Leah Kirchmann's blog

Happy New Year!

2012-01-02T12:19:00.000-08:00

I've put together a little photo gallery to celebrate some exciting stuff that happened at the end of 2011.

To begin, let's reverse back to November. It was off to T-Bay, Ontario for a weekend of fun for my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary! The whole event was really lovely and it was great to see family.

Did you know that you can get a certificate from Stephen Harper for being married 50 years? I had no idea.

Sister, me and mom

Back in Squamish, I spent the month of December training and taking a class on Health, Environment and Risk, a very interesting subject.

Out mountain biking behind campus


view from the trails

Going down Half-Nelson, so fun!


gorgeous waterfall, missed seeing it the first few times because that part of the trail is so fast!

December was also a fun time for celebration at the annual Questival school dinner. Complete with photos with "santa" aka our school president who bears an uncanny resemblance to Santa Claus.

Pretty sure we were the only group from class to take a photo together at Questival, a good sign that we are still friends after working on a major three week group project!

After finishing up the semester, I traveled home to Winnipeg for a much needed break.

Of course it's my parents, not the children, playing with their food on Christmas morning! (we decided it would be nice to make a proper breakfast this year and not just eat chocolate all day..).

pineapple double decker pancakes, impressive.

yum pumpkin fruit santa pancakes

I was hoping to get in some skiing while home for the holidays, but was surprised to come home to strange weather and very little snow in Winnipeg. Shouldn't it be -50C with 3 feet of snow? I was determined to still get out skiing and went to check out the golf course trails. A bit rocky, but not too bad. One thing I didn't expect was sharing the course with a pair of golfers out to play a round of 18 holes! Had to dodge a few golf balls, I'm not too sure how they found the holes.

New sport- winter golfing!


Out skiing at windsor park

I've also got in some quality trainer time while home for the holidays. My coach has the idea that every holiday= training camp + testing. It makes sense.


+5 and no snow? weird.

colder temperatures pushed me to train inside with my brother's fishies. Good motivation to not fall off the rollers!

2011 came to a wonderful end with my Aunt's wedding. She enjoyed my parents New Years marriage so much as a child that she decided to pick the same date. What better time for a celebration?!

You know it's going to be a good wedding when the first song at the church is Mario cart love song!

Beautiful bride and groom

That pretty much sums up the end of 2011 for me, can't wait to see what 2012 has to offer!

Cinnamon bun explosion

2011-11-18T22:21:00.001-08:00

I think I have a baking problem. Seriously, it’s way toofun and such productive procrastination:).

My latest creation is a cinnamon bun explosion! The bunswere so bursting with deliciousness that they literally exploded out of thepan. Pretty crazy.

I’ve also been experimenting a lot with making my owngranola. Cereal is just too expensive. It’s also healthier to make yourown. You then control how much sugar goes into it. It’s surprisingly easy tomake your own granola. Just mix whatever you want... oats, sunflower seeds,flax seeds, coconut, dried nuts… then add some oil, vanilla, brown sugar ormaple syrup... bake for 45 minutes (mix every once in awhile) at 300°F. Voila,granola! You can mix in any dried fruit at the end (don’t add before baking,it will burn, not that I know by experience…).

Yes, the most proper way to serve cinnamon buns is on a pig platter

My favourite creation so far has been gingerbread granola. Just add gingerbread spices (ginger, cloves, nutmeg), cut up fresh ginger and usemolasses and brown sugar as the sweetener. Really good combo, especially duringthe colder months.

Now I’m just trying to figure how to get it to create bigclumps like in the cereal boxes, any tips?

New Beginnings..

2011-11-09T13:13:00.000-08:00

Hello world!

As some of you might have read, Colavita will not continueas a team next season. Very sad news:(. A full article explaining some of the more in depthreasons is available here.

Regardless of all the politics behind cycling teams, Ijust want to use this post to reflect upon my experiences and celebrate thesuccess we achieved as a team this season! I could not have asked for a betterintroduction to professional racing. I'm so grateful for all the amazing sponsors that made the team possible this year!

By the end of the season, the team was ranked #1 in the US. We held the top 3 individuals in the NRC rankings, had 41 victories and over 100 podiums. Prettyimpressive eh? It was the absolute best season the team had ever had.

One thing that constantly came up in our team meetings washow our excellent team dynamics kept leading to success. Everyone truly caredand believed in each other, and we were all 100% committed to any race plan. Ithink one of the coolest things was that we were not always working for thesame people on the team, those podiums and wins were distributed across all membersof the team. Everyone had a chance to demonstrate and use their strengths totheir full potential.

I’m back at University and currently taking a social psychclass. The other day, we had a guest speaker come to talk about her experiencesas a group facilitator, and she also spoke of some of the current theories ingroup dynamics. A simple one that I think can apply to the team is the Tuckmantheory. It basically indicates groups will go through certain stages beforeworking optimally together. These stages are Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing,Mourning/Adjourning.

Basically you start at the forming stage, everyone isgetting to know each other, basic introductions, impressions.. It then moves onto stormingwhen the group knows each other well enough to voice any frustrations. (We never really hadmuch of this, thank goodness). Norming is when you’re starting to trust eachother. Everyone starts to understand their roles and responsibilities in the group. Performing is "characterized by a state of interdependence and flexibility. Everyone knows eachother well enough to be able to work together, and trusts each other enough toallow independent activity. Roles and responsibilities change according toneed in an almost seamless way. Group identity, loyalty and morale are allhigh, and everyone is equally task-orientated and people-orientated. Thishigh degree of comfort means that all the energy of the group can be directedtowards the task(s) in hand"(chimeraconsulting.com). I think this is just a perfect description of the team.

Mourning/Adjourning occurs when a group has reached the end of their time together, but don't want to stop working together. There is happiness in what was accomplished, but still a sense of loss. I think everyone on the team felt this way at the end of the season. Kinda cool when I can relate things learned in school to real lifeexperiences!

Despite not being able to continue that same group dynamic with the team ending, I’m sure it’s possible to reach that level again. I do have plansset up for next season and will announce them in the next few weeks! Nextseason will be a time for new beginnings.

Leah :)

Time for a break

2011-10-08T20:00:00.001-07:00

I am officially in the off-season for biking. My last racewas the World Championships over in Copenhagen, Denmark. Worlds was a reallyawesome experience, I was so grateful to have a spot on the team! It was aslightly hilly and fast course, but not really selective enough to break up therace. I tried a few attacks but they wouldn’t stick. Clara definitely made themove of the day with a solo breakaway nearing the end! She gained close to aminute, but the dutch team brought her back close to the finish. An almostvictory for Canada. I was 17th in the pack. It was also very close in the women’s time trial with threeriders finishing in the top seven (4^th, 5^th, and 7^th)!Even though we didn’t win any medals, Canada definitely showed that we have alot of future potential.

Copenhagen itself has to be the most bike friendly place inthe world. There are bike lanes on every single street! Everyone was riding abike. People riding in the rain with umbrellas, girls balanced on thehandlebars, babies sitting behind tiny windshields, women in full heels anddresses, old people riding for groceries. It’s so great to see bikes being usedto their full potential!

I’m back at Quest going to school again in Squamish. It’s abit of an adjustment getting used to attending class again, but it is goingwell. I’ve been taking full advantage of the off-season to expand my trainingoptions. Mountain biking, yoga and running have been fun, but have left me verysore!

I’ve also been spending tons of time in the kitchenexperimenting with new recipes. The Squamish farmers market has been a greatsource of inspiration.

There won’t be any race write-ups for a while, but I willtry to post more off-season updates!

Mtb ride up to Elfin Lakes on a beautiful day

Hot off the press!

2011-09-14T04:04:00.004-07:00

I am excited to announce that I'll be back racing with Colavita again next year! It is an amazing team, filled with awesome people, and supported by incredible sponsors!

Edison, NJ (September 13, 2011) -- Janel Holcomb, the top-ranked women's cyclist in the US, has signed with Team Colavita for a second season. Leah Kirchmann, #2 in the women's individual NRC standings, will also be returning for 2012. Directeur Sportif Rachel Heal made the announcement.

"We are thrilled that NRC winner Janel Holcomb will be racing in Colavita colors in 2012" said Heal. "This year, Janel proved she has the speed, strength, and smarts to win stage races throughout the US. We look forward to continued success next year."

This season, Holcomb, of San Diego, CA, won three of the major US stage races, including New Mexico's Joe Martin Stage Race, the Tour de Toona, and the BMC Cascade Cycling Classic. Holcomb, who started racing competitively after graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a degree in Chemical Engineering, also captured four individual stage wins and numerous podium finishes.

Kirchmann, the reigning Canadian National Criterium Champion, sprinted to four individual victories and clinched the overall win at the Tour of Elk Grove. DS Heal said she is very excited that Kirchmann will be returning to the team for a second season noting, "This young Canadian has amazing versatility." She continued, "Leah has proven that she can win stages from both breakaways and bunch sprints."

Team Colavita raced to a near-perfect season in 2011, with more than 40 victories in one-day and stage races. For the second consecutive year, Team Colavita finished #1 in USA Cycling's ranking of women's cycling teams. Additional signings for the 2012 season will be announced in the next few weeks.

Adventures in Holland

2011-09-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

Just because Holland Ladies tour is flat does not make iteasy. I just finished racing for six days through wind and rain, over dikesand through farm fields, and even up a few hills with the fastest riders in theworld!

team presentation: Karol-Anne, Me, Rhae, Julie, Heather and Denise

I knew we were in for a hard week from day one. It startedwith a 50 km/h “neutral” start, immediately turning onto a dike with a wickedcrosswind. A team from Holland then team time trialed at the front and brokethe race apart in about 30 seconds, with 5 of their 6 riders in a breakaway.The whole Canadian team was a bit in trouble at this point as we hadstarted near the back of the pack. It was a long day, but we all finished tocontinue on.

We battled the elements and fought for position in the packthrough out the next few stages. The slippery conditions took their toll on thepack and caused many crashes. I was lucky to be one of the few to avoid thisfate.

Enjoying an excellent dinner between stages

The last stage was the most interesting course. It startednear Maastricht in southern Holland, where there are actually hills. Certainparts of the course are used for the Amstel Gold spring classic. The hills wereshort, but extremely painful to climb after racing non-stop. Erinne Willock(Tibco) from Canada had an impressive ride this stage and was in a breakawayfor 90+km and won the “berg” hill prize.

Marianne Vos (Nederland Bloeit) was the big winner of theweek, winning several stages, and taking the overall. It doesn’t matter if it'sracing over mountains in the Giro, or sprinting through the fields of Holland,she is simply the fastest and most impressive female cyclist right now!

(Checkout this link to learn more about some of the fastest women in the sport, aka the watties! )

I learned a lot and I was proud to be one of the 67 ridersto finish all of the stages of the 155 starters.
One of the most important lessonslearned was to always double check directions when leaving a race... you justmight end up in Germany instead of Belgium!

Time to recover!

Tour of Elk Grove: Sprinters VS time trialists

2011-08-20T21:28:00.002-07:00

The Tour of Elk Grove was two weeks ago in the Chicago area. This was the first time in a few years that a women’s 3-day stage race was back on the racing schedule. Always great to see more women’s events!

