The demolisher rides again!

Nici rode 40+ miles this saturday before her tire busted and she had to stop. She could of made the whole 47 though!!! I'm pretty proud of her and am excited for the return of the demolisher.

What A Day For A Ride!

I don’t think I could have helped but be outside today…after working for 8 hours in an office with huge windows and seeing how great it was outside I could not let the day go by without a ride! I rode from my house down to Utah Lake, around the lake (a ways) and down some random streets. It was AWESOME! Not to mention BEAUTIFUL! We live in an amazingly beautiful state! I had to stop and take a couple pictures… with my cell phone so they are not the greatest.

Water, mountains, snow, great weather and ducks…does it get any better. It could have if my husband wasn’t at school and he would have been riding with me. :)
I love my bike! Isn’t she pretty?

It is like an old friend…it doesn’t matter that we have been apart nearly a whole winter minus a few short rides here and there but, it is always so comfortable to be with even after a long absence. It is like it was made for ME! :)
I am very excited for the weather to get nicer just to have more opportunities to enjoy the GREAT OUTDOORS!

I need to take advantage of our beautiful surrounding!
Now if the snow would melt in the mountains so that we could go camping…I would be so pleased!

Although, I enjoyed my ride, Ryan is the real pro cyclist in our family. My ride was about 23 miles. Great for me but last Friday Ry rode about 50! He is training to ride in a Diabetes ride in June…100+ miles!! He is AMAZING...I am really proud of him!

Winter Rides

This winter in Utah we have been hit hard with cold, snowy weahter, but we didn't let that stop us. When the sun shines we hit the road. I have been on a few more rides than Nic, but we both have gone out braving the cold a few times this winter. We can't wait for the warmer weather to hit. Once it hits the 50's I think we will be pretty pumped to hit the hills. I know we have more pictures but I could only find these two nerdy ones of me. We really have to layer up to keep warm! We did buy an indoor trainer this year though. It's pretty sweet. I've used it maybe six or seven times and I could tell a difference when I went out on the road. I will try and find pics of it later and post them.

Check me out in my sweet tights. Those were a xmas present from Nici and I love them, they are really warm and do a good job fighting the wind.

Slipstream in Yellow!!

They did it yesterday. Tyler Farrar of team Slipstream/Chipotle took the overall leaders jersey from Fabian Cancellara in the Tour of California. He is only in the lead by 1 second, but still this is a pretty good victory for the new and improved team.

Kicking off the Cycling season

The '08 cycling season is under way, which I am pretty excited for. There are a few new teams that are going to be really good. Discovery Channel (Lance Armstrong's old team) is gone and the stars of that team have spread themselves out into these new teams. Doping is still talked about all the time, but everyone seems to think this year we will see cleaner teams and less investigations. It has come to the point where the Tour de France organizers aren't even letting in a team (Team Astana) to race in the Tour this year because of a huge dope ring where the whole team was kicked out of the race last year. To bad Astana has last year's Tour de France winner, Alberto Contador, and 3rd place finisher, Levi Leipheimer, and another top dog, Andre Kloeden, who won't be allowed to race cause of the boneheads last year that messed everything up for that team. I'm bummed Levi, who is American, won't be in the tour cause he really has a good shot at winning it this year, but at the same time this is good cause it shows that the race organizers of any race won't be tolerating doping at all anymore.

My new favorite team is team Slipstream/ Chipotle.

They are an American team and have kind of taken the place of Discovery. I hope they do well. They have gotten a ton of great riders for this year, like David Millar, Dave Zabriskie, Christian Vandevalde, Mangus Backstedt, Tom Danielson, and Tyler Farrar (who is said to be the best young American rider). All these guys have placed high overall in big races or have won races and stages in races like the Tour de France and Giro di Italia. They have already done awesome in the first few races of this year. The Tour of California, which is this week, will be big for them. In fact, Tyler Farrar is in second overall. I hope he can win a few bonus points in today's stage to pass Cancellara who is only two seconds ahead of him. That means Tyler Farrar will be the leader of the race, which would be really cool for this new team, cause the ToC is stacked with good riders this year. Here are just some random photos I found of the team:

Just a picture of Stage One of the ToC with a Slipostream rider in the front of the peloton.

This is Dave Zabriskie. He has worn the leaders jersey in the Tour de France, former teammate of Lance Armstron, and he's from SLC.

