Mt. Minty

The Team!

Warming up for the TT. My bike is sexy.

Start of the TT - it was so windy they discontinued use of the starting ramp.

The support crew relaxing after the queen stage. Cody won the beer drinking GC.

Before the start of a very wet crit that lasted about 9 minutes for me!

Ahh . . . a day off. After arriving home at 3 AM on Monday morning after 6 days away from home, then working on Monday and Tuesday, it's awfully nice to just be able to sit on my ass, drink coffee, and write a race report. Oh yeah, and I guess I'll do laundry or something at some point today. Maybe.

I survived Mt. Hood! Hells yeah. Okay, so I was 2nd to last in GC, that's OK! You know why? Because my teammate-for-the-weekend won! And I don't think I'm being inappropriate when I say that I sacrificed a number of places during the Queen Stage of the race so that my teammates could arrive at the final long-ass climb with rockstar legs. I mean, I really hate that coulda-woulda-shoulda stuff, but I'm confident in my assertion nonetheless. Whatever.

So, where's to begin?

Last tuesday Cody and I loaded up the Jetta and drove North. We arrived at our intial destination in Bend, Oregon, and found the house of our friend, Lizzy F'in English. Just so happens that her S.O. is Adam F'in Craig, so crashing at their house is an experience worth its own blogpost at some point. Let's just say that their garage is Off-The-F'in-Hook. Anyway, long story short, Lizzy took us out for a spin on the mountain bike (I borrowed one of her bikes) on some totally ripping Bend singletrack, followed by dinner. Good times.

Next day we loaded back up to rain, reloaded the car, and drove further North, arriving at our Motel 6 in The Dalles around lunch. People keep asking me why we stayed in The Dalles instead of Hood River, since The Dalles is kind of ghetto and is about 17 miles from Hood. Let me just say this - good luck finding a cheap hotel in Hood River. I prerode much of the time trial course (in the rain) and then drove to Hood River for our pre-race team meeting, and for the distribution of Metromint kits.

The next day was stage 1 - a 52 mile road race with about 3600 feet of climbing. Doesn't sound too bad, right? The plan for the day was to keep everything together and preserve all of our GC options, since we had 3 girls that could take it. Unfortunately I was dropped after about 8 miles. To be fair, the climbing started on mile 1. And it was fast. And there were attacks. I was doing fine, moving up, responding. And then I was spit out the back. D'oh! We rallied a group of 5 of us and pulled fast for the rest of the race, finishing only 9 minutes down on the main pack, which finished in a field sprint. I felt decent for most of it, but didn't eat enough and bonked on the 2nd climb of the day with about 1 K to the top. I hung on, but just barely. Our group was 7 by the finish and I won the sprint for 39th. Wow. The day had been pretty nice, but about 1 minute after I finished the rain started. Oh, Oregon. This is why I live in the desert. Good timing, anyway.

Stage 2 was a 18.9 mile time trial on probably the most difficult course I've tackled. The climbs, the wind, the descents, the kamikaze squirrel that almost took me out . . . it was tough. And to top it off I didn't have a very good day. It started out OK, and then I was passed by my 30 second girl and my moral took a digger. Then on the climb I was passed by my 1 minute girl. Then the rest of the race was a struggle to keep my power above 200 watts. Seriously suck. Plus I just wasn't digging that Metromint chamois, so to top off my suckiness I was seriously uncomfortable. I finished the race and went back to the hotel where I proceeded to feel sorry for myself for the rest of the day. At least until I learned that my teammate Molly had WON and taken over the GC lead! That boosted my moral significantly. Heather finished 5th and Jane 7th. We had the GC lead and some serious contenders in the top 10, so who cares about my lousy race?

Stage 3 was the queen stage - a monstrous road race with 8600 feet of climbing over 72 miles. And we had GC to protect. The plan was for myself and another girl to patrol the front before the first climb of the day, which came about 20 miles into the race. I had my job. I could do my job, and then when I got dropped I could be content in the fact that I'd helped the team. As it turned out, I lasted quite a bit longer than 20 miles. So, the race started with a long, not particularly steep descent. I worked my way towards the front and sat on teammate Amanda's wheel while she made sure nothing went off the front. Then we had a pee break, which I was actually pretty happy about. Some Hagens Berman girls were like "what's a pee break?" and didn't want to stop. Seriously? You've never heard of a pee break? Anyway, Molly pulled rank on them and told them that if the race leader called for a pee break it was customary to accomodate them. Radical. Anyway, after that I found myself at the back again. I was trying to edge up the road without much luck. Then the attacks started. I saw Amanda at the front chasing and thought "crap! That should be me up there, Amanda has to cover the 2nd part of the race!" So I gunned it to the front and helped chase. Mission accomplished. Then we hit the climb, and I found myself on the front, again with Amanda. What's the best way to make sure you don't get dropped on the climb? I say set the pace. So we set the pace up the 5 mile climb to discourage attacks and keep things moving at a pace that I could just sustain. It felt great to lead a climb at a race like Mt. Hood. There were no QOM points for the women, but the signs were still there from the Pro men's race. Myself and Sue Butler "sprinted" for it, and I "beat" her - just for fun. People laughed, it was good times. This was followed by a fast descent, and then we hit some kickers before the real climbing began. At that point I was on the back, hoping for the best. I got gapped off a few times but chased back on. Finally I cracked, about 40 miles into the race. I knew that I'd done my job well and I trusted my teammates to finish it off. So for the next 30 miles I rode through some beautiful Oregon forest, up some long ass climbs, and was perfectly content knowing that the time cut was 30%. As it turned out, Molly held onto the lead. Yay!

The next day it was raining. A lot. And we had a crit to race. The organizers decided that the crit would not be counted for GC, as the conditions could be considered unsafe. A number of girls opted out of racing. Metromint took the line, however, out of respect to the yellow jersey. It was really wet for our race. From what I hear, ours was the wettest of the day. Great. Without getting into a whole lot of unnecessary and demoralizing detail, only one of us finished, but none of us crashed. Molly won the overall. Life was good.

Me and Cody drove home after the awards ceremony. I should say, actually, that I drove to Bend, then slept almost all the way from Bend to Reno, while Cody stayed awake driving until 3 AM. Whatta guy!

One last thing - if in Hood River I totally recommend Dirty Fingers Bike Shop - the guys there were awesome in helping Cody find places to ride, and it seemed like a great bike shop. I do not, however, recommend Salmon Cyclery in The Dalles - that guy was utterly unhelpful, a jerk, and a total tool.