The event consisted of a 7 km time trial, and then two 50-minute criteriums. The times were all very close after the first time trial. Janel was sitting 2^nd, just 6 seconds back from Anne Samplonius (NOW). I was next best placed in 7^th, 18 seconds back. With time bonuses up for grabs in the 2 crits, the sprinters were ready to battle the time trialists.

The team decided going into the first crit that it would make the most sense to try and get me the 10 second bonus at the finish. If I could win both days, it would lead to the overall win. There were intermediate time bonuses (3 sprints, points on each sprint, people with the most points at the end get 3, 2, and 1 seconds respectively. Confused yet? Me too.) In any case, Lauren and Theresa did a great job going for those sprints, we couldn’t afford to let the high ranked GC riders any time. Going into the sprint, the team did a great job of making the race fast getting me into perfect position. Theresa was perfect as last lead out and powered by everyone like they were standing still. It was so fun to get a lead out from one of the best sprinters in the world! I got the win and 10 seconds, and Theresa was 3^rd.

Janel rode a great race and maintained her 2^nd overall, and I moved into 3^rd, now just 8 seconds back.

Some happy people in the background!

The final stage was intense. The only way I could win the overall would be to win the race, getting the 10 second bonus, and if Anne did not pick up any time bonuses in the race. The team once again rode a fantastic race, and it all came down to a bunch sprint again. The last lap was slightly terrifying. The other teams were definitely doing their best to keep me out of the sprint. Somehow I made it through and Theresa once again delivered a world-class lead out. I won the sprint, and the Yellow jersey! I’ll admit, it was close though, Anne, normally a pure timetrialist channeled her inner sprinter and placed 4^th on the stage, very close to taking the time bonus for third.

Janel finished third overall on GC to add to the overall awesomeness of the race! She maintained her lead in the NRC standings and this race moved me into second overall.

Other exciting news: The team has a current obsession with nail polish, largely fuelled by our soigneur, Ronnie’s passion for buying the nail polish. Somehow via twitter, this passion for nail polish sparked an impromptu auctioning of Chad Andrew’s nails, the announcer of the previous week’s Presbyterian criterium in Charlotte (won by Theresa!). Over $2000 was raised for 24 Hours of Booty and the brain tumour foundation. Just goes to show the power of social media… and nail polish!

Getting SOAKED in champagne!

Bend, how I love you

2011-07-26T21:13:00.003-07:00

I had a blast racing this past week at the Cascade Cycling Classic in Bend, Oregon. It was good from the moment we stepped off the plane. The cool mountain air was such a relief after the hot and stuffy Pennsylvania weather. It finally felt like I could take a full breath of cool air.

I went a week earlier with Lauren and Janel to cut down on travel time and costs. It was nice to ride and admire the scenery without a maxed out heart rate while going cross-eyed... that would come later in the week! We also had the opportunity to walk around town a bit and check out some of the much-loved Bend restaurants. Janel was very excited at the Mexican restaurant that they sold a dish that used a specific kind of fungus that grows on corn.. hmm the concept of eating corn fungus did not sound particularly appetizing, but my opinion changed upon trying it!

Every morning started with a massive bowl of peanut butter/banana oatmeal and a little Tour de France for inspiration for the day, though I’ll admit I usually fell back asleep and missed a lot of the live finishes..

Jon Devich- Prologue.. my road rash is healing well!

The first day of racing included a short prologue in the Old mill district of town. The time gaps were not too important since the race was so short and there were many stages to follow. Canadians ruled the podium in this stage with Tara Whitten in first, Clara Hughes in second and me taking the White best young rider jersey.

Jon Devich- Lava fields at the top of Mackenzie Pass

Big Springs Snow Park – Three Creeks Snow Park. The first 74-mile road stage was hard. There was a 20-mile climb up Mackenzie pass followed by a 10 km finishing climb, talk about brutal! The lava landscape at the top of Mackenzie pass takes your mind off the pain for at least a second. Riding got a little bit easier when I finally realized my back tire was going flat during the race..haha smart move. A simple mistake of forgetting to drink and eat enough didn’t help nearing the end of the race, so simple yet sooo important. Andrea Dvorak from my team demonstrated how strong of a climber she is by placing second on the stage!

Bridging up to the break

Next stage was the 16-mile time trial, a simple out and back course, climbing on the way out and descending on the way back. Even though there are hardly any turns on the course, it is still hard at times to keep your bike going in a straight line with all the bumps and holes in the road! There was talk after the race of rallying racers to pool some money to repave the road.. haha. Janel rocked it and placed 5^th.

Jon Devich- Gorgeous lake beside the course

Stage three wasn’t quite as brutal of a course as the first day, but still finished on a 10 km climb up Mt. Bachelor. Janel was our highest ranked rider at 5th going into the stage, so we did not really have anything to lose. With this in mind, everyone on the team traded off both initiating and following the continuous steam of attacks. Finally after the millionth attack something finally stayed away. I managed to bridge across to the break, and it eventually grew to 11, including 3 colavitas! We stayed away going into the final climb where a fast pace caused the group de deteriorate. Rushlee rode amazing and attacked at the end to win the stage for the team!

photo Jon Devich- Break with the chase not far behind..

Stage four was finally a flat, 50 minute crit in downtown Bend. The crowds were absolutely amazing, I think the whole town came out to watch. A break escaped later in the race including teammates Lauren and Kristin. Kristin drove the break enough to keep it away and Lauren used her sprinting skills to power to overtake the other riders at the line for the win!

My most favourite photo from the whole race!

Stage five included four laps of a challenging 16 mile course starting right at Summit high school in Bend. It was a rolling course with a steep 2 km climb. The climb tricks you into thinking its over halfway by flattening out, but then it just kicks up again. Before the race we basically decided as a team that we were going to try and win the race, or completely blow ourselves up trying. Janel was in 8^th going into the stage, just over a minute back. We attacked a lot in the first two laps. Those efforts combined with the heat really had me thinking I would be dropped. Thankfully the pace got a little more manageable when a break finally got away which included Janel. The break shrunk to 4 riders, and then just Anne Samplonius and Janel were left at the end.

They ended up building up a 2-minute lead, Janel was second on the stage, but the time gap put her in the yellow jersey! Rushlee led the chase group in for 5^th place and kept her lead in the White jersey, and Andrea collected enough points throughout the week to keep the snazzy polka dot jersey. I finished in 17th overall. The new time gap also put Colavita/Forno d’Asolo into first on the overall team standings! Seriously amazing, such a perfect example of what dedicated teamwork can accomplish.

Jon Devich- Colavita wins 3/4 jerseys!

We had to drive back to Portland to catch flights the next day, but the week just was not complete without some sort of celebration. The famous “Voodoo doughnuts” in Portland was a perfect destination! Only Janel, Kelly and I ended up going out, but it was worth it! Maple and Bacon is actually a delicious combination. Seriously try it.

2011 Tour de Toona

2011-07-16T22:00:00.001-07:00

Fireworks announced my arrival into Pennsylvania on July 4th..

The Colavita riders and staff would meet up in Altoona, PA for the famous Tour de Toona, making a return to the NRC racing calendar after a several year absence..

Stage 1 Time trial:

Five km + 18 corners + full aero get up= fast times! Janel 5^th, me 8^th, Lauren 14^th, Rushlee 16th.. I wish all time trial courses were this interesting.

Stage 2. Road race, 73 miles, Mountain top finish.

Racing was hot, hot, hot. Luckily a downpour of rain came along to cool things off. The race was aggressive going through the rolling terrain. So aggressive in fact that it was pretty hard to find a lull in the pace to grab bottles from the car. I remember Lauren handing a bottle off to me at the same time she accelerated to follow an attack.. superstar team-mate. The whole Colavita team set a hard tempo leading into the final 5 mile climb of the day up Blue Knob mountain. I lost contact with the front when attacks started going, but Janel and Rushlee climbed with the leaders until just before the finish. Canadian champ Veronique Fortin once again proved that she is a super climber and won the stage. Janel was top Colavita finisher in 11^th.

Stage 3: Road race, 144 km (actually 155 km…)

The day’s stage included 3 significant climbs. We would climb up the other side of Blue Knob than in the previous stage, this side featuring a 2 km gravel section.. Our goal for the day was to move Janel up in GC. Unfortunately we were down two teammates as Kristin and Kelly went home sick. An early break went in the race with Lauren representing Colavita. Their gap grew to around 4 minutes, then suddenly it started jumping up.. 5, 6, 7, 8 minutes? But weren’t we going the same speed or faster? It all made sense when suddenly the motos were signaling for us to turn around.. wrong way! They decided to neutralize the break and the chase, and then restart both groups at the old time gap when we got back on course.

Off we went again. But wait, we were directed the wrong way again! Once again we were neutralized and had to restart the race. A very strange race indeed.

Luckily this was the last time we were neutralized and the racing continued in earnest. I couldn’t stick with the top climbers going up blue knob and rode the rest of the race with a smaller group and tried to make it back to the leaders. But this was the uninteresting part of the race, I only found out the exciting parts after reaching the finish. Lauren had taken the win and Janel finished third! Turns out Lauren and Anne Samplonius (Now) had made it over the climb with a gap and stayed away the whole race! Janel had also escaped the pack with Veronique Fortin on the second climb and outsprinted her to the line. A wicked day for Colavita/Forno d’Asolo on the hardest stage!

Stage 4: Criterium

Finally a flat-ish stage! The 8-cornered crit had a slight hill and then a very twisty section leading into the finish. Janel was sitting in second, 1:15 back on GC after the previous days stage. Goal #1 was to move up in GC, goal #2 was the stage win. The whole team rode impressively from the start, controlling the whole race. Gaps started to open in the field as the pace increased and groups of riders were being dropped, including the yellow jersey. The team rode the front and drove the pace, steadily increasing the gap by 10 seconds a lap. I had an unfortunate incident with the pavement around this time …nothing too serious though, just a nice patch of road rash to deal with and one destroyed pair of shorts:(. I was back in the action by the next lap. The gap grew to the point where we lapped the yellow jersey, Janel just had to finish the race to win the overall! I was third wheel coming out of the final corner, finishing second in a close sprint with Laura Van Gilder (Now and Novartis).

Thanks to the hard work of the riders and support staff, the Tour de Toona was an amazing race for Colavita. Janel won the overall GC, we won team GC by over 7 minutes and had 3 podium finishes with all 4 riders in the top 15 in GC!

Final GC:

1^st Janel

8^th Rushlee

13^th Lauren

15^th Leah

Next up is the Cascade Classic in Bend, Oregon. Love the riding in Bend!

Nationals

2011-07-08T07:28:00.000-07:00

The Canadian National Championships took place two weeks ago in Burlington, Ontario (yes I’m very behind). Many of the athletes competing flew straight from Minneapolis after Nature Valley to Toronto.

First up was a 21 km time trial in the cute little town of Belfountaine. The course ended up being a lot hillier than I remembered while pre-riding.. funny how that is! After a minor panic before the start when my shifting mysteriously stopped working, the race went off with no other problems. I rode at max effort into the wind and up the rolling climbs. I finished in 16^th overall (2^nd U23). Clara Hughes put in an impressive effort and won the Canadian title.

