Track nationals was back in LA this year, and I was super looking forward to it! Training had been going really good, and I could tell the good sensations were coming around in July. I had some great training sessions, and couldn't wait for race day! Rob Van Houweling had been helping me out a bunch on all things aero, and was letting me use Molly's superpimp hour record wheels for my IP. The IP has been something I have kind of struggled with, but I had made some huge im

The hardest part of transitioning to a track racer for me has been adjusting to a winter race schedule. With racing all winter, that means off season in February or March. When most people are using there October/November/December doing base season training rides, I am racing track. Then I take my off season in the spring, and when I am ready to come back to training, it is right in the thick of road racing season at home! There are so many awesome races in Northern Calif

If Michael I were lucky enough to have not one awesome honeymoon in Los Alamos, but we also got honeymoon2 in no place other than Mallorca, Spain! Michael's boss at Jakroo is just wonderful, and for our wedding he gifted us a trip to Mallorca to take part in a Grand Fondo that Jakroo was sponsoring! And we got to stick around for a few extra days as well! Our trip started with a 1 day layover in Zurich, as Michael had a business meeting. We walked around the city a bit, an

My last World Cup and race for the season was the Cali World Cup. It was a bit of a shocker to do this race, as the season had been wearing on me, and I wasn't riding so great, to be perfectly frank. I didn't make the team pursuit squad for the final world cup and world championships during our January selection camp. But the United States needed someone to race the omnium, and as I was the only other person qualified, that was me. I am ashamed to say I was not very prepa

After Guadalajra, we were ready to get it right at the next World Cup in London. I was excited to get to race in London, as the British fans are really into track! We were in Mallorca for a couple of weeks training before the London race - here are a couple of photos. A door. Being tourists. Old stuff We got to London and it was really exciting to get race in the "pringle" as they call it. This is where the Olympics in 2012 was held. As I said, the crowds in London were HU

Spoiler alert - we won! Me, Kim, Amber, Jen When people ask me how PanAms was, there is the standard response - about how awesome it was to train hard all summer with some great folks and then have a good ride. But, sometimes I like to tell this somewhat uncouth parable instead. This story actually begins back in 2008. I was doing my first ever out-of-town race: the Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge in Portland. I actually went back and looked at my old blog, to see if I could

I left Colorado Springs to Rock Hill, South Carolina for track nationals. I arrived to South Carolina on Sunday night and had one day to get it together before racing started. Here I look in good compsure, despite being a S*%tshow the day before! Photo: Michael C. Hernandez, Ride Rock Hill On my list of things to do was: ride and clean my bike. It was raining like crazy, so I waited around half the day, and finally just decided to go on my rollers. Just as I finished my o

There are some things that are universal in camps, regardless of what kind of camps they are – wake up early and do something hard. In high school, I went to band camp, and we were woken up early with the sound of a trumpet playing reverie, which was followed by “room inspection” – where basically someone would come into our room, and anything in plain sight (i.e. tooth brush, comb, etc.) had to be in “squad formation” – or 4 things lined up in some sort of band formation. Y

"If you ain't first, you're last". Those are the wise words of Ricky Bobby. (If you don't know who that is, you can go ahead and leave my webpage now.) While I started of the year with some local wins, I was unfortuantely in a second place slump, with a string of them from my Ttown trip. The Colorado Grand Prix started off that way as well. In the omnium, I was second in 4 events, to equal second place overall. The new omnium format is pretty cool, with the order of even

The Amgen Tour of California started in 2006 - just before I learned to ride a bike. In my early years as a cycling groupie, I remember watching a women's criterium up in Santa Rosa before the men came in. It looked terrifying! In 2010 I got to do the race myself! It was a blast....albeit terrifying. The next few years, the criterium was canceled, and Amgen ToC held an "invite-only" time tria instead. (Obvioulsy, I was never invited). Last year, there was a lot of pre