i guess a good opener for Mt Hood!

We rolled out and already the pace was half on then we started settling into our own rhythm at about the 2 mile mark Mara Abbot (team high roads) had opened a gap then Tiffany and Andrea and a couple others were together then soon enough Andrea had a gap on the field whilst Tiffany was suffering challenging another girl for that 3rd spot eventually getting a gap and settling into her own pace feeling the effects on the first half of the climb of not have a proper warm up but then finished off slightly stronger!

As we were climbing up I couldn't help but notice cars coming down with large amounts of snow on their roofs and trunks, as we hit the dirt we started to get little snow flakes hit us and it continued as we reached the top and their was a fair bit of snow about which is understandable as all the snow hadn't yet melted from the cold winter Boulder experienced however it was actually snowing up their which wasn't cool especially considering it was May!

The race was a good hit out though Mara took out the win from Andrea not too far off the pace and Tiffany another couple of minutes back all going under the 55minute mark not bad for first thing on a Saturday morning! It was tough but the fun was yet to come as we still got the decent after putting on layers of clothing the fingers had gone numb and face and toes too as we began to descend the dirt sketchy as it is but fun too trying not to crash with the number of people still climbing and descending and also us nearly taking out people as we stopped part way down to get an awesome photo! Then finally back on sealed road the real fun began trying not to take myself out while flying down at 50mph and dodging all the other riders going slightly slower whist not being able to hold the brakes on the windy road as the fingers were so cold all made for a fun morning!

Hit up the coffee shop and ready for some easy days before flying out to smash it up at the Mt Hood cycling classic in Oregon!

until next time,

Peace out! Keep it rubber side down!