Next up was the 104 km road race, 8 laps for the women, each lap climbing the dreaded “Rattle snake climb”. A1 km climb up the Niagara Escarpment, at times reaching inclines of 21%. It was obvious that this would be the strongest indicator of who had the best form. The women’s race began at 6 pm, which was a little bizarre. It was peak season for a local strawberry farm and they didn’t want the road closed during their business hours, which was understandable.

suffering on the climb

Small breaks went early in the race, but were brought back. The most significant move was by Moriah Macgregor (Juvederm) early in the race, and was only brought back at the bottom of the last climb, very impressive! Breaks in the chase group would happen every time up that climb, and fewer and fewer riders would make it back with every lap. I fought hard to stay in contact with the front group and made the final group of twenty riders on the last lap. I gave it my all the last time up and finished a respectable 8^th place overall (2^nd U23). I’m very proud of the result; it was awesome to hang in there on such a challenging finish! The race was won by super climber, Veronique Fortin (PK-Express).

Also worth mentioning is that the best part of this race was the descent! Apparently we hit speeds of +90 km/h, it sure felt like we were going fast!

criterium podium

Next day was the criterium in downtown Georgetown. I was the defending champ going in this year so I was looking forward to the race. The format was a little different than last year with it being a points race instead of a regular criterium. In a points race you sprint every 5 laps. The points go 4 deep (5, 3, 2, 1), and double points for the final sprint. The course was technical, with a twisty descent, leading into a steep climb, and then a narrow finishing straight. After some minor confusion about the format, the race began. I managed to win the first two points sprints to gain a lead right off the start. It was after this that Tibco started launching Tara Whitten off the front to force the group the chase. However, Heather (my Colavita team-mate) was able to help me cover attempted breakaways and keep the speed high into the sprint laps. Nearing the end, two riders broke away from the group. At this point in the race, I led Joelle Numainville (Tibco) by 6 points. The points for the finish were 10, 6, 4, 2.. I would have to beat her in the final sprint to keep the lead. Heather and I realized that it was good to have the girls stay off the front and take the higher points, as they posed no threat to the overall. I took the bunch sprint for third on the final lap and managed to defend my title for the second year!

I’m currently competing with Colavita in Altoona, PA at the Tour of Toona. A very cool race with equal prize money and distances with the men and women. Stay tuned for an update.

Nature Valley Grand Prix- what a week!

2011-06-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

The 2011 Nature Valley Grand Prix was last week down in Minneapolis, MN. I was very excited going into it.. a stage race with three crits, that’s my kind of race! Our roster for the week included Italians, Giorgia Bronzini (current world champion!) and Barbara, and Cath, Rushlee, Janel, Heather, Theresa from the North American squad.

It was such a crazy week of racing, full of ups and downs for the Colavita/Forno D’asolo team. A lot happened, here is a somewhat chronological list of a few events from the week:

Good: Rushlee earned the best young riders jersey in the stage 1 time trial!

Not too bad: It was a very rainy, slightly miserable time trial.

Good: Bronzini won Stage 2 criterium from a bunch sprint!

Bad: Cath crashed during the same rainy stage and fractured her pelvis:(

Good: Bronzini took the bunch sprint to win the Stage 3 road race, and Theresa finished 3^rd!

close sprint! Bronzini 1st, Theresa 3rd

Bad: A sketchy gravel road included in this stage took out Janel and destroyed her elbow:(

Good: She still started the stage 4 crit the next day. Bike racers are seriously some of the toughest people I know!

Bad: The crit involved a crash with 39 riders on the last lap.. I was involved with that, but came out relatively unscathed. The stage was neutralized.

crashing sucks

Good: I was in a break of seven riders for the majority of the stage 5, 81-mile road race, staying away to the end. I won the breakaway sprint and accumulated enough sprint and climbing points, and time through out the race to take the Queen of the Mountain, Sprint and Young riders jersey, and move into third in GC... cool, never done that before!

Not too bad: The final stage at Stillwater featured a very steep, 21% climb that did not treat me too well after the previous day's effort. Despite strong efforts by my team-mates, I missed making the front group and dropped to 10^th overall in GC and lost the young riders jersey (still happy with my finish though!).

Bronzini conquering the hill on the way to a stage win

Good: Bronzini did make the select front group of 12 riders, and won the stage! I also had enough points to hold onto the QOM and Sprint jerseys!

Final podium with all the jerseys (I'm on the far left)

Overall, it was quite the eventful week of racing for the Colavita team. We finished with 4 out of 5 stage wins and two jerseys, pretty good! There was a seriously impressive display of team-work through out the whole week of racing. I wish a very speedy recovery to my injured teammates!

I’ll write a blog soon about nationals:)

June Racing

2011-06-14T20:16:00.000-07:00

Apologies for my recent lack of updates.. Since racing Pan Ams about a month ago, I've raced The Tour de Grove in St.Louis, the GP cycliste de Gatineau and even went home for a few weeks! Most recently I raced the Airforce classic in Arlington, VA (which I discovered is actually just across the river from Washington, DC- my knowledge of US geography is vastly improving this year!).

Tour de Grove was very cold and rainy. Colavita did still manage to pick up some podium spots that weekend. Kelly placed third the first day, and the second day Edita placed first with me in third. The finish was chaotic when a girl took the corner too hot and sparks flew off her bike as it hit the ground!

GP de Gatineau was really fun, you get to wind around on-ramps and off-ramps and there is a round-about 300 m from the finish. I was in a break for a good part of the race which was fun. We didn't stay away though. Denise Ramsden (Juvederm) countered and got a decent gap on the field. I tried to bridge across, but it just wasn't going to happen. It all came back together for a crazy bunch sprint. Thankfully the girl who crashed at the roundabout this year only crashed herself and not half the field like last year... I ended up fourth in the sprint, which I was happy with! Also Colavita took 1st and 3rd which was sweet! ( I was racing with Team Canada).

That brings you pretty up to date. Just this past weekend was the Airforce Cycling Classic where I managed to pick up my first NRC win ever! It was a bit of a Tibco/Colavita showdown since both teams had full 8 rider squads. The race consisted of two crits, and an overall omnium title. Heat was definitely a factor for the day with the sun beating down. Despite many attacks and small breakaway attempts the first day, the race came down to a bunch sprint. I finished second to Joelle (Tibco), while Lauren from Colavita joined me on the podium for third.

We were both sitting in good spots for the omnium going into the next event, the Crystal Cup. Thankfully the predicted thunderstorm held off and we had good conditions to race the technical course. The race was once again really aggressive with attacks going left, right and center. The final break was brought back going into the last lap. Cath drove the pace around the last corner and up the last straightaway with me sitting on her wheel. This was a perfect set up for the finish and I was able to jump from her wheel and hold it to the finish to take the win, this also gave me the overall omnium win for the weekend! I had so much fun this past weekend, it helps to have some amazing teammates to race and hang out with!

Next up is the Nature Valley Grand Prix in Minneapolis, MN, starting tomorrow with a tt and crit! Hopefully the weather man decides his forecast for rain is wrong..

PS: If you have Facebook and are reading this, you should really go "like" the Team Colavita page on Facebook to get updates on all the racing!

Pan Am Championships: Victory for Canada!

2011-05-10T16:26:00.000-07:00

The Pan Am Championship road race was this past Sunday. It was a 96 km road race consisting of 6 laps of a tough circuit containing two short, but steep climbs. The combination of heat and altitude (7000 ft!) made the race pretty challenging.

We knew going into the race that the American team would be the team to beat as they had three of the best cyclists in the world. We also had some of the best cyclists, but also strength in numbers with a full team of six riders.

Our original plan for the race changed quickly when Clara broke away with a rider from El Salvador while descending the second climb of the day on the first lap. Wow can she corner fast! We weren’t really sure if the breakaway would succeed being so early in the race. With Clara off the front, the US team was forced to chase to try and bring her back. The rest of us Canadians did our best to thwart their efforts, and the gap grew steadily. Some of the other teams were quite active in the race and set a blistering pace up the climbs and threw down some strong attacks. It’s been awhile since my legs have burned that bad! Going into the final lap it was evident that the break would not be caught. They had increased the gap to over 5 minutes! This meant our group would have a sprint for third. We tried to set up a lead out for Joelle. It didn’t quite succeed and Theresa took the sprint for third, with Joelle in 4^th.

Overall it was an awesome day for Canada with 5 riders in the top 10. Clara took gold after attacking her breakaway partner on the last lap. Joelle finished 4^th, Denise in 6^th, Heather in 8^th and I finished 10^th. Karol-anne finished with the pack in 25^th after throwing down an impressive last minute attack to increase the speed going into the finish. This race qualified Canada another spot for the World Championships which is pretty cool.

I’m now in Little Rock, Arkansas. Yesterday was quite the travel day! Up at 3 am, Medellin- Miami- Chicago- Little Rock, arrived at 10pm. I really need to learn to sleep on planes.

Next up, Tour de Grove in St. Louis for some crit racing.

I'll upload a few photos when I get a better internet connection!

Colombia- Pan Am Champs

2011-05-06T15:02:00.001-07:00

I finally made my way to Medellin, Colombia after three very long days of travel. Brussels – Chicago, overnight, Chicago-Miami- missed connection= overnight- Miami- Medellin- Arrival! I was shocked and impressed that my luggage actually arrived as well.

I had a very funny experience leaving the airport. There was not enough room in the car for my bike in the CCA car, so we had to get a taxi. Up rolls the smallest taxi I’ve ever seen. I thought there was no way my bike would possibly fit, but the driver and a few airport staff were determined to make it work. In goes my bike sideways, no the doors won’t close. Maybe horizontally with the front seat down? Um where will I sit? Finally we get it in the trunk, but it won’t close. That’s no problem for this driver though.. next thing I know he is unlacing his shoes and using the laces to tie it down! Haha only in Colombia!

From the airport it wasn’t too far of a drive to where we were staying. Apparently the whole team had just moved from the official race hotel to one that was a lot quieter and way closer to the course. I was warned early on of the evil aggressive duck that attacks innocent guests. I named him Harold.

I soon discovered that the other ducks are just as crazy and do not hesitate to chase you and to nip at your heels. They mysteriously seemed to leave the owners alone, hmm..

It was nice to get to ride my bike outside again after all of the travel. I rode with Karol-Ann up the road right outside our accommodations. There were very beautiful views of the city and Andes. I did notice the altitude while riding. We are actually quite high up, Medellin is around 4900 feet.

The men’s and women’s time trial was today. Clara won the women's tt which is so awesome! The other riders had great results as well with both Denise and Rob finishing 5th!

Here are the full results:

women's results

men's results

I'm really excited to race the road race on Sunday. Hopefully we will get a chance to check out the course tomorrow.

Leah

Weekend of Luxembourg

2011-05-04T17:02:00.001-07:00

I have to begin this post by saying Luxembourg is beautiful! Luxembourg city is this mystical mountainous city with beautiful rivers running through it, and old castles and bridges scattered everywhere. It’s just so gorgeous! It was a nice to race in a different country, and against a few different teams. I have never seen more perfect roads, the lack of road ‘furniture’ did not go unnoticed!

