Indie Series Opener!

I can sum up today by saying: I think I broke my face. Yep, it was a great day! Big kudos to my awesome kick-ass teammates though! The uBRDO gals are a force for sure! Mercedes tore it up out there and won the Sport class with some fantastic riding. And Leigh rode strong and finished a very tough, wet, and muddy course. I love these pictures of Leigh and Mercedes with their $30 mud facials. Ha! Nice job ladies!! Ya'll rock!

The steady downpour created a muddy and slick course that became an exercise in controlled sliding. Nothing on the course was very technical, it was just a matter of slogging through mud and trying to find traction on some steeper pitches. I don't have much sprint in me so I didn't get off to a fantastic start. A few gals seemed a bit tentative going downhill on the slick mud so I stayed off the brakes and used it to my advantage to pick off a few people.

Ironic really, because brakes, or lack thereof, are what lead to my rather spectacular crash towards the end of the 2nd lap. Headed down a longer downhill pitch shortly before the start/finish line, I grabbed my brakes to slow for the corner at the bottom. The brake levers went straight to the handlebars and I wasn't slowing. I pumped the brakes to no avail and then had that fantastic "Holy shit, this is not going to end well" moment.

I should have made the corner, but by the time I wrapped my brain around the situation it was too late. I slid out hard on the gravel trying to make a fast turn and hit the ground first with the right side of my face followed by everything else. Not a good plan. I immediately saw stars and things were in trippy 3d vision. Sorta cool but not really. Thanks to the girl behind me for stopping for just a sec to make sure I was ok.

I sat there for a bit and then got back on the bike. I had just gotten into a good rhythm and really wanted to finish the last two laps but the rest of the ride to the start/finish line I couldn't shake off the stars. Pretty wack. When I crossed the line I asked the announcer if I was going the right direction and then thought it might be a good idea to not ride anymore. I wasn't even sure at that point if I had brakes or what was going on.

Shortly after I finished I shook off the head fog and felt ok, so I really wish I had just kept riding. Ah well. Not really the finish I was hoping for today, but there's always next time. With as hard as I went down on the gravel, I'm pretty surprised that I only have a shoulder scrape and some gravel rash and bruising under my knee. My head hurts and my eye socket and cheek are pretty sore. It will be funny if I wake up with a black eye tomorrow.

I have no idea why my brakes failed. Sure, conditions were crappy, but I've never had that happen before. I run Hayes Sole and Scotty said he's heard of them failing. Seems pretty widely reported in some online forums. Anyone else had that experience? Very weird. I think I see a new brake system in my future because that big time sucked!

Mud party!

The 4th race in the BuDu West Side MTB Series took place Sunday at Soaring Eagle and one word describes it: MUDDY!

The course was the same as last month's race but conditions made it completely different. I lined up for the 11am women's sport division with my teammate Leigh and about 10 other gals. We spent the next hour slogging through mud at a high rate of speed: 6mph. I know a few people weren't so thrilled with the conditions, but for me, mud is the funnest! As is usually the case, I had a much stronger second lap than first and was pretty stoked to ride up all the hills after stumbling on them the first time around.

I didn't finish fantastically but I had a much better race than I did in early March. I haven't done a ton of riding, but at least I've been getting out and slowly finding the legs again. Mad props to my awesome team, uBRDO Team Project. Scotty and James gave my bike a quick once-over right before the race and quickly found and fixed some issues. Probably the reason I haven't been climbing well is because my rear shock was completely out of air. Duh. They pumped it up and readjusted my tire pressure so I was all set for the mud. Talk about awesome support!

Once I got home I had to spend the next hour or two running everything through the wash: bike, car, clothes, me, and the dog. And as you can see from the pictures, white isn't the best choice for mountain bike shorts.

Time for a season change.

Hard to believe it's already March and soon to be April, wow. 2009 is just ticking on by! It's certainly past time for me to get my butt into shape for the busy upcoming summer. The past few months I've turned into a complete snowholic and have been practically living on the slopes. I love it!

Honestly, I don't know how I survived Seattle winters before snowboarding. It makes the winter pass so much faster and every time I hit the slopes I feel like a kid about to burst with happiness. SAD? What's that? All the night trips to Snoqualmie this year certainly paid off because my snowboarding skills have come a long way since my first venture up before XMas. I think I crashed at least 50 times that night and couldn't turn or carve to save my soul. Now I can truck through waist-deep powder, survive most black diamond runs, and even carve some trenches. Woo!

I spent Tuesday at Baker enjoying what may have been the last big powder day of the season. I guess we'll see how the weather cooperates. There's just nothing quite like the feeling of floating over tons of untracked pow, so at least if the season is over, I ended it with a bang.

Now I need to shift gears and get back on the bike. This year I'll be racing for the uBRDO Team Project and I'm excited about the team and the races we'll be doing. I did an early-season BuDu race a few weekends ago at Soaring Eagle and quickly found out just how out of shape I am. Time to get that turned around.

I'll probably start hitting Pacific Raceways next week for some mid-week intensity. That'll get my butt turned around pretty quick. The Indie Series kicks off in April and then in June I head to Fernie for an 8-day mountain bike camp vacation through Sacred Rides. I'm stoked about that one!

Probably the biggest event of the summer for me will be the Cascade Cream Puff, a 100-mile mountain bike race in Oregon in July. I wouldn't be true to form unless I got myself into something way over my head, right? I have a feeling July is going to come along way too fast...

A perfect day

There's no better way to start the day than with some kick-ass mountain biking in the sunshine! Afterwards I blew off about an inch of dust from the Ruby and busted her out for her first ride in about 6 months. That bike is butter. Cruising on the Ruby made me delusional enough to climb both Lakemont AND Zoo Hill. Damn that hurt.

My legs are toast, which should set me up well for the first mtb race of the season at Seatac tomorrow. Hey, I'm in "race myself into shape" mode so if my legs aren't jello I'm not working hard enough. I even spent some time giving the Kona some love and she's all cleaned up, tuned up, and ready to go! Here we go race season. I can't believe I'm saying that...

...oh yeah, and I'm very excited to say I'll be flying some new colors this year: uBRDO! Though I guess I need a kit before I can really fly the new colors.