Belgium, but no waffles yet...

The weather in Belgium is very similar to spring in Victoria. It tends to rain often, but there is usually clearing in the afternoon - the air is fresh and the foliage is lush. Life seems very civilized here, especially in our small town. Stores close early and everything is closed on Sunday – a refreshing change from our round the clock life. The grocery stores do not provide plastic bags – a much smarter strategy to decreasing plastic consumption. You learn quickly to bring your own bags when the alternative is juggling (and dropping) your groceries after buying more than you can carry home. Our life is also luxuriously simple right now – we ride our bikes, make our meals, stretch, read etc. It is so wonderful! Serge is our super mechanic who takes care of our bikes and Michelle is our Sougnier who will be taking care of bottles, massage etc. for races. Tomorrow we will get our first massage in preparation for our first race on Friday...I can’t wait!
We had an incredible ride yesterday – we took winding roads to a castle in Namur where we did a few hill repeats to get the legs ready for racing. I was quite distracted by the panoramic views and stone work - all I wanted to do was stop and take pictures! Everyone in our house enjoys the same sort of meals that I do –huge salads with all sorts of delicious toppings. We have been enjoying them every night, because soon we will be eating the food that is provided by the race organizers and hotels. I’ve been told that veggies are rarely on the menu. I’m sure it will be nice to have someone else making our food during the racing, but I think I will miss my simple cooking and salad engineering.

A hop, skip, and jump...

Bonjour from Belgium! We made it safely to Belgium after a long journey – a hop from Vancouver to Toronto, a skip to Frankfurt, and finally a short flight to Brussels. We arrived quite early on Friday and so we tried our best to stay upright and awake, but after 30 waking hours we succumbed to the fatigue and slept. The first night I had the most incredible 13 hour sleep :-) Last night wasn’t so enjoyable...only 3 hours.
We are staying in the small town of Sambreville, approximately 80 km south of Brussels. We have a team house that is walking distance to the town and most importantly a short trip to the bakery and grocer. We have been on two great rides – narrow winding roads through picturesque country and many small villages. The country side is lush and green – after riding in a down pour today we understand why.
Today was the Liège-Bastogne-Liège – one of the famous European classics. Although the race was fairly near, we are all still feeling the impact of the long travel and so we opted to watch the race live on TV. It is amazing to be in a place where cycling is such an important part of the culture. The cars wave and cheer at the sight of riders - a refreshing change from the angry honks and yells that we often receive at home.
Well I just wanted to let you know that we had arrived – safe and sound, bikes intact. The riding is incredible and I’m having tons fun!
Our house does not have internet, so we are at Michelle’s house (team soignier) to use the internet. We leave for our first race in Luxembourg on Thursday and then we will move on to Switzerland. Dan is close by and will come to visit in Luxembourg. I will try to update and add pictures again soon. Hope you are all well!

Walla Walla and moving on...

I depart bright and early tomorrow morning for Belgium, but I thought I would post a few pictures from last weekends race in Walla Walla, WA. It was an exciting race - the top 5 riders were separated by less than 1 minute. I finished 2nd on the GC thanks to a solid time trial and some great team work. Total Restoration also won the team competition, showing that we will be the team to beat in the Pacific Northwest this year.

1 224 Macgregor, Moriah CAN Glotman Simpson Cycling Team 3:54:23 @ 00:00

2 210 Stewart, Sarah CAN Total Restoration Cycling Team 3:54:31 @ 00:08

3 207 Bailey, Patricia USA Wines of Washington/BikeSale 3:54:38 @ 00:15

4 228 Barber, Sarah USA Kristin Armstrong Cycling Acad 3:55:20 @ 00:57

5 227 Roorda, Steph CAN Jazz Apple 3:55:22 @ 00:59

The following is some specific information about my trip...

Events:

GP Stad Roesedale, UCI 1.2 Belgium (not confirmed)
GP Elsy Jacobs, UCI 1.1 Luxembourg http://www.elsy-jacobs.lu/
Tour de Berne, UCI WC Switzerland http://www.berner-rundfahrt.ch/
Tour de l’Aude, UCI 2.1 France http://www.tour-aude-cycliste-feminin.com/

Where we'll be:
April 24th to April 30th : Belgium

April 30th to May 2nd : Luxembourg
May 2nd to May 11th: Switzerland.
May 11th to May 25th: France

Dan arrived safely in Germany and is helping the team prepare for the 2nd round of World Cup racing in Offenburg. We are looking forward to being in the same time zone again :-)

I will do my best to update the blog - internet access depending.