First up was a team time trial on Friday night. This was really just a show of a race. No real results, no pressure. Despite it not counting for anything, we were still prepared to put in a solid 5 km effort. Luckily it was still light outside for our start at 8:40pm, some of the later teams were not as lucky. We did however get to start just as the rain began. The race was 3 laps, crossing two bridges on the course. It was going really well up until about the 3^rd corner when the combination of rain and wheels touching led to a crash with one girl hitting pavement. It was really unfortunate. This also gapped off another one of our teammates from the group, so we were down to 3. The finish time counted on the third person, so we kept going, hoping our teammates were okay (they were). It was tough with just three of us, but we all put in a solid effort, all while taking the corners with extra caution. We actually won 28 euros for our effort for 19^th place! Haha that money went towards waffles..

Saturday was the Grand Prix Elsy Jacobs, a UCI 1.1 race. It started with a big 50ish km loop of rolling hills through the Luxembourg countryside and forests, finishing with a circuit which included two climbs for a total of 114km. I was sitting a bit far back in the first loop, but wasn’t too concerned as most of the action last year happened in the finishing circuits up the climbs and in the wind. Made it through the first circuit ok, climbing well, group still together. Second lap was where everything fell apart. A tough pace was set up the first steeper climb. This shattered the group and I didn’t realize how big the gaps were getting until the descent. I tried to bridge across but just didn’t have it! A group of 20 riders stayed away to the finish. I finished 4^th in our group of 60 for 24^th/143 starters. Excitement of the day was my pedal breaking and foot flying out accelerating to the finish, thankfully no crashes came of that. Leah G. rolled in with the same 60 person group as me.

Sunday was the another UCI 1.1. We did the same loop as yesterday, but with a different finishing circuit with one smallish climb for the feed zone and a monster of a 1 km climb before a downhill finish. First big loop was fun. The pace wasn’t too tough, and I stuck near the front to stay out of trouble. It was nice to lead up a few climbs and not worry about random braking or getting pushed around. My main goal was to enter the circuits at the front of the group going into the steep climb. I actually did and ended up about 10^th wheel descending to the start/finish. Perfect! Unfortunately this is where things started to go downhill. Literally. I don’t even know how to explain what was wrong with my bike at that moment. I think it’s just a dropped chain, but when it’s back on something is very wrong with my bike. It feels like my breaks are on, but they’re not. I shift some gears, spin the pedals but no power is transferred to the bike. WHAT IS GOING ON? Sort of freaked out trying to figure this out as I quickly went from 10^th to 150^th wheel trying not to crash everyone as we take a corner and hit a hill. Luckily Karlee rolled up at that instant and handed me her bike! Wow, so awesome of her to do that! Unfortunately we both quickly figure out that Ritchey and Keo pedals are not in fact compatible. Darn it. Would have been so perfect! (Realized looking at my wheel after the race that my entire cassette had somehow come loose from the wheel, not sure how that happened.) We got my bike a new wheel then motor paced the car to the climb. Unfortunately too much time had been wasted to this point and the group was moving very fast as the finish approached. I time trialed two laps passing cyclists that had been dropped, but still get pulled with 3 laps to go. Oh well, what can you do, that’s bike racing for you! Sunday was still a fun day of racing, we had an awesome display of teamwork, Canada got on the radio with two attacks from Karlee and another impressive one from Leah G. on the final climb, we saw Frank Schleck who was very nice, and Luxembourg is absolutely beautiful.

This race actually marked the end of my 2011 April European racing campaign. Overall it was a fantastic experience. I finished 14/15 races! Last year I was lucky to get my name in the results. We had a great team of girls and we all kept up a good morale despite all of the set backs and any bad luck that came our way. Crazy to think this is only the start of the season and there is still months of racing to come!

5th Prijs Stad Roeselare

2011-04-28T01:30:00.002-07:00

The 5th Prijs Stad Roeselare was the race on Easter Sunday. We discovered that the Easter bunny paid us a visit the night before! Yum chocolate, saved it for post race:). After a quick breakfast, all the riders and staff piled into the 3 car Canadian convoy. We were very close to having a 1-1 ratio of actual riders to staff, too funny.

The race was 135 km long, featuring 2 loops of 3 hills back to back about halfway through the race. The first two were steep asphalt and the third was the famous cobbled Kemmelberg climb, very steep at 22%!

The race started out with the usual craziness, avoiding people, poles, curbs, motorbikes… etc. The motorbikes were especially scary today. I guess they didn’t have too many available, so they would have to ride through the pack in order to close the roads up ahead. The thing is that girls work hard to have good position in the pack and will not easily give it up, even to a honking motorbike! I saw a girl crash with a motorbike last year and have been a bit freaked out about them since, I always move over!

The race picked up going into the climbs. The first climb was so annoying. I guess a few girls a bit overgeared and caused the slowest uphill crash ever. This resulted in nobody being able to pass and girls having to run up the hill with their bikes! I somehow did a track stand and managed to sneak through without having to resort to running. This pile up was not advantageous, as the leaders didn’t get stuck behind all that mess and gained some time there. I chased as hard as I could up the second climb, eventually making it back to the main group right before the Kemmelberg. I was just on the back going over the very top, and unfortunately took a few bad lines through the twisty descent and found myself a bit off the back at the bottom, oh no.

I chased with another rider, but the group kept getting further away.. oh no oh no! We still had another lap of the hills to go. With some of the best climbers in the world up to road, this put the chances of chasing back on not too likely. At least Joelle was climbing like a rockstar today and made the front group, good to have some Canadian representation up the road! We were caught by a small chase group going into the climbs. Here I found Leah G. who had also gotten held up by the earlier crash. From this point my race wasn’t too eventful. Our group rode a decent pace to get back to the finish.

They pulled our group off the course in the finishing laps so we wouldn't run into the other group. I was a bit confused when people started sprinting. Hmm.. sprinting for a DNF? Looking at results later I figured out that they actually still gave us placings with a time..haha that explained the sprinting.

Amber Neben rode really strong and attacked through the circuits and won solo with Joelle finishing in the group just behind. I rolled in 73rd/ 155 starters.

The biggest bummer of the day was the death of Julia’s bike. Someone very sadly fell over on to it during all the climbing madness. Somehow the force of this person falling actually fully broke the rear part of her frame in two pieces, so crazy! She's had to ride the little 49 cm spare bike lately, very euro. It's a bit small considering she usually rides a 56 cm frame.

Next stop: Luxembourg for a team time trial and two more road races! After I'll be flying down to Colombia for the Pan Am championships. I hear that Pan Ams can be a super crazy experience. I’m excited to meet and race with Clara Hughes, a fellow Winnipegger!

Here’s a link for an article on Karlee and I from the Winnipeg Free Press if anyone’s interested in some extra reading material:

WFP Article link

Leah

Omloop van Borsele

2011-04-23T13:07:00.000-07:00

Today was the Omloop van Borsele, a UCI 1.2 race. Five laps of 24.4 km made up the 122 km course. Joelle our current Canadian national champ has flown in to race the next couple of races, so we started with a full team. All of us were convinced that this race was in Belgium, but surprise, it was actually back to Holland we drove! The course was extremely flat with very narrow winding roads, typical Holland.

Last year’s race was a bit crazy with Cervelo driving it from km 1 and a break staying away the whole race. This year it started at a bit saner pace. I was positioned so well in the group for about the first half hour. It’s actually fun going through corners when you don’t have to slam on the brakes! Unfortunately I lost this good spot when the group slowed down and started to swarm, darn it.

It was on the third lap that the pace quickly increased. The group started to splinter and I had to work hard with Joelle to close gaps. We got back to the group, but then another acceleration splintered the group again and a group of 21 riders got away. This group not including Joelle or I, the two Canadians left near the front of the race, darn it.

The heat sure made racing tough today. It was 27 degrees out! I know not the hottest temperature ever recorded, but still a shock to the system after all the colder temperatures. I tried to think cold thoughts to feel better. Winnipeg winters… skiing in -50 degree weather… eating gelato… ok starting to feel a little colder… oh wait maybe that’s just the dehydration setting in.

I was not impressed with the commissaire who would not let us take bottles on the last lap. The rule is that you are not allowed to feed in the first 50 km or last 20 km. We were definitely still within the limit and I think everyone was thirsty.

The race was won for the 4^th year in a row by sprinter extraordinaire, Kirsten Wild (AA Drink). I was second in our group sprint and finished in 23^rd/177 starters, Joelle finished in the same group as well.

Next up tomorrow is the Grand Prix Roeselare, a race in Belgium for real this time.

A chance to be a tourist...

2011-04-20T12:35:00.004-07:00

As a competitive cyclist, you get to do a lot of traveling around the world. The thing is that you don’t always experience countries the way that most tourists might. Most site seeing takes place from the seat of your bike (some of it goes by quite quickly when you’re racing by at 40km/h..). It’s actually a very unique way to experience a country. A bike can bring you off the beaten path. It can carry you away from the hoards of tourists and into the quiet countryside. Or if you’re in a city, a bike can take you places a car can’t go, and you can cover more ground in a day compared to walking. There are tons of advantages of traveling by bike! We may not get to visit all the famous places a country has to offer, but we do still get to experience a countries culture by riding it’s roads, trying local cuisine and meeting new people.

However we do still get the rare opportunity to check out some cool places when time permits! Yesterday was one of those days, with our next race not until this weekend we decided it would be an excellent day to check out the city of Brugge in Belgium. Wikipedia tells me that Brugge is known as “The Venice of the North” because of all the canals running around the city. Wikipedia also tells me the historic city centre has been a UNESCO world Heritage site since 2000. Pretty cool!

The city managed to survive both world wars without being destroyed, so the city centre features preserved medieval architecture. It felt a bit like we had stepped back in time navigating the narrow alleys, as horse drawn carriages trotted down the cobbled streets. The hundreds of chocolate shops along with tourist and clothing shops boldly pointed out reality.

We had a very relaxed Belgium day in Brugge… walked over the lake of love, observed the tall standing churches and other brick architecture, drank cappuccino’s out in the sun, sampled some hand made chocolate, and finished the evening off with some delicious Italian cuisine (yes wrong culture, but still made in Belgium so it counts).

I would definitely like to go back and learn more about the history of the area. Maybe have a boat tour around the canals. It will have to wait for another day, for now it’s training until the next races. The weather in Belgium has been gorgeous lately, the sun is out, the sky is blue, the orchards are in full blossom! Who says Belgium has bad weather?

Leah

Ronde van Gelderland

2011-04-18T01:45:00.000-07:00

Today was the Ronde Van Gelderland in Appledorn. A UCI 1.2 race, 140 km long. Our awesome mechanic Julien was able to get my bike back up and running for today’s race! Luckily I had an extra derailleur hanger to replace the one snapped in two, and we were able to borrow a shifter off of another team. The spare biked worked well yesterday, but I definitely missed my Jamis!

The field had a lot more Holland club teams compared to yesterday’s world cup, which only had the top ranked teams and some national teams. Some of the top teams traveled to another UCI 1.2 race down in Belgium today. It’s crazy that there can be TWO huge UCI women’s races, on the same day, that both have over 100 competitors, only in Europe!

