Today on the airplane I was fortunate enough to sit next to an old guy who was very curious about the sport of cycling.  He seemed to know a thing or two about the European Tours and whatnot, but he really seemed to know a some stuff about this thing called a “pelotron”.

Of course, I knew he was referring to the peloton and I took a quick sec to correct him once or twice.  But he continued on with this pelotron business and dammit the name has stuck in my head. 

And, I can see why.  A pelotron is obviously so much faster, so much more aerodynamic, than a regular old peloton.  One might even say its chic. It’s very high-tech, like something you might propel through a partical accellerator or some sort of mass spectrometer gettup (for the life of me, I cannot remember what one of those thingies is for or even looks like, but I do know that we talked alot about it in Organic Chemistry which was a class that I seemed to glaze over in a cloudy mind state due to cycling.  To be honest, it was a class I seemed to glaze over several times in college). 

So you may race in a peloton, but I will be racing in a peletron from now on. 

While we were in Philly last week, we discovered something very cool.  I do not mean the “royal we” here, I mean Chrissy, Lara K, and me.  Just a block away from our very centrally located host house, we found this strange bicycle art project on South Street in Central City Philly. 

It started as one man’s project on an abandoned lot in 1967.  And it grew to take over almost an entire city block, now known as the Magic Garden (I don’t really like the name either).  Glass bottles, broken mirrors, your grandma’s dishes, and bike wheels all smashed together to make a space from another world. 

I read one little piece inside this crazy place where the artist explains why he likes to use bike wheels.  It went something like this: the bicycle wheel is amazing because you can see straight through it, yet provides so much structural integrity.  Obviously not referring to any disks. 

Sure, Philly and DC have their monuments n stuff, but this kind of stuff is way better.  Way more real than any marble-pillared big old building dedicated to dead presidents.  I feel lucky that we found this gem in the city. 

So Philly race came and went without air-conditioning, an Irish pub was packed and gross with racers, and now me and some Blue Diamontes are in Minnesota for the Nature Valley Grand Prix.  Tough race this one, looks like a 140 starters and chances of flash floods for the first crit on Wednesday. 

I don’t think I have ever mentioned this, but as of Wednesday, flash floods are actually my favorite riding conditions. 

I am in down town Philly today and we got back a few hours ago from the Lehigh Valley Classic race in a place called Allentown Pennsylvania.  It was Fast with a capital F. 

I guess I should start at the very beginning: 

A while ago, my teammate Leah Goldstein, Storm Trooper Extraordinaire, fantastic teammate, and booty kicker, kicked some booty at Gila and won the GC.  This was while I was tromping around the state of Alabama, but OMGawsh when we won that race, when I saw her podium picture (I can’t get it to load) and smile, I don’t know if I have every been more proud.  And I wasn’t even there.  Good thing, because I might have just passed out in excitement.  It really meant alot, it really meant alot to be her teammate.

And so this moment carried us into Mt. Hood.  Which is a race that I love.  First of all, its in Oregon.  Second of all, it has some spectacular stages.  And it was the first NRC ValueAct won last year.  And it was a great race again this year, with Leah taking 3rd GC, and I got 12th in the prologue which really showed me that I can pedal pretty hard with the fast girls for about three minutes because TT’s n stuff are not my strong suit (sweat pants are actually my strongest suit).  And I was also road a two-girl break away for about 80K that was tough, but rewarding.  And I said damn it feels good to be a bike racer that day.

So Sunday, me, Lara Kroepsch, Hannah, and Chrissy showed up for the CSC Invitational in DC.  Actually, its in Arlington, but whatev.  And Lara is racing real hungry, she got herself in that break with Cath Cheatley and Andrea Dvorak from Colavita and they were out of site in no time.  Lara kicked it for 2nd place that day, while Chrissy really helped me out and we picked up 9th overall after the field sprint, with a full water bottle accidentally shoved in my eyeball with half a lap to go.  Note: you cannot get hydrated through your eyeballs but you could possibly get dehydrated through your eyeballs.

Which leads us to where we are today.  In host housing, Philadelphia with very little internet.  But the plus side is Whole Foods is just 2 blocks away.  And like I said, today was real fast and after a 4 women break got up the road I managed (with alot of help from my friends) to squeeze out third in the field sprint for 7th overall.  And we packed up, hopped on the turn pike or something, and headed back home. 