Total Restoration Team Camp

We just returned from the Okanagan where the TR gang gathered for a 4 day training camp/team bonding session. We stayed at the Skaha lake Resort in OK Falls (located about 15 km South of penticton). This is a fantastic place to stay - the riding is some of my very favorite. Dan has been running his Dan's Camp out of the Penticton area for 12+ years, so he knows the roads well. Dan kindly offered to provide car support for the camp, but he did get out each morning for a mountain bike ride. We had some great weather - lucky enough to escape the reported torrential downpours that the Lower Mainland received for Easter.
I am also very excited to report that Dan has officially been named the National Mountain Bike Coach...Congratulations!!! Life is about to get hectic - Dan is off to San Francisco for the Sea Otter Classic and then will fly directly to Europe for the 2nd and 3rd rounds of the Mtb World Cups in Offenburg and Houffalize.
I also found out last week that I will be joining the National Team for the first of the European projects. Selection for this project was based on results from the Redlands Bicycle Classic. We will be racing in 3 events: Grand Prix Elsy jacobs on May 1st, Tour de Burne on May 10th, and finally, the Tour de L'Aude - a 10 day epic adventure running from May 15 - 24th. I don't know what to expect other than hard technical aggressive racing - I'm looking forward to experiencing racing at this level. The Tour de L'Aude is no joke...we will be racing in arguably one of the most difficult women's stage races in the world! I will be returning to Montreal following L'Aude for some additional racing in Quebec and hopefully the Tour of PEI (June 7 - 11). I just want an excuse to travel to the Maritimes!
I am off to Walla Walla this wekend for a 3 days of racing before zipping home to un-pack and re-pack my bags...again.
Alright - that's our latest news. I hope everyone had a nice Easter. Congratulations Toby on your graduation!!! and welcome back to Canada :-)

Redlands Bicycle Classic

The 25th anniversary of The Redlands Bicycle Classic did not disappoint. The race again consisted of a prologue and 3 stages and the race winner again was determined by a single second. This year the race was won by Ina Tuetenberg, teammate to last year’s winner, Alex Wrubleski. On the women’s side there were approximately 150 starters including all of the big NRC teams in addition to Team Columbia High Road and a Composite team including Nurnberger’s Amber Neben. I raced as part of the National team and Gillian M. started the race with a composite from BC. Unfortunately Gill’s race was cut short after stage 1 due to sickness. Speaking of sickness, one week out from the start of the race I came down with nasty illness...food poisoning? Stomach flu? Jury is still out, but needless to say I didn’t have ideal preparations for the race. At least I discovered after 3 days of not eating that I could keep plain crackers, rice cakes, and eggs down so that my glycogen stores weren’t completely depleted. Luckily the day before the race I started to come around and I had a little more energy. At least I was super rested! We pre-rode the prologue course and I started to get excited. The town of Redlands and the race organization does a fantastic job putting on this event – it’s one of those races that no matter how much it hurts or how well or poorly you ride, it’s still fun.
I had a surprisingly solid ride in the 5 km uphill prologue. I finished in 29th place, 1:30 back from the eventually winner and reigning World TT Champion, Amber Neben. It’s one of those courses that once you finished your ride, you feel like you could have gone faster...I can’t wait for next year!

Stage 1 was the Beumont road race consisting of 3 laps totaling 117 km. I now see why the race is affectionately called Blowmont, as the race was in the gutter from the gun. It was an ugly day – I was caught behind an early crash and never actually got into the pack. On the bright side, I never gave up...I chased so hard for the first 45 minutes and made contact just before the climb. Unfortunately my legs were cooked, so even though the pace on the climb wasn’t too bad, I got dropped just over the top. So the chasing began again. The winds were horrific...50 miles/hour that in sections had you riding at a 45 degree angle to the road. I was riding my compact crank and my biggest gear was a 12...bad news on a day when the pack was flying along some sections at 70 km an hour. I kept getting dropped from the caravan simply because I couldn’t sustain 130 + RPM. Again, I rode myself into the ground trying to chase with a couple other girls and again made contact right before the climb. Unfortunately, the story was repeated but this time my legs were done and I wasn’t able to get back on. I rolled in 9 minutes back (53rd place), completely wasted and really disappointed by how the day had gone. It was an “if only” day...if only I hadn’t been caught out in the first 3 minutes my day would have turned out much better. Next time! Over 50 girls were time cut or DNF’d, which shows just how tough the day was.

Stage 2 was a hot, fast, and technical 9 cornered criterium in downtown Redlands. I finished in the group, still trying to get my crit legs back and get more comfortable with the technical corners. The crowds were great and the race was exciting. Ina had now won back all but a single second of her 27 second deficit to Neben, so tomorrow’s Sunset road race was sure to be exciting.

The excitement started for me about 15 minutes before the start when Serge our mechanic realized that my chain was about to explode. There was a last minute scramble to try to locate a new chain, but ultimately I ended up with a chain that was a few links too short, effectively taking away some of my usual gears. I had to be really careful not to cross chain, which unfortunately I do all the time with the compact. On about 5 occasions in the race I thought I was screwed for sure – I’d jam up the chain and derailleur and have to stop pedaling and then frantically try to shift out of the precarious situation. The course was simply amazing – after 8 kms of “neutral” (i.e. gradual climbing at threshold) we hit the Sunset circuit where we would complete 9 laps of 10 kms...5 km of gradual ascent and 5 km of fairly technical descending. It was a race of attrition for certain. I was shelled out on the first climb largely do to inopportune chain jamming situation as previously described, but was able to chase back on. I ended up making an important split on lap 5 that decreased the front group to about 30 riders. Unfortunately on the next time up I was behind a small split of 3 girls that again left us chasing. We didn’t end up making contact again, but we did get to cross the finish line back in town...which I’m told is an accomplishment in itself (about 35 girls actually crossed the finish line in town this year). I finished in 26th place and 3:41 back of the lead group. Overall I finished 33rd on GC – not bad for my first go at the race I suppose, but I’m already looking forward to next year!