My warning label

"Lunch box for the Ore Ida Stage Race 92" by Jackie Phelan.

Godmother of Cycling

I was cruising around another site today when I found a link to none other than Jacquie Phelan's blog. Poking around her entries, Flickr site, and WOMBATS site sent me back about 20 years when I first picked up a mountain bike and heard of this eclectic woman who wore dresses and pearls and lace and kicked the men's asses in big mountain bike races out West. To encourage more women to embrace dirt and mud as proper athletic ladies should, she formed the Women's Mountain Bike and Tea Society, putting on skill clinics around the states, forming charter clubs, and holding annual gatherings where women would ride the trails all day and always break for afternoon tea.

She's been known as the Godmother of Mountain Biking, but that could easily be extended to all of cyclingdom given that her range includs road, cyclocross, and commuting as well. In the past few years she's been inducted into the Cycling Hall of Fame, too. I remember reading an interview where she was asked why she started riding bikes and she said that her mother wouldn't drive her or her siblings to school so they had to ride bikes, no matter what the weather, year round. Now THAT was tough and someone I knew I wanted to emulate.

Being stuck in Ohio and one of about 3 girls in the state who raced mountain bikes at the time, I never actually joined the WOMBATS, but in a pre-Internet era I cut out pages of their ads and articles from magazines and hoped that one day I would live out West and rides bikes with the same obsession as those free spirited, mud-soaked women. If I ever meet Jackie I'd say that she'd be pretty happy with what she managed to culture inside me.

Oh - and that early 90's photo of her nekkid and covered with mud playing a pair of early RockShox like a lute? It's in her new calendar. I've been on a quest to have that photo in my possession again for a long time. Sold!!

Feeling Sequimy

If you asked anybody who showed up in Sequim today, the most exciting thing about the race was the weather. Twelve hours ago it had been snowing fat flakes in Seattle and pissing rain and 35F in the rain shadow of Sequim, but we woke up in our hotel this morning to find clear skies and dry roads! Race on, baby!

So five of us from our team spent the morning rolling 36 miles along Kitchen Dick and Woodcock Road with about 35 other women, about half of whom wore that ubiquitous shade of turquoise known so well around the Puget Sound area. It was a good fast pace, much faster than last time, with lots of attacks that went no where, yet par for the Cat - all too much braking for no damn reason. They brake at the bridge crossing, they brake going up hill, they brake going downhill, they brake in the middle of no where. And what results from all this needless braking? Why wheel overlap and reckless swerving, dontcha know!

By the last few miles I was ready to leave the braking behind and take this pack home, but after an attempt at pushing the pace up front, I pulled off and watched the pack zip by me, quickly getting boxed in towards the back. Frustrated that I wasn't up front to help my teammates for obvious sprint finish that would be forming, I wanted to get around the mass of turquoise ass around me, but riders started braking, wheels and bikes started wobbling, and right in front of my eyes we went down like a herd of alloy elephants under a poacher's rifle. Luckily it was one of those slow motion events, but completely unavoidable from my doomed position. I landed on one piece of turquoise, but quickly got up and remounted my bike, knowing that it was a fine piece of Columbus tubing and didn't have to worry about catastrophic failure. My brake levers were bent, but I pushed off in time to see the pack a good 1/4 mile ahead. With less than 2 km to go I knew there was no time to catch them, although I did have a superhero headline flash in my mind: "Downed rider with heart of lion catches up to pack at the finish and zooms past to take the win". Yeah right. Don't waste your energy! Save it for another day.

Turns out that 1 other teammate went down in the pile up, but 3 of our team made it out front to continue our consistent placing. I have no doubt if I hadn't gone down that I could have led them out for an even better placing. But that's racing. I can't complain - we had amazing weather and dry roads! Our new girls also did a great job and everyone finished safely. That's all I ask for. Staying healthy and trying again another day.

Why oh Why....

....Is Kristi Yamaguchi on Dancing With The Stars? She's an Olympic and World Champion ice skater....lots of TIMING and CHOREOGRAPHY that goes along with that little hobby. And yet she's competing against the likes of Penn "& Teller" Jillette, Adam "The Man Show" Carolla, and Priscilla "Airplane" Presley for the championship title? When confronted about it she whined that she's been "retired" for 15 years (not sure if that includes the years of touring with Stars on Ice) and had 2 little pumpkins. Hey Kristi: Once a skater, always a skater. If Lance decides to come back in 10 years and race as a Cat 4 do you think his competitors might have a valid gripe?

Yes this is what I'm doing on a weeknight. This is serious Walla Walla training. Must be the chocolate pudding talking.

Go Penn! Go Adam!