We got super lost on the way to the race today.  We spotted a car with some racing bikes and so we followed them for a while.  But just to make sure, I hopped out at a stop light and went and tapped on their window.  Imagine my surprise when it was none other than Mike Hernandez from www.norcalcyclingnews.com.  I am pretty sure I scared the daylights out of him but I just wanted to make sure he knew where he was going before we committed to following them around the beautiful state of Pennsylvania.  And believe me, it really is beautiful and I would know because I saw an awful lot of Pennsylvania today by accident.

And I guess that’s where we left off.

Yeah, that’s right.  I like it so much here, I might just move in with my host mom and dad.  So the race weekend went like this:

Saturday we were like practically the star event at an Anniston Children’s Festival.  Or something.  The kids were so enthused about us, I only had to beg these girls 5 times for us to get our picture with them.  They don’t look really happy to be seen in public with us spandex queens.

Well while we were at this kiddie event, I decided now would be the best time to get over my snake-a-phobia.  Taitt is a snake charmer in a prior life, while I am about to pee my lulu pants.  I had a funny feeling about this situation and its a good thing I got the heck out of there, because not 2 minutes after I forcefully screamed at the snake man to get that thing off me did old Uncle Python drop some huge snake doo-doo on the next victim who was about 8 years old and handled it alot better than I would have.  Elis, are you proud of me?

Now on to the really important stuff.  The races.  Well I raced super aggressively for the break-aways (in my opinion) because of the strong history of breaks on these courses.  While I was seeing double from riding kamakazi  for the breaks, Lara K had some good finishes for 10th on Sat. and 6th on Sunday and I did manage to rake in a little extra money in the finish still, but not the thousands of sweet mulah dollars I was hoping for.

And now on to even more important stuff.  This has got to be one of THE HOTTEST BOOTIES in the men’s peloton (I mean, aside from Roman but if I posted his it would be way too obvious).  I would really like to post some women racers (or even directors) but I think they would come and kick my ass when they saw the pics up on this site.  C’est la vie.

Finally, this dingleberry on the right was desperate to get his picture with lil old me, so I said “Ok.  Maybe.”  I mean, I did get 17th place today.  I can’t blame the guy. 

Just a quick post here . . . so proud of my teammies in Gila!  Leah Goldstein won stage one and the team successfully defended her jersey yesterday!

Yesterday was the travel day from hell for me.  Took 15 hrs to get from SF to Atlanta and I still haven’t made it to Alabama yet.  Spent the night at a motel near the airport by my lonesom, the other girls are coming to get me as I write.  Yippee for teammates!  Interesting to note is the housecleaner must be a Shania Twaine fan as she has been singing her “Looks Like We Made It/Still Together” or whatever its called at the top of her lungs all morning.  Between you and me here, I don’t think she has a career in vocals. 

I am starved from all this travel on a diet of Powerbars and I hope hope hope that the girls are willing to make a quick stop at the Waffle House down the street for me!  I need to refuel and get energized for these crits this weekend, I am feeling like I got run over by a semi-truck this morning.

Or something.   

Sometimes I ask myself: what oh what could I have done to deserve a race like Sea Otter every year?  Last year we had some sort of instantaneous flood thingy, this year we had arctic winds n stuff.  It was so cold Hannah and Lara decided to race in their ValueAct BLUE FLUFFY super hot casual wear. 

Historically, Sea Otter has not been the best race for me.  Something about 80some times up this really steep hill puts a damper on the situation, but whatever. . . getting vertigo on the downhill corkscrew totally really makes up in entertainment for the suffering on the uphill.  Right?

Well I guess it’s time to play NAME THAT BOOTY for the week.  I will be at Anniston and Roswell GA so the winner can claim their prize there, or at a later date.  Oh yeah, the last winner was none other than Mr. Race-Announcer-Extraordinaire, David Towle.  The man’s got it going on . . . the voice, the brains, the charm, and the uncanny ability to recognize Dave McCook’s booty from an obscure photograph.

And I guess what I’ve learned from this photograph is that helmets really do make dents in your forehead, but they are still really important for protecting your brain cuz the pavement does not play nice.  And since RK is at Gila, what do I care anyway? I’ve got some wild nights of blogging and bad t.v. ahead of me this week!

The end.