In the South

Last Thursday, I flew into Atlanta and I'm not 100% sure I knew what I was getting in for. I've been having a bit of "culture shock" being down in the South and all - but in a good way. For instance, on Sunday I tasted grits for the first time and I keep throwing in a "y'all" just to keep it interesting.

Saturday night we raced Athens Twilight - and came away with a VERY impressive result - Jen Wilson took Vanderkitten's first podium of the year with a sprint to third out of an impressive breakaway group. Kele Murdin (who's guest riding for us) came 6th and I sprinted to 10th across the line in the group gallop...which wasn't too shabby considering that coming out of the first corner on the last lap I clipped a pedal (that's what happens when your heart rate has been 205 plus for the last two minutes - NO JOKE) and the bike did a cool maneouver (I learned it from Jenelle on the BMX!) and my wheel smacked the pavement pretty hard. I thought that I had put the thing out of true and I spent the next couple of corners praying that I didn't have a flat. Go figure, all I did was burp the tire so I made it across the line without any casualties...but I'm guessing that might have added a little to the rolling resistance.
Anyways - enough bike racing - I wanna talk about the SOUTH!

First off - this evening we are staying in Beaufort - sounds like a nice place...but remember prounounciation the A-merica way and it it B-U-ferd gorgeous eh? It's my second experience of this type as I was staying with Leigh in Decatur pronounced D-CA-ter...maybe I am not doing it justice...but I have found it entertaining at least!

The race description describes Beaufort as "surrounded by magestic marshland"...I find that to be a funny sentence...but hey, who am I to judge.

Bottom line is that I'm really enjoying the Southern hospitality (if poor pronounciation of French names) so far and I can't wait for the series of races we have coming up over the next 5 days!

Good Old Roubaix

Harris that is. Alena pointed out to me earlier this week that this was the first year in 6 years that she hasn't taken the line for this event. I missed having her out there - but I will also use this opportunity to give a shout out of congratulations to Alena and Dean on their recent engagement. So I took to the line without my perrenial teammate - or any teammate for that matter...and it was a little frustrating to say the least.

I ended the day in 2nd by winning the field sprint after some good strong teamwork from Giant placed Steph Roorda off the front solo. There was an absence of horsepower in the pack and so a good deal of the chasing was left to yours truly. I have found a few fun pics - but I'm giving super props to Jono's mom for this super pro looking photo.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to hooking up with the rest of the VKats down in Georgia next week - SE crits here we come!

Jenny 1, Redlands 1

K, so I'm lame and I'm TOTALLY reusing team camp pictures (pirated from MJ's Facebook) but I wanted a picture - it makes the blog more exciting :P

But onto last weekend - I won't lie - it wasn't pretty folks - but I did come out on top of the Redlands Classic this time! Three stages (plus the prologue) and I got a finish...in with all the sprinters at the bottom of the list - but no DNF - and I'm holding on to that!

On the upside I now have a killer set of wheels on my BH courtesy of Spinergy. They are HAWT - nice white spokes and all - I'm liking. And for another shameless plug - my Specialized helmet. Chris has noted that he can see my entire head through the helmet - but it's the comfiest thing I have ever had on my head - partially because it's nice and light and ACTUALLY FITS my head. Neat concept I know - but it does!!!

Now I'm chillin and getting ready to defend my title at Harris Roubaix tomorrow morning. I'm up against a tough contingent of my old team :( the Giant girls and the other strong women of BC cycling - notably Sarah Stewart and her Total Restauration team and the Trek team AND a great number of other girls whom I'm sure will make things rather difficult for me tomorrow. But I've had a lovely dinner of spaghetti and homemade pesto (made by yours truly and I'm quite positive I will never be able to have store bought pesto ever again!). Should be a good one.

And for now I'm off to bed - hoping that my legs recover that little bit more from the evil hills of southern California by tomorrow's race!