No Good Double Cross

Cyclocross again... I'd forgotten how much fun it is to see everybody. Yesterday's race was in an old west town (here in the Midwest, no less), the Kettle Moraine Ranch. The horses were corralled near the back part of the race course, the goats and the miniature pony right by the timing tent, and there was a rooster somewhere that I never saw, but heard throughout the race. The goats were pretty disinterested, but the horses followed the racing throughout the day. Needless to say, it was a pretty cool course.

A shot of the main drag.


Cowgirl Heidi at rounds up racers to register. Hee hee!


Some of the goats.


In the morning it rained like crazy. Cale and I were on the road, and the 4's got dumped on while they were lined up to race. It made for some good cross conditions. By the time I raced at 1:15, it was still slimy in some parts, but a lot less difficult than the morning race.

I lined up with only two other women. One of the cross ladies has gotten pregnant, and I suspect more than a few were up in Chequamegon. This treacherous combo of babies and other races was enough to lower the attendance at the cross race. It was announced that the winner of the second lap (in each category, masters and women) would receive $50... chances were good! For the first lap, I tailed a woman from Gear Grinder, looking for strengths and weaknesses. She was slower up the hills, but in some places I would fall behind and have to accelerate to catch up.


Photo by Ben VC.

On the beginning of the second lap, I made my move. I had decided that I would probably be bested for the win, but I wanted to scoop up the $50 prime. I kicked it in and put some distance between us on the hill after the start/finish line, and stayed ahead for the rest of the lap. My stint in the lead was short, however. I was tired after going for the prime, and eventually gave it up. I was pleased, though. I wasn't going to win it, so I burned some matches, got the prime and then settled back into second, where I was sure I would have wound up, anyway.

But fate would not have it so! And lucky for me. In the spiral part of the course and before the truly muddy part, there were a lot of unavoidable rocks hidden in the dirt/mud. I was running tubulars, and the woman in first place was not. On the last lap, I found her walking her bike with a flat. I'm guessing she pinch flatted on the rocks. It might be the first time I've ever believed that better equipment won a race.

And that's about it. Tubulars saved the day. Hooray!

After that I enjoyed a beverage or two and did some spectating with friends while sporting the flag. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday at all.


Photo by Ben VC.


Photo by John.

Minimizing

A kind of perfect storm has been in the works for a while. While working long hours, things got messy around the apartment. I had just long enough to make messes, but not enough time to clean anything up. Two, the bike room seems to be filling up. And that's a large room. Three, I've been reading some minimalist blogs lately, some so extreme that people pare their lives down to 100 items. All these things combined were finally enough to get me to take a hard look at all my junk. While 100-item living is decidedly not for me, there are some things that could stand to go, and others that could stand to be organized.

Cool chair w/ a good looking pillow that's color goes nicely with the books on the book shelf? Great, but I haven't sat in it in about a year or so. Gone!



The closet. So sad. My unmentionables were stuffed in shoe boxes and a garbage can thing that I've had since college. It's so shameful. Could you even call this living?!



Since the closet's a weird size, I went online to find some containers with which to organize. I found some options, the best of which was $20 per box. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay the man $80 to house my skivvies. I'd rather spend that ON skivvies. So I found some nice three-ply cardboard boxes, painted them, put knobs on them, cut out some vinyl to label them and called it a day. They don't look quite as nice as what I could have bought, but... SO?



Next on the organizing block: books. I can't bear to part with many books, but I'm going to wrangle them. Currently they're infesting the apartment.

Art books, library books.


Design books, kids' books.


Big books, little books.


Oh, books.






I love 'em. I'll have to post an after photo for those eagerly awaiting the solution that I shall arrive at. All in due time, fans. All in due time.

Now, to attend to the detritus cluttering up the couch.

Guess who's back, suckers!

After a few weeks of hard work and late hours, everything's rolling in and I can schedule extra curricular activities again. Life is sweet. I'm even done with endurance races that I can barely endure for a while (but that's another post for another time).

Some stems that I worked on a while ago came in last week. I had a bunch of bad ideas and then finally this one, and at the same time as the product manager. I showed him a printout of what I had been working on and he showed me a piece of paper he had been sketching on. Same concept.



On Friday I stayed late working on the product cards. These are headed to Eurobike to be posted in the trade show booth. Five hours it took to print, laminate and cut these suckers out! I've got ideas on how to make it faster the next go 'round, but here we are.



Last but certainly not least, the catalog I've been working on for weeks is done. Can you imagine how good it feels to have boxes and boxes of a 90 page catalog stacked in your office? All the hours of work, neatly packaged and stored in the corner. (It feels great.)



Even more over here!



Now, to be reintroduced to normal life.

Cale's company had an outing on Lake Winnebago. Booze cruise!



Cale and I went to the farmer's market in Riverwest. Like a real yuppie grownup, I got just the most charming bunch of flowers. Here the cat starts to make a meal of them.



I get to eat dinners that don't come from the refrigerator at work; no more leftovers or frozen pot pies. Once again, Chef Cale prepares my meals.

