April 30th
People always say in Ketchum, “If you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes.” That saying couldn’t be more true today as I awoke to a fresh blanket of snow. We were teased with warm weather last week, followed by some rain and now snow. The good news is that when summer arrives, I will be hardened and fit from the hours spent on the indoor training, not to mention the backcountry skiing has been sweet in recent weeks. I’m off to see what’s on TV, and spin up the trainer for a bit!
Cheers
Reba
Back in the Swing of Things
It’s always hard to come out of the winter and put yourself out there for the first races of the year. Short distances and speed racing are also not my strength. But it was good training and this is the time of year where I have to take my medicine and do some tough racing in hopes that it’ll pay off later in the season when it counts.
After Sea Otter, I went straight to Red Bull HQ in Santa Monica for more power meetings and a great Monday lunch meeting with beers and margaritas! I love how Red Bull operates and it’s always super fun to visit them. I also spent a early early morning at Malibu with my friend Shanti, trying to learn a new sport, surfing. I must say that being in the water that early was beautiful!
The multi-faceted trip continued with an overnight stop in Salt Lake City for the grand opening of Specialized Concept Store, Bingham Cyclery. It was a women’s event and there were around 200 people shopping and getting psyched about bikes.
I’m finally home and back in my own house. It was a good trip, but there was no down time and very little time for myself. There was a bit of Planes, Trains and Automobiles situation getting home, so I was fried when I finally walked in the door. To top off the crazy travel, I arrived to a bunch of dead plants at my house. The two cactus survived, so I guess it’s time I stop trying to grow plants other than cactus.
This past week at home has been an awesome mountain Spring week. Temps ranging from 27 F to 65 F depending on the day. It has been windy, clear and crisp. The dirt trails are slowly opening up and everyone is out on the bike path and on the trails. The shop is full of bikes getting tunes and everyone is psyched to ride, including me. I’m still tired from the cumulative affects of the Cape Epic and the travel to CA, and the crappy bit of poison oak I got at Sea Otter, but being on my home trails and riding with friends has brought my motivation out of hibernation.
The next race is a couple weeks out, a 12 hour USA Cycling ultra endurance series race in TN. I’m currently leading that series, so I’m hoping for a good result there.
Until then, I’m relishing in being home, riding my new bikes and maybe shopping for a new cactus for the house.
Cheers
Reba
Racin at the Sea Otter!
So far, my time at the venue has been spent riding with journalists, checking out the new bikes, pre-riding the cross country course and connecting with friends. The mechanics have also been tweaking all of our new race bikes and I have been trying a few different options with prototype tires, new Rotor Rings and some SRAM products that are just coming out. It’s a bit of trial and error, but this is the perfect way to work out some of the kinks.
We spent a lot of time this week at Specialized, talking, looking, and tinkering with all the new products. I wish I could have taken pictures, but something tells me they wouldn’t like that. We also did the infamous Specialized “lunch ride” which is way faster than most would think. Then again there were four world champs there! My favorite part though was the museum. All the classic bikes they have made over the years, and even one sweet VW van are in there. I wanted to grab one of them for a cool vintage town bike, but apparently they are valuable or something!
I also raced the Super D. It was my first gravity event EVER. I signed up because I knew this course was not very technical and figured it would be a great way to work on one of my weaknesses. I pre-rode the course and there was nothing technical about it. It was a high speed fire road with a lot of pedaling and some loose, gravel cornering. You could basically go as fast as you were willing. I had Benno put on some beefier tires than the usual Fast Traks and opened up the suspension on my Era. I tried to ask Rafa in broken Spanish for some advice, but all I could get from him was not to touch the brakes. I’d never even watched a Super D race before, so I had a bit of apprehension. I was filming the race with a GoPro helmet cam and my main goal was to get some downhill practice, get some race footage and get to the finish line without any injuries. I was successful on all fronts.