This is David Millar. The reason his jersey is different is cause he is the British National Champion so he gets to wear a special jersey in his races. He is one of my favorite riders. He also has won stages in the TdF. He writes a sweet blog for bicycling.com too if you ever want to check it out.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had one last final holiday together before we left to move back to Utah. I am actually writing from Utah so that means we are back but I have to still do a few posts of the last few days in Arizona. Thanksgiving this year was really fun. Pat, Ryan's younger brother flew in from Indiana Thanksgiving morning so we shared it with him and also out very good friends the Crowley's. We had enough food to feed 20 more people but we all ate a lot of food and had a good time. Before Pat got in and it was time to make all the final preparations Ryan and I decided to go on one last bike ride in AZ. Yes we are dressed in long clothes because it was a chilly Thanksgiving morning! :)Pat was nice enough to come out and spend the holiday with us and also help with the move...he is a trooper! We are really grateful for his help.
We also had James, Dede, and Ramone (their puppy and Chase's best friend) over too. After we ate we played the Wii for a little bit and then we went to see August Rush. After the movie we had pie, hung out for a bit, and then went to sleep. We were all pretty tired and needed a good night's sleep before the big packing day!

The Demolisher

Many of you know that Nici got a bike for her birthday, which was a little over a month ago. She is doing so good I'm impresssed by her everytime we go ride. We have a few favorite rides we like to do and are going to miss when we leave AZ.

One of the rides we call Userary Loop: It's only a 20 mile ride through the desert of AZ, but there is a huge downhill where we can hit 40mph, and an even bigger uphill that is over 3 miles to the top. This picture is from the first day that she rode it. The hill is really hard for anyone the first time they ride it. I think she was a little mad at me in the middle of it so I rode away and let her finish on her own. I knew she could do it. AND SHE DID!!!!!! She was really happy once she got to the top, not only cause it was over, but that she did it. Once she got to the top I called her the Demolisher cause she demolished that hill.

Anyways this post was to pay tribute to the Demolisher.

P.S. This weekend we rode Userary Loop again. Standing in the parking lot unloading our bikes the Demolisher dropped her bike. It was on the gound and she was holding it with two hands, then all the sudden she just let go, as if the bike could stand all on it's own and would not be affected by gravity. It was really funny. It might not sound that great but it really was hilarious. Anyways... I thought I'd share.

Cool videos

Here is a pretty sweet video of this years race. It happened the second week of the race, but it's pretty crazy. Watch the front wheel. Sweet huh. I'm sure that wheel was more expensive than my entire bike. Just click on the link to see it.

http://video.bicycling.com/item/6B7VTWB5HX54LKN1


This one's longer, but it is amazing. I'm not going to tell you what it is cause I think everyone should see this video to understand just how great Lance Armstrong really was. He is in the yellow jersey and you can't miss him. Keep in mind this is on a huge mountain stage during the tour on 2003.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQDjqAkLUB0

This one happened this year. You will do a double take for sure on this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmIJjR1kdYw

Enjoy

More tragedy has struck the cycling world today

Two days ago a man who was counted out won an individual time trial in the Tour de France. And yesterday he won one of the hardest mountains stages of this year's tour. Two stage wins in three days. Just to give you an idea of how difficult it is to win a stage. There are over 170 riders in one race. If you win one stage of the Tour de Fance in your whole career, you will go down in history as a great cyclist. This riders name is Alexander Vinokourov. He was considered one of the top five contenders to win this year. For those of you that don't know, the race is three weeks long. One "race" everyday for all three weeks, minus two rest days. The winner is whoever has the best time out of all the "races". He is reffered to as Vino. His team, Astana, is gunning for number one in the team rankings too. Astana has two other riders who are contenders.

The first week of the race Vino crashed so bad he had stiches in his knees, elbows, and fingers. Everyone counted him out. The day after he looked like a man beaten. Swolen so bad that he could barely walk. Everyone wondered how he could even ride a bike. His team raced for him, the crowds cheered him on, and we all believed that there was something magical in him. He pushed through the pain and the doubters. He fell almost 8 minutes behind the leader in the Alps. In the Tour, that is alot of time to make up. Then after the Alps on the first flat stage, Vino, lead his team on the attack. Dropping some of the top contenders to battle a large gap all while pushing through a "nasty little head wind" as Phil Liggett would say. With a kilometer left Vino attacked all alone. He was caught by the sprinters, and did not win the stage but it showed everyone, I'm back, I'm here, Bring it.