Unlike most of the flat recent races we’ve been doing, this course featured 5 climbs right in the first 50 km, and then finished flat. The course was backwards to that of last year, which had all the climbs at the end instead.I knew that the field would probably get split going through the climbs and twisty descents, so being at the front would be extremely important in that section (as always..). After getting through the 7 km neutral start, the race was on! I didn’t want a repeat of yesterday, so I wove through the pack and actually made it to the very front after about 10km, yay! I was in an awesome position going into the climbs, actually leading part way up the first climb. I stayed with the lead group all the way through the climbs and going into the flat section of the course. As I suspected, we lost a lot of people through the climbs, and unfortunately all of the Canadians due to some badly timed flats, mechanicals and getting stuck behind crashes.

There was a small break that got away through the climbs, almost all of the top teams represented. The break did get brought back after awhile. Thankfully it wasn’t too windy out, so wasn’t too much guttering and the group stayed together. We finished on a winding circuit though the city. i just didn't have the energy to get myself up to the front to try and sprint, but I was happy to finish with the group. The sprint was won by Ina Teutenberg of HTC and I rolled in at 45th/ 180 starters.
The drive back to Belgium felt so long after racing, but we did go out for the most delicious pizza at about 10 pm that lifted everyone’s spirits. Next race isn’t until next Saturday so now there is some time to re-energize the mind and body!

Here’s an awesome shot Karlee took of me right before the finish:

Drenthe World Cup

2011-04-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

Dirty from the cobbles...

You know what was great about today? Crashing 4 km into a 132 km race. In the neutral start. You know what was even better! Having my derailleur ripped off and shifter broken in this crash. Thank goodness that our one spare bike happened to be set up with my pedals and saddle height!
Sigh, The Drenthe World cup seems to always be a crazy race, and this is only my second year doing it.
I was quite prepared for surprises after last year’s start. Last year involved riding from a warehouse and passing through a shopping mall complete with a red carpet in order to reach the actual start line. Then bikes were thrown everywhere as everyone raced to sign in to get to the actual start line in a good position. Definitely the most creative neutral start I’ve ever experienced.
I went in this year expecting some sort of craziness and it didn’t disappoint. The hardest part was finding where to start! I couldn’t help but think that we were at some sort of circus, circling aimlessly at the start line figuring out where to go, all while hundreds of motorbikes revved their engines, people walked everywhere, and the marching band played their tunes. We did eventually find where to go. Apparently all the teams had to do a team presentation inside one of the buildings, then go outside, sign in, then line up. Quite a few teams figured this out before us so we were one of the last ones to line up. The race is really well run and supported by the town, it’s just that all the extra formalities can be extremely confusing!
Next up was the crazy neutral start with my unfortunate crash. One of the girls who saw from behind said it happened when the group swerved over to avoid a car on the side of the road. Sometimes crashing is a bit unavoidable. In any case, I hopped onto the neutral bike, wiped away my tears of frustration and rejoined the battle.

I could definitely feel the fatigue from the past few races in my legs today. I was sitting wayyyy too far back in the bunch, but just didn’t have the energy to propel myself through the group. It makes me realize that my position in the pack actually hasn’t been all that bad in the past few races. The back is awful, braking from the front of the pack gets amplified x100, and you get caught behind every single crash. I have made it a goal to not ride any more races back there!

The course featured three climbs up an old garbage dump. The first one 10 km in, and then two later on in the finishing circuits (really just the same “hill” backwards). There were also three distinct cobble sections after around 50 km. I knew that nothing would stay away after the first hill, but that the cobbles would probably determine most of the race. First cobbles were good, stayed with the group. Second cobbles were hard, 2.5 km of pain. I left these just a bit off the back of the group. It took a little while of chasing with a few other girls and weaving through the caravan, but we made it back to the group! Third cobbles, not so great, 2 more km of pain. It was this section that really broke up the race and I found myself in a smallish group of 20. Our group slowly grew as we caught people/ were joined by people chasing.
Three of the other Canadian girls fought hard through the cobbles, but didn’t quite make it through with a group. Leah G. ended up in the same group as myself, it was nice to have some company!
We rode most of the rest of the race in this group. Our group surprisingly came back in contact with the front before the 2nd climb, but then it separated again after the climb. It sort of did this a few times, but then the pace quickened and distinct groups formed. I was pretty darn tired at the end of the race.. longest last 25 km ever! The fans out watching, and helicopter out videotaping were good motivation nearing the end.
Marianne Vos won the final sprint (wow she is fast!). I rolled in 85/155 starters.
Managed to finish my second world cup (Flanders was the first), so at least that's pretty cool!
We get to do it all again tomorrow. 140 km of Ronde van Gelderland, starting from the track where Worlds just took place (where Tara Whitten won her omnium Gold!).
Anyways, this post is turning into a novel so I’m going to stop now!

Leah

Drenste 8 van dwingeloo

2011-04-14T12:46:00.002-07:00

Dwingeloo, Dwingeloo, Dwingeloo! It's just fun to say! As you can probably tell we raced in a town called Dwingeloo today in the Drenste 8, a UCI 1.1 event.
I went into the race pretty positive. The roads were actually wide, there was barely any wind and the cobbles had a smooth strip down the middle to ride. All very good things when bike racing in Holland!

The race 141 km and I don't think I can describe what kind of loops we did. It seemed like we were always returning to the same town and then heading off in a different direction. I did the same race last year, but only recognized parts of the course. I relied on the piece of tape on my stem marking out the distances for cobbles and intermediate sprints. The races are so long that you usually don't get to see the whole course before a race, making the tape and a speedometer very useful things to have. Most of the intermediate sprints were only 2 km after the cobbles so it got pretty strung out through that section of the course.

Even though the roads were wider, I had a difficult time moving up today. I was caught up behind quite a few crashes and the corners were very slow with lots of people. Usually the best place to move up is on the sides of the road, but you need to be really vigilant when doing this! There are all sorts of obstacles you risk running into such as parked trucks and cars, garbage cans, concrete blocks, random poles... you need to always be looking ahead.
The race came down to a big bunch sprint won by Marianne Vos. I rolled in with the same group in 48th/165 starters. I was hoping for a better result, but oh well, there is still lots of racing to come. And I wasn't dropped like last year so that's a positive!
Here's a link showing some of the race:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oYcFMsJkBI&feature=share

Next up is the World cup on Saturday. There is a hill in this race! And the Winnipegers reading will appreciate this... it's an old garbage dump! Pretty sure it's the biggest/only hill in Holland.

Photo credit- Karlee
The team and staff.. looks like it could be Christmas

Leah

Rest days

2011-04-12T07:16:00.000-07:00

Brr it's cold in Belgium. I write this as I sit on my bed under two blankets, wearing 4 layers and a toque, all while drinking warm tea. What happened to the 20 degree weather from yesterday? At least the rain has gone away.
Rest days between races are so nice. They give you a chance to relax and recover both mentally and physically from the demands of racing. When there's only a few days in between races, the focus is more on recovery and not actual training. Most of the rides are easy and include very few intervals.
Some cyclists really enjoy doing coffee shop rides on rest days! These consist of riding to a coffee shop within close proximity to the house, spending more time hanging out drinking coffee then actually riding, then eventually going home. Coffee shop rides are quite wonderful.
We discovered the greatest coffee shop in a small town near Tielt just last week. First they had a speculoos latte on the menu which I just had to try. Speculoos for those who have never tried it is a sort of like ginger cookies in spread form. It's quite popular in Europe, along with nutella.. Second, the waiter at the cafe kept bringing us plates of home-made chocolates. I think all of us left that cafe quite high on sugar with sore stomachs. Still it was worth it, they were so delicious :).
We leave tomorrow to return to the Netherlands. I think everyone is recovered and ready to get back to racing again!

Leah

Day 4: Energiewacht Tour- Final stage!

2011-04-11T00:09:00.000-07:00

Last stage! Since I was the only Canadian left in the race, I went to the race with our director and mechanic, while the others headed back to base in Tielt-Winge, Belgium. The last stage today consisted of 7 laps of a 12 km loop, winding through a small town. It was a way more interesting course than yesterday because it contained tons of corners. I much prefer corners to wide-open crosswind sections of road. There were some sketchy round a bouts and medians to avoid, but men in vests and blowing whistles stand there to warn you about them. I discovered very quickly that I didn’t have the same kind of strength in my legs after 3 full days of racing! It was a bit of a struggle to move up in the group at all. Being at the back around all those corners is not the ideal place to be. We would all practically come to a stand still around every corner and then it was an all out sprint to catch back up with those at the front who could just carry their speed through the corners. There were only 100 starters compared to the 160 at the very start, which made the race a little less chaotic. The pack stayed together and Marianne Vos won the stage. Adrie Visser (HTC Columbia) won the overall general classification.

I finished up in 20^th overall in GC after the 4 days of racing ( 4^th U23). I’m really excited with this result, especially it being my first stage race in Europe!

Next race is on Thursday, Drenste 8 in the cool town of Dwingeloo! Then Friday is the Drenthe World cup.

Leah

Day 3: Energiewacht Tour

2011-04-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

Well I am officially the last Canadian standing after this stage. Joanie crashed when a rider decided to take a very bad line going through a corner and completely cut her off. She ended up with a broken collarbone, which really sucks, I hope she makes a quick recovery! Leah G. and Julia ended up in a group behind and were time cut. Today’s stage consisted of 2 laps of 45 km and then a smaller finishing lap for a total of 124 km. It was ridiculously windy so we were sure it would break up in the crosswind. Starting at the very back of the pack yesterday really sucked, so we all lined up super early. It did help a bit though with positioning, but I was still too far back when we hit the crosswind and the group got completely strung out and gaps started to open. It really sucks to see the group strung out for km’s ahead of you and then start to see the gaps opening way ahead. Ughh if only I could easily stay at the front! I didn’t race very smart and rather than slowly work with some others to bring back the group, I decided to bridge the gaps myself. It worked, but I got pretty tired doing that over and over again. A group of 11 went off the front when the pack was all strung out. The yellow jersey and most of the big teams were up there so not very many teams were interested in chasing down the break. This didn’t really make it any easier, there was still a lot of time spent in the gutter in this race! The finish was kinda crazy. The road nearing the finish had a small ledge that dropped into gravel, enough that it made it hard to get back onto the road. At one point I had someone yelling from behind to move, but really with a drop to the right and someone’s derailleur to the left, where am I supposed to go?! Apparently this isn’t a very good excuse because I got a nice punch in the gut as the rider went past, how lovely! Oh well, at least I finished with the pack and didn’t crash today. I'm now sitting 21st in GC, 4th U23. It will be a bit lonely going to sign in on stage alone tomorrow. Only one more stage to go!

Here’s a photo from stage one, evidence I made it to the front!
From www.womenscycling.net

Leah

Day 2: Energiewacht Tour

2011-04-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

It was a tough day today. The stage consisted of five, 15km laps around a big lake. The winds picked up early in the morning so I was prepared for a tough day in the wind. I don’t know what it was today, but I had the hardest time moving up to the front. As suspected, the wind completely strung out the group along certain straight-aways and gaps started opening up. Luckily I didn’t get caught behind any gaps and stayed with the main group. We were really moving at the tail wind sections of the course going 55-60km/h. A bit crazy going from that speed right into a left-hand corner.

Our staff had an easier day today compared to yesterday with no punctures or crashes for the team. Probably the worst incident of the day was Leah G. being car doored right before the start of the race, not the best luck.

I was not in the best place going into the finish and finished 33^rd, Joanie was our top finisher at 21^st. The stage was won by Ina Teutenberg of HTC- Columbia.