The race started LeMans style with a short run to the bikes. My first mistake was accidentally down shifting when I grabbed my handlebars to jump on the bike. I wasted a bit of time getting back into the right gear. Super D traditionally involves a bit of pedaling, so many of the XC riders do well on these courses. The whole race lasted just under 8 minutes and it was a lung buster. There were 3 climbs of under a minute each and they about killed me. About 4 minutes into the race, it was clear that my position was not really going to change, so I just rode and had fun. I must admit, the speed was somewhat addicting and I crossed the finish line with a huge smile on my face. I’m not going to make any predictions, but I could see doing more of these sort of events in the future.
The short track race was today and it was awesome to watch. Specialized had a strong showing with Lene finishing 2nd in the pro women. Todd Wells won the pro men and Burry was 2nd. Christoph flatted and and did not finish. Conrad Stoltz (Xterra world champ) also entered and really impressed me in an event that he’s never raced before. Sam Hill, another Specialized athlete also won the dual slalom. Rafa, unfortunately, crashed during his run and roughed himself up pretty well.
The cross country is the main event for most of the team members. I’m racing that event and expecting the competition to be gnarly and the start to be really fast. Stay tuned for results.
Cheers
Reba
Concept Store Opening in SLC
Next Tuesday night, I’ll be in Salt Lake City for the grand opening of the new Specialized Concept Store, Bingham Cyclery. There will be wine, appetizers, Red Bull and brand new Specialized gear to check out! I’ll be there to chat about racing, nutrition, training and riding bikes! For more info, click on the invitation and be sure to RSVP! You’ll get some prizes if you come!
Cheers
Reba
At Specialized in Morgan Hill
Yesterday was spent at Specialized HQ connecting with marketing people, product designers, mechanics and web folks. I brought them cookies and brownies from home and that was a big hit. I got to test ride a sweet prototype Ruby road bike and did a sweet ride up into the hills. 1 hour uphill and 20 minutes down. The whole mtb team arrived today including Xterra, XC riders, 4 Cross and DH. Tomorrow is back in the office for a team briefing on new equipment! I can’t take any pics of that, but I will report back what I can. Check out what Conrad wrote about the NorCal MTB event. Conrad Stolz Blog
Cheers
Reba
I'm Famous, Well in Canmore at Least!
So Canmore, a town in Alberta, in Canada, for those who aren’t maple leaf fans, has a tourism guide. Now that summer is ramping up and the world’s are right around the corner, they are starting some advertising. 100,000 of these guides are being sent out with my picture on the back cover! So in Canmore I’m famous! That’s me in the bottom right.
Reba
Off to Cali, to Ride with High Schoolers
I’m headed out to Sea Otter a week early so I can be part of the NorCal high school league “ride with the champions” organized by Specialized. Ned Overend, Conrad Stolz and I are riding with the kids and giving them tips. Also on the same day, same location is a “mother of all demos” demo day open to the public. Ned, Conrad and I will also be around for that. The link for Mike’s bikes tells the details for the bike demo. http://mikesbikes.com/page.cfm?pageId=586 Should be a fun time, then it’s off to Sea Otter for some suffering!
Cheers
Reba
Relaxing in Idaho
Ahh, it feels good to settle and relax a bit. Finally feeling caught up after that long trip home from South Africa, and the weather here has been great. The springtime weather has hit Ketchum and its been sunny sunny sunny! I went hiking this weekend in the Sawtooths up north and skied to the top of Abe’s Chair for some corn snow. And let me tell you how good it felt to not be sitting on a bike seat!
I’m off to California next week for Sea Otter Classic and then to Santa Monica for some meetings, which unfortunetly means I have to pack again…and move into another hotel. Alas, California weather is awesome right now so I can’t complain. Here are some of the pics from this weekend.
Bye
Reba
A Little Video
I found this on youtube from the OR show this winter, just a short vid.
Enjoy
Reba
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68u7jtUTIe8]
Cape Epic: Final Report
All In a Week’s Work
The Cape Epic has been over for 5 days now and I’ve been struggling to write the final report. Not because I have bad news to report, but I’ve just been busy catching up on sleep, eating food that is not squeezed out of a bottle, getting a pedicure and making the 36 hour jaunt home. 8 days of high intensity racing in a row have taken a toll on me.