Elite CX Team skinsuits

At long, long last, the Elite skinsuit designs are done. First the women's, which is mine all mine! I hope it won't be too much pink. But then, this is Team Pegasus...



Second, the men's. The stripes look pretty flat and tame in the file, but I think once the skinsuit's on it'll be a little more dynamic.



Very glad I got the designs out before Eurobike/Interbike totally took over. Yipee!

O2S 2010

I won the O2S SS title for a second year in a row, this year against four other women.

However, they were right; I did not deserve a preferred start this year. I thought if I were toward the front of the starters, I could tuck in and draft at the start of the race, which is a long stretch of paved road. I remembered getting passed last year, but I figured this year I could just try harder... that just wasn't the case. I spun out and watched what seemed like hundreds of racers pass me. A friend even tried to help me out by slowing so I could draft, but I just couldn't keep up. It was disheartening.

Note to self: SELF. Do NOT ride singlespeed in 2011. The prize money sounds good now, but you'll be left with a few bills and the suspicion that you should have rode it geared.

The rest of the race didn't go much better... or much worse, I guess. Head down, suffer, keep the pedals turning up the hills (I misstyped that 'hells', my real feelings showing through.). I can at least be sure that I couldn't have gone much faster or harder, because at the end I was delicately trying to avoid cramping in my quads, calf muscles and arms, strangely enough. That's what you get for not riding outside of races for something close to two months.

By the time I rolled in, I was so dirty. I would say it was in the top ten dirtiest I've ever been (made a top ten afterall!). There was a quarter mile section of the trail underwater- up to the bottom bracket through most of it. There was sand. There was mud. At one point I tried passing through a rutted muddy section and wound up skidding on my ass through the grass alongside the trail. Toward the end of the race I took a sandy section too fast and fell in that, too. I had a good base of fruit and spilled energy drink all over me, so the sand stuck on really well.

Maybe about a third into the race, I went feral. At one checkpoint at the top of a hill, the guy in front of me drank half of a Gatorade and threw it at the garbage. He missed and it fell out of the bag. My sights locked on and I scooped it up, unscrewed the cap and drank the rest, a little Gatorade sloshing out and down my chin. But it's cool; since it didn't go in the bag, it's not like I was drinking garbage, right? Right?

I was a consuming machine. I drank from my waterbottles, ate an entire goo packet without gagging over the consistency, drank water and energy mix from almost every aid station (well, I drank part of it. Part of it ended up all over my face.) and plucked food from station workers with deadly accuracy.

When I wasn't grabbing for energy, I was expending a hell of a lot of it. Even though I'm disappointed with my overall results, I was happy with my bike handling. I loved to see the 'Caution, Fast Descent' signs. During a low point of the race, I blew past a guy who was being, in my opinion, altogether too cautious. That made me feel a little better. I think I've definitely improved since last year's race.

Beyond the race, it was a great weekend. We left on Thursday night and intended to come back on Monday night, but I caught a ride back on Sunday night so I could get back at the catalog at work. We went swimming several times in the stream...



12 pack down to the river, a few hours of sun and swimming, and 12 empty cans back up. That's how you life the High Life.



I had to soak them for a good long while, but eventually the dirt leggings came off.



And to round out the photos from this weekend, a shot of the Sarlacc pit toward the end of the race. Luckily when I fell in the sand, I wasn't trapped, to be digested over a thousand years.



P.S. Ask Cale about being covered in leeches.

...

Eurobike crunch time is upon us. This week I started working some late hours at work on HBG's product catalog so it'll be ready in time for Eurobike. It's so hectic every year, but it always seems to be worth it. Hopefully this year, like last year, I'll pull off something I'm satisfied with and proud of.

So, sorry I haven't been updating often lately, but it's been a week of getting home around 7:00, then hopping back on the computer to finish up the Team Pegasus kit design for the elite cyclocross team. Computer, computer, computer! This evening when I got home, I was headed inside to get back to it. I glanced up at the sky and walked a few more steps toward the door. I stopped and turned around, though. I remembered one of my high school English teacher's favorite quotes, from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

So I stood and looked. And I felt the perfect lazy breeze and the warm temperature, and I squinted a little in the sunlight. Sanguine. For those moments I felt sanguine. Then I dug around for a camera, shot you this lovely photo, and reluctantly went inside, back to my cruel mistress, the PowerBook.



I'm guilty of looking too far ahead sometimes, I think. Wanting and wishing for what's next and not fully enjoying what's right in front of me, whether it be for a moment, or a day, or a summer.

This is your friendly local blogger waxing poetic about a mediocre sunset seen from an alley and reminding you...

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

What's the opposite of 'preferred'?

Word on the streets is, I didn't get a preferred start for Ore to Shore, despite my win in the single speed class last year. They explain the process of choosing preferred starters here- they have to be pretty picky, so I understand. I wasn't in the top 10 overall women. However, residing right alongside this understanding is a determination born of a sense of being jilted... I'm gonna roll with it. I don't get truly excited about a lot of races these days, but having the sense that I'm being told 'no' gets me fired up, and I can use that to tear up the course.

Kid gloves are off, Ore to Shore. The competition is truly fierce, but I'm going to get as close to the top ten as I possibly can.