I'm now sitting in 17th overall in GC and 4th in the U23 classification.

Now only 2 more days of racing to go!

Leah

Energiewacht Tour

2011-04-07T10:53:00.000-07:00

The Energiewacht tour started today here in the Netherlands. The whole stage race consists of four road race stages, ranging from 80km to 118 km. I expect every stage will be similar to today…pretty darn flat and windy!

Today we raced for 108 km in a time of 2h40, averaging 40.8 km/h. The stage was two laps of around 45 km and then two finishing 7 km circuits.

The first lap was a fairly slow tempo to begin. There were a lot of crashes in this race. Anne-Marie from the team had a very unfortunate crash on the 1^st lap. I somehow narrowly avoided her wheel even though I was right behind her when it happened; unfortunately Joanie went down in the same crash. Both of them escaped okay for the most part, but the same can’t be said for Anne-Marie’s bike..

The second lap was a lot faster than the first. The pace picked up and the group got very strung out through the windiest section of the course. I was doing such a good job of staying at the front until this point, but still ended up just a bit too far back and got stuck in the second group that formed. It’s crazy how fast a gap can open on the windy sections when it’s all strung out.

The max gap between the first and second groups was around 1 minute. I didn’t think the groups would come back together, but we caught up with the front group going into the very last lap. The last circuit was pretty insane racing along the narrow roads. I finished up 20^th for the day and am now sitting in 3^rd for the U23 competition. Now it’s time for some much needed rest and recovery. The insanity will continue tomorrow..

Here’s where you can find results and event info: http://www.energiewachttour.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=35&Itemid=31

Leah

Back in Belgium..

2011-04-05T02:04:00.000-07:00

After team training camp and some awesome racing with Colavita at the San Dimas stage race I hopped on a plane from LA to Belgium. I'm now at the Canadian base in Tielt-Winge, Belgium and will be here for the entire month of April. We are doing most of the same races as last year with a few minor changes in the schedule.

First up on the schedule was the Tour de Flanders last Sunday. Definitely one of the coolest road courses I've ever experienced! My body was pretty shook up after all those cobbles. I got caught up behind a few crashes during the race so ended up in a group a few minutes back from the winner. I was still excited to have finished and survived such a crazy race. All the spectators out watching on the hills were really motivating.

Next up was the Tour de Dottignies yesterday.Last year I was dropped pretty early after being positioned too far back in the group going into the climbs. I went in with the goal to really fight for good positioning and it paid off. I managed to make it over the climbs and into the finishing circuits with the main group of 60 riders. It was pretty sketchy riding through the circuits and I did have a minor crash with a few laps to go. I did however choose a very convenient place to crash.. the race was neutralised about 30 seconds after it happened due to a raised bridge. I escaped with very minor injuries and didn't even have to chase back to the group, lucky me! The race came down to a bunch sprint where I finished 12th, and top U23, major improvement to last year!

Next up is a 4-day stage race in Holland.

Leah

Colavita Training camp

2011-03-20T21:56:00.001-07:00

I've spent the past week here in the small town of Borrego Springs, CA training with the rest of the Colavita girls. I was already missing the California weather after only a week back in rainy BC. Everything in Borrego Springs has been amazing so far.. the weather, the riding, the cooking, the team-mates!
It was like Christmas in March receiving all of our new gear. I'm ecstatic about my new Jamis bike, it's so light and fast, I can't wait to test it out racing.

Check out the Team Colavita facebook fanpage for some great photos from the camp.

Next up is racing in San Dimas then off to Belgium for a month of spring racing with the national team. I'm feeling a bit more prepared for the cobbles this year..
I can't wait for racing to begin, it's obvious that everyone on the team is ready to go fast!

Leah

An early start to the season

2011-02-28T22:42:00.002-08:00

This past weekend Annie and I decided to take up an offer from our host family to race the Callville Classic near Las Vegas. Both of us had never raced this early in the season (Canada is usually still in a deep freeze), but a quick look at the hilly course profile convinced us that it would be an excellent training opportunity and chance to test our legs. We all piled into good ol’ Meatloaf, the Tanner’s much loved truck and drove to Las Vegas.

Day 1: uphill TT

Stage one was a short uphill TT. It was ridiculously windy outside, Annie and I rode to the course and were struggling to stay in the bike lane and not get blown into traffic. Thank goodness it was mostly a tail wind to the course! Since it was just for training, we didn’t really worry too much about using any arrow equipment for the TT. Even though the race was mostly uphill, this decision may have lost us a bit of time. I finished in at 12th and Annie in 16th overall out of a group of 30 women.

Day 2: Road race

We woke up to pouring rain and wind, fantastic! Annie and I were actually bit excited that the weather wasn’t so great since we both ride in the rain a lot from living on the west coast of Canada, maybe it would be an advantage. Unfortunately I didn’t bring a lot of rain gear to California because I refused to believe it would rain! Isn’t it sunny all the time? I guess not in Nevada. Needless to say, it was a very cold race. There was an early attack by a Colavita/Outback team rider. She was away for awhile, but was brought back quickly when the SC Velo girls started chasing, as they held the overall lead. Annie and I tried a few times to get away and break the race apart, but our attacks didn’t go very far. Annie had an awesome attack on a long climb later on in the race. Unfortunately she was so focused that she completely blew by the turn around point and kept riding in the wrong direction, oh no! Luckily the officials let her motorpace Meatloaf at 70 km/h to get back to the pack. I was so relieved to see her back with the group! The second half of the race was less aggressive than the first part, so it stayed together. I think everyone was just freezing and wanted the race to end. My feet had lost most feeling by this point. I was able to get into a good position going into the last corner and beat Primal racing’s Nicky Wangsgard to the line to win the final sprint! Annie and I didn’t bother cooling down and just climbed right into the truck to dethaw and get indoors ASAP.

Photo courtesy of Jet Tanner

The rest of the day was a lot more enjoyable. We had the opportunity to go watch the Blue Man group perform in Las Vegas. Vegas is quite the sight at night, a bit of a sensory overload! The performance was pretty incredible and entertaining. They go through a lot of paint!

Day 3: Criterium

Photo courtesy of Jet Tanner

Finally it was sunny today! This course was fun to race. It had quite a few corners and a slight climb with a fast descent going into a big sweeping 180* corner right before the finish line. Annie and I didn’t really have anything to lose in the GC so we raced fairly aggressively. The sweeping corner was interesting to figure out. It took a few laps before I was comfortable going into it fast. There were lots of attacks during the race, but nothing stayed away. SC Velo held the race together to hold onto the lead. I was able to get into a good position going into the final sweeping turn and won the sprint! The two stage wins gave me a 20 second bonus and moved my GC place to 6th, not bad for the first race of the season. The only unfortunate thing was that Annie was riding so fast that her powertap flew off during the race (if anyone who was at the race reads this and found it, please let me know!). We spent the rest of the day watching the rest of the Jet cycling team racers compete. Meatloaf was a bit temperamental from her doors being left open all day. A quick boost revived her and we were on our way back to Cali after an exhausting, but really fun weekend of racing!

Check out Veloimages for some good race photos from the weekend.

A big THANK YOU to the Jet Cycling team for all their support this past weekend and congrats to all the riders!

Tour of California..

2011-02-21T09:42:00.000-08:00

It’s about time for an update. I’ve been training down in sunny California for the past two weeks and it has been pretty awesome so far! I decided to take off a class just to train for the month. The warm weather and lack of rain have been fantastic. The first week was spent in sunny Palm Springs training with Annie Ewart (A red-truck team-mate from last year).

I just left Oxnard on the Californian coast, where I spent the second week training with the national team. It was interesting getting to Oxnard from Palm Springs. I discovered that the Greyhound buses down here are not very reliable. A very late bus led to a missed connection in LA. Luckily some other athletes were getting picked up at the airport, so they were able to battle traffic and come save me. Riding along the coast and through the canyons in Oxnard was quite beautiful. Denise and I took advantage of the nearby ocean and “swam” in the waves a couple times. We received a few strange and confused looks from some bundled up passersby, I think most people opt for wetsuits.

A highlight of the camp was a tactics and sprint lesson from former pro Canadian cyclist, Gord Fraser. We got the chance to practice our lead out tactics and tried to set up our sprinter to beat Gord to the line. We were all able to benefit from his years of racing experience.

I’m now onto the third leg of my California tour here in Irvine, just outside of LA in the orange county area. I decided to take the train which proved to be a much more reliable form of transportation than the greyhound. Annie and I have met back up and are staying with a very kind family who offered to let us stay in their home. They have three young daughters, one of which is really into racing. They have been very accommodating and have been showing us around the area and pointing out good routes to ride. We took a trip down to the LA track one night to watch some racing. It was fun to meet Lauren Hall, who will be one of my Colavita teammates this season. She really dominated the races we were there to see!

Here are a few photos:

Riding through Palm Springs

Annie at the look out in Palm springs

The ocean view in Oxnard

Watching track racing.. (Lauren is third from the left)

That's all for now!

Leah

Holidaze

2011-01-06T14:12:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone, 2010 was a fantastic year full of excitement and hopefully 2011 will be even better! I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays, I can't believe how fast time can go by. It was nice to have a break from school and have a bit of time to fit in some extra training.

I was able to get some testing in with the Manitoba Sports Center, it should provide some good information for training going into the new year.

I also finally had time this year to make it out to Starlake, MB for a bit of a family vacation. There are really cute little cabins next to the lake, and they are close to the ski trails. They were groomed nicely the first day, but a huge dump of snow made for some slower skiing in the following days. It was fairly cold but I'm always prepared for Manitoba winters; long underwear, tights, overpants, base shirt, medium layer, a windproof jacket, neck warmer, hand warmers, mitts, wool socks, and a headband/hat are all essential for staying warm! I think one of my favourite things about coming home for Christmas is that it's cold enough to wear mukluks. It's like wearing slippers all day! I also discovered some amazing, elbow length mitts at my house to wear. Apparently I'm a bit preoccupied with dressing warm for winter.

The time spent not skiing at Star lake involved tobogganing off of cliffs, and some solid tubing at Falcon lake. I'm pretty impressed with their tube lift, I have many memories of burning legs from running up the hill to go tubing with my siblings right after completing a biathlon race.

Here are some photos from this winter:

4th annual Questival. Bryn and I- apparently we are twins, it does not help when we borrow each others clothes.

making pretty cupcakes for the Quest charity craft fair.

Ski up to Callaghan lodge, do not stand directly beneath this icicle!

Near Callaghan lodge

My family and grandparents at Christmas

That's all for now!

Leah

Winter is here!

2010-12-01T22:58:00.002-08:00

Exciting news! I have officially joined the 21st century and finally watched the first Star Wars movie. Now you people can stop making fun of me.

Lots has changed in the last few weeks. Winter has officially arrived in Squamish with a huge snowfall. There were some amazing snowflakes this past weekend that were almost an inch wide! The snow kind of forced me to learn how to change my car tires to snow tires, definitely a necessity for driving in the mountains in BC. A couple of my friends were kind enough to teach me how.

Since its Squamish the snow came with some rain, making everything extremely icy. I've had to resort to wearing my polka dot rain boots just to make it up the hill to class in the morning, they are the only footwear with any sort of grip.