Overall, the race was harder than I expected. The competition was stiff, the pace was high and so were the temperatures. Matthew and I had a solid race and we worked great together as a team. Although I had originally been hoping for a podium finish, instead we were only able to pull off 6th in the mixed field and 45th in the general classification. I was feeling a little disappointed in our placing until I looked up some results from last year. Just for reference, 45th would have placed us in 3rd in the mixed division last year. The 5th place mixed team this year was 2nd last year. In 2008, Christina and I were also riding in about 150th place in the general classification before she broke her collarbone. So I was riding much higher in the field this year. The course this year was also shorter and all of the divisions rode approximately 15% less time over 8 days than the course last year. I do think the longer stages in 2008 suited me better as well.
Perhaps it seems futile to pull up these comparisons and statistics in order to justify my experience. However, this race was an important training tool for the season and a gauge of how my winter training has been going. At first glance, I was really disappointed in my performance and was having some serious doubts about my fitness. After deeper analysis and realizing that this year I was riding in the top 50 teams out of 600 each day, I have been able to get a more realistic look on the benefits of this event.
Here are a few key points that I came away with from the Cape Epic:
1. Matthew is faster than I am. Racing as a female in a mixed team is just plain hard if you’re racing with a fast guy. It’s always more fun to be the stronger person on a team and this time, I was the weaker link. Matthew was pushing the pace and I was constantly on the rivet and never really riding at my own pace. It’s great to get out of my comfort zone and push hard than I would on my own, but it does wreak havoc on the ego and makes it more difficult to stop and smell the roses along the way, especially in the grips of an asthma attack!
2. The mountain bike brotherhood/sisterhood is alive and well. One of the best parts of racing is the travel and the like-minded people I get to interact with. Matthew and I rode and bonded with teams from Israel, Germany, Spain, Brazil and South Africa. Although, I learned very few names, I got to know these people from their riding style, their race jerseys and their passion for the sport. We exchanged drafts, encouragement and sweaty hugs at the end of each day. This universal glue from sharing hard work and the joy of riding a bike spans the globe and exposes what people are really made of.
3. Training is a long-term, often frustrating process. Pay now and you will not receive your payback until months or years later. There is often very little immediate gratification. This cycle of breaking down and building up is tedious. For someone who is impatient like me, this process can often challenge my motivation and psyche. I completely trust Matthew as my coach and he has never steered me wrong. Much of the reason I need a coach is for the reassurance that what I am doing is working. After spending 8 days of every waking and sleeping moment in close quarters with Matthew, our bond as friends and working partners has grown even deeper. He has seen me at my best and worst and this experience will help him personalize my training program even more. Our goal for this race was to get a week of early season intensity in my preparation for 24 Hour solo world championships in July. A podium or higher placing would have been icing on the cake, but I have to remind myself that the Cape Epic was not my primary goal for the year. It was an important building block that is now stored in my legs!
Here are few key statistics that we gathered from our Suunto T6c watches during the race. A full training article using this information is under way, but here is a teaser of what was included in a week’s work at the Cape Epic.
Distance: 685 kilometers
Ascent: 14, 663 meters
Total race time: 35 hours 47 minutes 51 seconds
Top Speed: 59.87 km/hr
Average Speed: 18.35 km/hr
Total Breaths Matthew: 98,482
Total Breaths Rebecca: 84,269
Total Kcal burned Matthew: 32,878 kcal
Total Kcal burned Rebecca: 17,882 kcal
Average Respiratory Rate Matthew: 45.87 breaths per min
Average Respiratory Rate Rebecca: 39.25 breaths per min
Max Heart Rate day 1 Matthew: 190 bpm
Average Heart Rate day 1 Matthew: 178 bpm
Max Heart Rate day 8 Matthew: 168 bpm
Average Heart Rate day 8 Matthew: 126 bpm
Max Heart Rate day 1 Rebecca: 173 bpm
Average Heart Rate day 1 Rebecca: 164 bpm
Max Heart Rate day 8 Rebecca: 150 bpm
Average Heart Rate day 8 Rebecca: 125 bpm
Thanks for tuning in. Next up, Sea Otter. I hope to see some of you there.
I’ll be at the Specialized booth. Come by if you want to chat and hear more stories.
Reba