Walla Walla or bust

It's officially spring so just as the petals fall off the cherry trees so do the members of our team drop out of the line up. We started in November with 17 women. Let's count who's on the sideline now:

- 1 recovering from EBV since last year
- 1 reactivated case of EBV
- 1 more elbow surgery
- 2 mental health breaks
- 1 pulled hammie since last year
- 1 recovering from breast cancer (but doing very well)

That leaves us with 10 teammates in various forms of fitness and commitment. One of our team's big goals this year is the wonderful Walla Walla stage race in mid-April. It's a beautiful setting and well run event. In fact, our field sold out in less than 2 days. I didn't bother signing up because I figured that I'd be taking it easy and rallying the stronger troops along the backstretch while sipping some good local red wine. I like my races short and fast, not so much these drawn out, 3-stage productions that favor little people who sat on their trainers all winter while watching LOTR. But now that we're looking a bit thiner (sadly, not that kind of thin) I'm stepping up to fill the ranks. I won some sweet time trial bars at Dung #1 so I took that as a sign. As usual, I'll go in with zero expectations and not come away too disappointed. And besides, when you're off the back you get to enjoy the scenery that much more.

Pray for Tibet

And for all those whose expression for freedom will cost them their lives under the unforgiving hand of China. This video shows peaceful protesters being arrested in India. It's only a fragment of the brutality and terror faced by those who will be punished for protesting in Lhasa and other areas in Tibet.

Darfur and Lhasa....China, this is what the world sees as you are blinded by the glare of the Olympic torch you polish so vainly.

First loser!

Today marked my first race in 11 months and 1 week since coming back from being sick (again). In fact, the last time I popped my head out was in Sequim for the last Tour de Dung in 2007, so my return was the first TdD in 2008. It's one of my favorite courses because it favors lazy, large-boned sprinters like myself who don't hold any particular fondness for hills. It's a mostly flat course in Sequim, WA, with a few friendly rollers to make some fast descents and hard right turns.

Our team had the biggest showing ever, with 12 girls in the bunch. It was the first official "team race" and time for a few of our newbies to pop their racing cherry. I was high on anxiety while warming up, thinking that my months of base-only training would promptly get me dropped in the first big pack surge. For 3 laps I was constantly amazed that I was able to bury myself and stick with everyone, even during the many futile attacks. At about 2 miles to go I realized that it really would come down to a sprint finish so I thought, "THIS....I can do." I held a good position about 3 rows in and we blazed down towards the finish and once the 200m mark fell and the road opened up it was just me and my 54x15 (am I NUTS!!!) that took me to the end, nipped by a spunky 22 year old college student from Western. Not bad. Absolutely amazing compared to where I've been the last year.

This whole past week I told myself that I'd be riding this race for all those who can't: my teammates who are also battling chronic fatigue, pulled hammies, bronchitis, and breast cancer, and for all those at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance whom we'll be working with this coming year. My pounding heart, labored breathing, and legs full of poisonous jello are all of you.

And another best part? Being able to eat ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in my kitchen tonight with no second thought. YUM!!

Not cool

The hot water heater for my condo unit lives in my bedroom closet. I had it replaced last year. Yesterday afternoon when I walked into my bedroom I thought I smelled some "ozone," but it went away quickly so I dismissed it. Around dawn this morning I woke up to a loud POP, but half asleep, dismissed it as Momo doing something mischievous in the outside room. After another quick POP I finally got up to see what's going on, but couldn't find anything and thought I was going crazy, but a few minutes later I heard it again and saw a flash behind my closet door. I threw the doors open knew it had to be the hot water heater. I frantically pulled all the bedding and blankets away from the shelves around it. Then it POPped again and I saw the actual sparks shoot out and small flames rise up from the top of it. Momo and I jumped about 10 feet and I ran out to the circuit breaker and shut off everything because I couldn't tell which was just the water heater. Still completely stunned, I inspected the top of the heater and saw that the electric component on the top of it had obviously developed a short since there was a hole burned through its metal lid and the copper grounding wire arching off of it was also burned. I eventually called my building manager and he came up to check it out. He'd never heard of anything like this and was stunned also and glad I was ok.

Who thinks of a hot water heater being the source of a bad wiring disaster? Granted it's a large appliance that has to heat up mass amounts of cold water so there must be some electronic component to it with as much a chance to fail as any, but hell it's in everyone's closet with all their flammable clothing too so it must be all good, right?

Fuck me. All those sparks and short flames were just inches away from all my down bedding and blankets and sweaters and clothing. That entire closet would have gone up in flames in seconds and engulfed the entire wall with the door out of my bedroom. The only other way out is the window, which is 4 floors up. Based on how frantic I was just seeing those sparks and small flames, I cannot fathom what I would have been like had there been a real disaster. There would be no time to think or be rational.

I'm getting one of my old climbing ropes and tethering it to my armour. I also don't have a smoke detector in my bedroom. I'm going to get 12 new smoke detectors and even afix one to Momo's head. I don't care if the other kitties make fun of him.

But I did make the most of a beautiful sunny day and went out for a great ride with Heather. If my place wanted to burn down while I was out, that was fine with me.