Other exciting news, I now have a fork that works for my mountain bike! My fork had seen better days and sort of stopped working this fall, making for some very bumpy training rides. But I now have an amazing new fork that moves thanks to a very kind Squamish local! Thank you! I'm really tempted to go out snow riding soon to test it out.

I've moved onto Organic Chemistry for my December class. It's a pretty tough, but my class has a really helpful professor. This is his 47th time teaching org chem and he has an impressive number of chemistry shirts along with two chiral ties. I'm ready for break soon, just a few weeks until Christmas!

Leah

November Already?

2010-11-22T22:58:00.001-08:00

Ughh I just wrote the best blogpost but then my computer decided to eat it. It's quite unfortunate, but here is another one!

A lot has happened in the past three months that I have completely neglected to post any sort of update about. To write a post about it all would end up being a novel so here are some key words to describe the past few months: school, India, racing, snow, chemistry, nutrition, crashing, skiing, pumpkins, crayons, stress, rain, chemicals, computer, biking, planes, mud, sleep, bike shop, sun, Squamish, climbing. I won't explain all these words but you use your imagination or ask me!

A highlight was travelling to India for the Commonwealth games in October. My favourite thing was seeing people riding two elephants down a highway in the middle of the night, so cool and random! The race itself was pretty fun. The course was right in the heart of New Delhi around the India gate monument. I was completely flat with tons of corners, sort of like a really long crit course, my favourite! The women's race was aggressive, but still came down to a bunch sprint in the end. We were hoping for a medal with Canada's best sprinters on the team, but the sprint unfortunately did not turn out in our favour. It was still a great learning experience and has helped prepare me for future high profile events. I was really impressed by the organizers who pulled together a fantastic event despite all of the controversy leading up to the games.

I'm back in Squamish now where the weather has been unusually cold and windy for this part of Canada. I've been spending lots of time experimenting with new recipes whenever I'm not studying or training. I have had a recent obsession with pumpkin themed recipes with it being fall and thanksgiving season. One of my favourites has been Pumpkin and Kale pasta, it is really fast and easy to make, try it! http://fritesandfries.com/post/1458995003/kale-and-pumpkin-pasta

Leah

Summer Racing update

2010-07-02T12:32:00.008-07:00

It's about time that I write a new post, I've definitely been slacking. I just returned to Vancouver after three weeks of being on the road racing around Canada.

First off was the new UCI race held in Gatineau, Quebec, the Grand Prix de Gatineau. This race was created after all the Canadian UCI women's races were cancelled this year. There was a strong women's field present at this race with numerous teams traveling from Europe and the states to race. The weather in Ottawa/Gatineau was the first time it actually felt like summer after all the BC rain and cold. The race itself was quite aggressive with a lot of attacks, though no moves ever stayed away so it came down to a sprint finish. The finish was pretty crazy, the course went around a 180* round a bout about 300 metres from the finish. A cyclist near the front took the corner too fast and caused a pretty bad crash. Luckily I narrowly avoided crashing and finished 6th! I had some extra time to do some touristing in Ottawa, so I went to observe the parliament buildings, eat hamburgers at the Works and contemplate strange modern art at the National art gallery (one display included a horse turned into a unicorn, preserved in formaldehyde.. strange).

After Ottawa it was off to Banff to meet up with the Trek red truck team for the Banff Stage race. I had never raced this event before and it proved to be challenging, yet fun. Banff is such a great location for a race. The event started with a 1.5 km prologue right up a hill. I didn't pace myself very well, so ended up losing time on the second half of the climb.

Next stage was the 1A sprint stage, a 80km road race on a highway near Banff. My team had been told before the race that the course was pretty flat. Being from Manitoba I know flat and I don't think this course could be classified as that. It was more rolling, and ended on a pretty decent 1 km uphill. The race was fairly aggressive, but it wasn't quite challenging enough of a course for a break to be established. I was happy to finish 2nd in the uphill sprint finish.

The next day was the TT and crit. Banff has the most beautiful time trial course I have ever ridden. Where else do you ride through jagged snowy mountains, pristine mountain lakes and past mountain goats eating on the side of the road? The course started flat, then climbed up to a lake where you started to descend for the rest of the race. I was excited to race to test out my tt skills before nationals, this was only my second tt of the year. I was so pumped to finish 5th behind some of the best time trialists in the country.

After the tt I was sitting 6th overall in GC, prizes went to top five and I only needed 2 seconds to make that. I was confident going into the crit. The course was very technical was a 180* turn right past the start/finish, and 4 corners after that on a fairly bumpy road. The 180* turn proved to be quite sketchy and there were a lot of crashes, one of my teammates crashed twice and another crashed once. For this reason, I tried to ride at the front of the race to avoid the carnage at the back. On the last lap, Andrea Bunnin threw in a strong attack going into the 180 and got a fairly good gap. I chased and caught her before the last corner, and managed to hold off the pack to win the sprint for the win! I also got a time bonus from the win and managed to finish 5th overall in GC. I think it helped that I had a personal cheering squad the entire race with Uncle Derek, Aunt Tara, Uncle Alan and Aunt Janet out to cheer me on. I found Uncle Dereks dance/cheer moves quite entertaining every time I went around the course.

Banff Crit podium

My cheering squad!

Nationals Time trial

Next off was Nationals held in Edmonton. The first event was the TT held in Devon. The course wasn't the most exciting. It was an out and back course with some false flats, lots of wind and one descent and climb out of a river valley. Unfortunately my seat completely slipped down at some point during the race which didn't really help me out. It wasn't as good a tt as in Banff, but I still improved from last year's nationals and managed to finish 18th overall and 5th U23.

The road race was next up. The women did 9 laps of the course for a 120 km race. The course had three climbs in it, most of them had turn arounds and you immediately descended. Right from the start, Lex Albrecht rode away from the group and nobody reacted. She got a pretty decent gap on the group (up to 4 minutes at one point). There were a few attempts to bridge during this time, but nothing stayed away. The pace finally did pick up eventually and we reeled her in pretty quickly. There were other attempts for breaks after this, but it was tough for anything to stick because the group would come back together on the descents. Getting in a good position for the final sprint was a little hectic. Joelle took the win, I managed to finish 7th overall in a fast sprint, and came out as 1st U23 which was awesome!

I'm finally back in Vancouver now a little while to race BC superweek. I'm going to also be attending a track camp at the Burnaby velodrome. I'm sort of scared to ride the track but it should be fun!

Natioanls U23 Podium

Racing in Enumclaw

2010-05-26T14:24:00.002-07:00

I just finished up my last class today so my summer can officially begin! I'm sort of sad that my epidemiology class is over though, it was the most fascinating class. Here's a race write up from this past weekend's race at the Mutual of Enumclaw stage race in Washington.

The weekend got off to a great start when I realized that I included my race license in my last load of laundry. The only part left was my photo with little words stuck to it, not good! Thankfully after a quick phone call my coach back in Winnipeg, he was able to make a new license and e-mail a copy to me.

This year the stage race was based on overall time, rather than an omnium calculated from finishing points like last year. The weekend started out with a short time trial. The weather looked menacing but the thankfully the rain held off for the girls start time. The start felt slow, but I really got into a rhythm later in the race and felt pretty fast. The finish was interesting. There were two cars ahead of me that slowed down because they saw all the cones and cars set up at the finish line. This was a little bit frustrating because they had no idea I was coming up behind them and almost ran into them trying to finish. I still had a good tt time, finishing 7th about 30 seconds back from first.

The next stage was one of my most favourite 8 cornered crit courses. That being said, I enjoy this course a lot more when it's not pouring rain! The sun was so promising. The rain did split up the race very quickly though. There was a group of 9 of us who got away very early on in the race when people let gaps open on the corners. I was extremely sketched out going

around all the corners. There were sewer grates on almost all of them which had to be avoided. My super pumped up, no-tread tires didn't really help the situation. I sprinted and won a prime early on which was fun. Unfortunately the time prime was the very next lap which did not play out in my favour at that moment. I unfortunately crashed going around one of those fun eight corners. It was sort of a strange crash though, I'm not sure if I actually ever let go of my handlebars! I just sort of ended up with some road rash on my knee and hip. It was nice to get a bit of a break in the wheel pit for a free lap. Just my luck though that I just happened to miss the second time bonus sprint. I got back in though and felt really good. With 4 laps to go they announced the big money prime and I just had to sprint for it. I had a bit of a drag race to the end with another girl and won it by the smallest distance! Going into the final laps the speed just kept ramping up. I was sprinting out of every corner to stay with the group because I sort of lost faith in my ability to keep my bike upright. Still finished with the group in 7th position.

Sunday's stage was the road race. I had moved up to 4th in gc after the split happened in the crit. I wasn't that far back and knew that I could move up in gc if a break happened. And that break did happen on the second lap of four. The enumclaw road race loop includes

a pretty long 3 km climb. The Total Restoration team hammered up this climb at the front and formed a break of 10 of us including my team-mate Noe. It was a fantastic break, none of the three riders ahead of me were in the group and I realized that if this break stayed away and nobody got away from the group then I could take over the lead. Thankfully everyone in the group really wanted it to stick and worked together. The finish was sort of interesting. There were quite a few attacks on the last descent. I chased so nobody could gain any time and take over the lead. The sprint wasn't on the loop that we had been riding all day and the finish line came a lot sooner than I expected. I thought it was later and timed my sprint a bit late oops. Still finished third in that race. It didn't really matter anyways, the break had stayed away and gained enough time that I took over the overall standings! I was so incredibly excited with this result.

Leah

Fleche Wallonne

2010-04-23T13:10:00.006-07:00

Amy and I at the team presentation

The men's finish about 150m from the line, right before

Cadel attacks Contador

The crazy crowds

(I'm a bit behind..update on the last race we did- Ronde Van Gelderland- Finished 20^th in a group sprint.)

Wednesday was my second world cup experience ever in racing the Fleche Wallonne Feminine in Huy, Belgium. I was really nervous about racing on the hills after all of this flatness, but it turned out that they were not as bad as anticipated as most teams did not ride that aggressively off the start. I had so much fun on the downhills, even though they were a little sketchy at times with some people skidding their tires. The race really got going at the first time up the mur de huy at 80km, this was also where my race sort of went downhill. I think it was about where the max grade reaches 26% where I went to stand up and felt like my legs might fall off, not good! Unfortunately I lost contact with the group at this point and had to do some chasing for the last 30km in a group of ten including another teammate. I barely made it up the huy that second time, a 27 cassette would have been amazing. The gigantic crowds really helped get all the racers up that climb. It was crazy how many people were out watching the race! The way the race was set up, the men's and women's races alternated coming through that area, which made for bigger crowds than women's racing usually draws. One thing that sucked was that even though we finished the whole race, apparently my group didn’t make the time cut being around 10 minutes back at the most. But it doesn’t really matter, I still had fun and there are more races to come! It's really cool to see how many hard core bike fans there are in Belgium. I think at one point there was four people helping out with one girl's bike before the start. And my team mates have had people come up with printed photos for them to sign, or to give them a gift. I got a little biker as a gift! It's really different than what you experience at home. Anyways I'm off to bed, racing two more races this weekend, apparently mostly flat again, hopefully not too windy!

