Tour of California.

 

 

 

 

 

 

10 days, 8 stages, and 7 hotels later I can official say that I have survived my first professional cycling tour expo. Woohoo! The Tour of California was all that I thought it would be, epic cycling, lots-o-work, pro athlete sightings daily, and a couple of delicious meals thrown into the mix. Figuring out how to eat well, healthy, and affordably while on the road is something I am still figuring out. This is something I hope to share with y’all in the future. I’ll tell you it involves a lot of fruit, nuts, water, and TRX.

Back to the Tour. My favorite day of the tour was stage 2 in Palm Springs. After a grueling 120 miles the peloton faced a 5 mile wall-of-a-climb up the tram road to the mountain top finish. Our booth was set up along the climb just 500 meters from the finish, perfect for spectating. By the time the riders reached the 500 meter mark they were swerving back and forth across the road (not something you see every day from Tour de France caliber riders) and they were sweating so much you would have thought a stream of water was being poured on them continuously. One rider was so spent he just fell off his bike less than 100 meters from us. Totally epic.

Palm Springs was a day for the strong men and I expected to see the 23 year old phenom Peter Sagan leading the charge up the climb (Columbian climber Janier Acevedo won the stage). So did his team director who just so happened to be standing right behind me. Quite some time after the first rider passed I saw the lime green glow of a group of Cannondale riders making their way up the climb. Tucked inside the group was Sagan himself! As the group rolled by Sagan stopped and proceeded to exchange strong words in Italian with his director before finishing the stage. I stood there mildly star stuck snapping pictures of the awkward encounter. Goal #1 of the ToC achieved. 

Other highlights included: Evelyn Stevens, and Julie Dibens sightings at the Time Trial Invitational at stage 6, KP accompanying me on the drive down to San Diego, 2 great bike rides in Santa Barbara, and delicious sea food chowder at Splash Cafe in Pismo Beach, a bomb scare in Livermoore, and heckling riders struggling on hills while riding Specialized's new electric bike the Turbo.  

A New York State of Mind

   

       

     

   

The final stop on my east coast road trip was New York City for Bike Expo New York show. After two days at the most ridiculous expo I have ever attended I ventured over to Brooklyn to drink bloody Mary's, lounge in Prospect Park, and eat Indian food with my sister and her boyfriend, The Jeopardy Champ. After a day of solid recovery I found my way back to Manhattan to take in as much as I could in my last couple of hours before jetting back to California.

Empire State Building. Books. New York Public Library. Tulips. Central Park sculpture. Essex House. The Plaza Hotel. New York Public Library lobby. Brooklyn brown stone. Central Park. New York City Athletic Club. Grand Central. Prayer flags. (more) New York City Public Library. Suits.

The City of Brotherly Love

   

                        

 

I ended up on a last minute east coast road trip last week that landed me in Buffalo, Baltimore, Philadelphia  and finally New York City. Baltimore and Philly were two cities that I had never visited, and while my stops there were brief I tried to soak up as much of the cities as I could.

In Baltimore I visited the guys at Twenty20 Cycles, drove by Charm City Cakes, and sat on the water and enjoyed a soft shell crab sandwich. I think that covers Baltimore.

My BFF, and super brain Kendra is a med student at Penn so I was thrilled to get to spend some quality time with my favorite genius. She was packing to head to the Kentucky Derby so we stayed in drinking wine and I made her my favorite spinach salad (baby spinach, apples, thinly sliced onion, goat cheese, candied pecans, and a champagne vinaigrette dressing). Before leaving the City of Brotherly Love I wandered along the Schuylkill River and witnessed the hustle and bustle of the Philly commute.

Sea Otter Classic

 

 

No rest for the weary here! 36 hours after my return from Battenkill I was headed on down to Monterey, California for the Sea OtterClassic. Sea Otter is a 4 day racing extravaganza with events ranging from professional dual slalom (which I didn’t even know was a sport!) to a road and mountain bike grand fondo. There’s a little something for everyone at Sea Otter.

My top 5 moments from Sea Otter:

·         Giving Marianne Vos a high five, and her calling me a bad ass in her adorable Dutch accent (only because I called her one first).

·         Picking up bits of wisdom from Rebecca Rusch at her first stop on the Gold Rusch Tour. My girl crush just grew x10.

·          Having a quiet dinner at my most favorite restaurant in the whole-wide-world, Flying Fish Grill. They just celebrated their 20th anniversary, too!

·         Riding bikes through the campus of my high school and being offered dinner and tickets to the student play. The chocolate milk was better than I remembered!

·         Getting exposed to new sports. Downhill racing, dual slalom, bad ass BMXers… these kids are incredible!! 

I'm on my way back to the east coast for a quick road trip and Bike Expo New York! 

Tour of the Battenkill

 

 

My first adventure with Specialized took me to Cambridge, NY for the Tour of the Battenkill. Battenkill is a brutal 64 mile road race through the hills of upstate New York and is considered one of the most difficult road races in the states. Throw in some dirt roads, near freezing temperature, and a few rouge snowflakes and you have yourself a real sufferfest. Ally Stacher of the super-bad-ass Team Specialized Lululemon was there and after riding off the front with Fortin Veronique of Pasta-Zara for 62 miles she took home second place and a jug of chocolate milk. Ally said it was one of the hardest races she has ever done, and this girl has done some gnarly racing in Europe! While the 2,000+ riders were out destroying themselves I huddled around a propane heater and chatted with people about bikes. It’s what I do best.