A day later came the individual time trails. If Vino was to have a go at the yellow, he would have to gain major time on the leaders, still being almost 8 minutes behind the yellow jersey. Well, he did just that. Beat the yellow by almost 4 minutes and the second place that day was a whole 2 minutes behind Vino. He was back in it. I was extatic, just ask Nici I told her all about it for over half an hour that day. I was one of the believers, I wanted him to prove everyone wrong and come from behind and take it in the last few days of the tour. Vino was the man and everyone had his name on their lips that day.

Now, just three days after that amazing ride, he may never race again. Not because he crashed again so bad he cannot walk. Not because he decided to retire on a high note. Not because he had a life altering event. No he cheated. He doped as is the term in Pro cycling. His A sample tested positive for a blood transfusion after he won that individual time trial. It is an incredable feeling when a new found hero of yours is found cheating on a scale like this. I know no one is perfect. But I am speechless and almost cried when I read on Bicycling.com the latest dopping scandal. I am one who has fallen in love with the tour this year. I watch every stage start to finish, know all the big names, and love a sport that is so demanding on its participants. Cycling is a sport that takes athletes and makes them super-human. I am left watching everyday how do they do that? It is a sport where an average person can get out and do what the pros are actually doing. What I mean is go out, find a hill, and try to go up it as fast as you can on a bike. Then sit down, watch a stage with a cat 1 climb, and you will know what I mean. You will automatically know how insanly awesome these guys are and will be left wondering how on earth do they do it. Even if some dope, not all do, and it leaves me spellbound everyday.

On a more positive note, we have to wait for Vinos B sample test until we can be for sure. But if he is anything like Landis, who still hasn't been proven guilty from last year, Vino did something amazingly wrong and did hiself, his team, every other rider in the ProCircut, and any Tour fan a huge disservice. Now we all have to stick up for a sport so tainted by dopping, that it is loosing its crediblity as a serious, worldwide sport. (Just a note, his whole team of 9 riders pulled out of the tour. His sponsers left. Two of his team members were in the top ten contenders to win. Andreas Kloden is in fifth only four minutes from the leader and had a serious shot to win.) My greatest hope is he is not found guilty but that won't happen. I hope he can save face somehow someday, but at this point that may not happen either.

I will continue to love the Tour this July and every July to come. I know the sport can over come these scandals, and the new generation of riders will come through for all of us. The rest of the tour I am behind Discovery all the way. GO Levi and GO Contador!!!!

How sweet cycling is!

I found a new love the past month. Cycling. About a month ago I had a crazy idea to get in shape that I should buy a bike and ride it to work everyday. I'm so out of shape that I still haven't ridden both ways to work yet for a whole week. The goal now is to ride one way then drive home the other way. That would still be alomst 100 miles a week which I think is really good for me. To get an idea of how it works:

Monday am--drive to work

Monday pm--ride home

Tuesday am--ride to work

Tuesday pm--drive home

and soon on. That way I don't have to pack tons of cloths in a back pack. Also, I don't have to get up every morning at the butt crack of dawn and get home after dark. And talk about saving gas! That just might be the best part.

After about two weeks of researching online and going to stores to look at bikes and ride some. I decided on Cannondale. I found out they have the best frame for the money. I knew that I wanted aluminum cause I would never be able to afford carbon fiber right now. But Cannondale puts the same frame on all of their bikes. So if you buy the least expensive or the most expensive aluminum frame from them it doesn't matter. What changes is the level of components. I liked the idea knowing I have a really good frame and that if I wanted to I could upgrade the components and still have a really good frame.

One Saturday I finally got Nici to go look with me at some bike shops. I found all the Cannondale dealers around us and we were going to go check three of them out. The first one we went to was Focus Cyclery in Gilbert. We both really liked the store and the sales guy, Jesse, was way helpful. I liked it so much that I never buy anything anywhere else. Looking around he showed me an '06 model that was about $500 more than I wanted to spend, but it was in my size. So I road it and of course it was totally painful and I thought I would never be comfortable or able to ride it more than a mile, but I liked it more than other brands I had ridden before. He lowered the price to how much I wanted to spend and so it was the one for me. I was really happy too cause I got alot more bike out of it since it was last years model.

Here are some pictures of him:

It took me forever to load those up. I'm going to be done for the night, but I will write more tomorrow about the new found fever.