Leah

Euro update

2010-04-17T00:12:00.005-07:00

photo: Denise Ramsden

So three more races have happened since I last wrote an update. The Drenste 8, a World cup and a Eurocup. Denise Kelly wrote a great write up on these races:

http://www.canadian-cycling.com/cca/media/news/2010/0413_road.shtml

One thing I've learned from these races is that positioning can make or break your race very quickly. It's so hard to get to get to the front with so many racers! It gets so strung out with the crosswinds and the group breaks up. You are also more likely to get stuck behind crashes the further back in the group. Hopefully I'll figure out in the next few races!

This past Wednesday, the Canadian women's road team went to check out the Fleche Wallonne course for next Wednesday's big World Cup race. Ruth Corset, the current Australian National Champion came along with the team to check out the course. In the morning, we drove an hour to the little town of Huy. It's a very cute town set in a valley with historic buildings and beautiful architecture everywhere. We even passed by a market selling live chickens downtown, not something you see every day. Our ride started from the top of the famous Mur de Huy, which is the finishing climb for the race. There were a few stops and u-turns while we deciphered the route directions, fortunately we got it all figured out and rode the majority of the race course. Compared to the flatness of last weeks races in Belgium and the Netherlands, this will be quite a hilly race and more suited to the climbers. There are 8 major climbs which are accompanied by some fun narrow and twisty descents. The 110 km course passes through many quaint little towns in the surrounding area, one town even has a castle with a real moat! To end the ride, we climbed the Mur de Huy which makes for quite a steep, spectacular finish! We wrapped up the day with some tasty baguette sandwiches from a local cafe before heading back to the base in Tielt-Winge. Next event on the schedule is the Ronde Van Gelderland in Appledorn, Netherlands which is actually later on today!

Leah

First European race: GP de Dottignies

2010-04-05T14:31:00.004-07:00

I finished my first European road race today, the GP de Dottignies in Belgium! The field was huge with 165 girls. I have never before been in a race with that many riders! The race started out well, then got very split up on the only major climb about 25 km in. I was in a chase group with 5 other girls for awhile with the front group in site. I just couldn’t get my legs moving fast enough though after the effort on the climb. We were eventually joined by another huge chase group. The course was set up in a way where there was about a 55km stretch, followed by 7 laps of a circuit for a total of 120 km. Our group was directed the wrong way for a little while on the way to the circuit portion… that was sort of annoying. The race officials still let us complete 5 laps of the circuit before pulling the group out which was nice for some more racing experience. Everyone on the team stayed upright even though there were some close calls, another rider had an incident with one of the motor bikes which was really unfortunate, I hope that she is okay. Congrats to Denise who had the best race of the day, making the break and finishing in the front group! Overall I thought it went really well for the first race. I just need to work on better positioning in the peloton for the upcoming races. Next stop: The Netherlands!

Leah

Santa Rosa training camp and Europe Part 1

2010-04-04T05:17:00.002-07:00

This past week has been quite exciting, full of training and travel. Last Saturday I took a plane down to Santa Rosa, California for the Trek Red truck team training camp. I had never been to California before and was very impressed with the riding. The long twisty down hills were my favourite and it seemed like you could ride somewhere different everyday.

We had an awesome setup for the camp. The team stayed in a gorgeous gigantic house with a pool, and there was even a chef to prepare delicious food. It was great to get the whole race team riding together, along with the managers; masters riders, sponsors and guest star Trevor Linden (funny story, I sat beside him on the plane and had no idea who he was, I clearly don’t follow hockey!). Overall, it was great to meet everyone on the team and to get in some solid training.

After four solid days of riding, I left a bit early to fly all the way to Belgium! I’m here now to race ten one day races in the month of April for a national team project. The first race is tomorrow, called the GP de Dottignies.

My first impression of Belgium is that it is very rainy and windy, the fields sort of remind me of riding in Manitoba. I really like all the old brick buildings, and the chocolate is delicious (the Easter bunny came for a visit this morning, yum!). I’ll post some updates after racing…

Leah:)

Winter is over

2010-03-21T12:21:00.003-07:00

It's about time I post something new on here. .

Looks like the last post was December so I'll attempt to give a bit of an update since then!

The university was closed for the Olympics so I went and spent some time at home in Winnipeg. I spent most of my time either working at the Windsor park nordic centre or training with the provincial team at the rowing club. It was really nice to have some people to train with. It makes training indoors a little more bearable. It was so nice to spend some time at home!

I returned to Quest at the beginning of March and am currently enrolled in my Question block. It is basically a class where you come up with your Question (which is sort of like a major) and plan out the last two years of school. The class is great for actually giving you time to focus and develop your interests. I'm quite excited, because after years of having no freaking idea what I wanted to do, I've come to a decision to focus on epidemiology and public health. It is basically the study of the spread and prevention of disease within populations. I still have lots of work to do to develop my focus, but at least this is a start. I have to present my Question proposal to a panel of students and tutors on Wednesday so I'm a little nervous for that.

All the hard work will pay off if/when I make it to the end of the week. I'm off to the Trek Red Truck training camp on Saturday which is down in Santa Rosa, California this year! I'm so excited to ride in the warm weather and (hopefully) escape the rain for a little bit. After the training camp, I'm actually flying to Brussels, Belgium to race for a month. I'm nervous but excited at the same time. I'll try to get some updates posted while I'm there!

Almost done!

2009-12-11T18:52:00.008-08:00

Hello!

Thought I would give a quick update on life since it has been awhile. So right now I'm taking Reason and Freedom as my class (it is a philosophy class), it is part of the foundation program at Quest. I find philosophy pretty confusing most of the time, so this class has been pretty challenging. It has still been interesting to actually read and learn what some of the famous philosophers had to say about the world. So far we have covered Brecht, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Freud, and are reading Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. I'm a little stressed out as the next week is going to be extremely busy. I need to write a final essay for Wednesday which is the last day, finish reading Crime and Punishment(it's huge!) and pack up all my stuff to put into storage. At least I have the motivation that I get to go home soon! My class did get a bit of a break from philosophy today. A teacher interviewing for the language professor position came and gave a class on mandarin chinese. It was kind of random, but I really enjoyed it and actually learned to speak a few sentences in chinese and write some of the symbols.

Tomorrow there is an event called Questival taking place at the school. It includes a craft fair where students can sell items they have made. After that there is the student showcase where students are chosen to present what the teachers consider to be some of the best presentations from their classes. I'm really excited because my movie for molecular bio was chosen! I'm also really excited to hear my room-mate present her paper on the economics of Harry Potter. Later in the evening there is a school dinner and dance. The whole day sounds pretty eventful

so I'm looking forward to it.

Here are some random photos..

some interesting ice

My class goes until 4:30 so there have been these amazing sunsets

from the classroom every day.

View of the cafeteria and mountains.

Leah

Snow!

2009-11-21T19:22:00.007-08:00

Today was the first ski of season for me and it was so much fun! There is an incredible amount of snow at Callaghan valley at the moment. On their website it says there's 60 cm packed base and 125 cm unpacked. I still find it strange that you can go mountain biking in Squamish where there's no snow and then drive 45 minutes to where it's full blown winter. I did get out for a mountain bike ride yesterday, the trails are still really ridable, although some of the lower points are getting a little flooded. Somehow I managed to only fall over right in the middle of the biggest streams/puddles haha.. it left me with some soaking legs and feet. I'm finished my bio class now so I've had a few days off which has been really nice. Here are some photos...

Bridge on one of the mountain bike trails, the river is really high right now

A waterfall at Callaghan that I somehow have never seen before

Really pretty river

Kellina (my room-mate) and John (Whose ski binding unfortunately broke

halfway through the day!)

Stream crossing the ski trail

Kellina and I

Article

2009-11-10T15:42:00.004-08:00

I just got this article from pedal forwarded to me. There's some

cool photos and a good write up on the different races at canada games.

I enjoy how Karlee and I are described as 'devastating' in the crit race haha.

Check it out..

Leah

Rain, Biology and Biking

2009-11-09T19:21:00.004-08:00

I've been sort of bad at this blogging thing lately and have decided it's time make another effort at it..

I've been back in Squamish for just over two months now, attending classes in my second year at Quest University. The classes are set up in three and a half week 'blocks', and I am currently immersed in molecular biology. I haven't taken any bio since grade 10 and I had forgot how interesting it could be. Even though the block program can be intense at times and goes by fast, it lets you concentrate on that one subject with no other classes to distract you.

I'm currently working on a movie for class on Genetically Modified Crops. Hopefully it will turn out as I have no experience with movie making technology.. It is crazy to consider that this technology was only recently developed in the 80's and the first products started being distributed in the mid- 1990s, yet we already use it globally. I guess the same could be said for the internet.. It is crazy how fast technology can spread these days.

This class has been quite the eye opener in some ways. I've learned that antibiotics might not be effective in as little as ten years time. When we take antibiotics, there are always some bacteria that survive because they are immune in some way. These immune bacteria then multiply and infect people, creating 'Superbugs' that are not treatable with antibiotics. It is scary to think that in the future we could die of simple bacterial infections that would not be considered life threatening these days. There is one alternative treatment to antibiotics being researched and developed called phage therapy. It basically consists of using bacteriophages (type of virus) to kill the bacteria. Hopefully they are able to develop and learn more about this technology before antibiotics are useless. Anyways, that's my lesson of the day for you!

The rainy season has now hit the west coast in full swing and is making training a little more difficult. I think training in the rain can really help build mental toughness. It definitely takes some extra effort to get outside on a rainy day. I'm still trying to perfect the art of dressing to not finish a ride soaking wet/freezing. Have not quite accomplished that yet, apparently fenders and rubber gloves are a good start! Having considered this, it is still lucky that cyclists are still able to ride outside at this time of year when other places in Canada are already getting snow! And the rain does really make you appreciate those rare sunny days even more.

I've found mountain biking is pretty fun (as long as you are prepared to get muddy!). I got out riding with some friends yesterday and it was fun riding through the slick trails with streams of water running down them. We left pretty late in the day though, which left us riding down the last section of the trail a little blindly.

The snow line seems to be creeping down the mountains every day now. Hopefully Callaghan Valley will have enough snow for skiing soon. I'm helping to organize the Quest Cross Country ski club this year and we are hoping to organize a few trips before Christmas holidays.

I'll try to get some more frequent posts up from now on..

Leah

The start of my blogging adventure

2009-07-28T18:31:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! So I've come to the decision to finally start a blog, I know my family would really like to know where I am and what I'm doing half the time so maybe this will help!

So I just returned home from racing eight crit races at American Superweek down in Milwaukee and Chicago. I've been wanting to race this series for a long time and finally there were no conflicting races this year. Overall it was a fantastic experience getting to race with a big pack of women. I actually managed to win my first pro race ever at the Ray Basso Bensenville Criterium! My team-mate Karlee also put in a good show coming in third in another race.

The team arrived back late the other night from Superweek then woke up early the next morning to go race provincials in Holland, Manitoba. I never knew Manitoba could be so hilly! Seriously if you want to ride hills go check it out. I think everyone was pretty exhausted and had tired legs from the long days of racing at Superweek. Despite that I managed to stick with the front 50+ men who we raced with and won u23 provincials (yes this is manitoba, there aren't enough people to separate all the categories).

That's all the exciting news for now, I'll attempt to keep this somewhat updated!

Leah