Montreal World Cup

The team, consisting of Karen, Dave, Jezza, Katheryn, Erinne, X, Nikki, and myself arrived to rainy Montreal on Thursday evening, just in time for rush hour traffic. Sleeping our travel legs away, we had Friday to prepare for Saturday's World Cup. We took a leisurely morning and mounted our Leopards at noon to recon the course. Luckily we were able to ride it once at a mellow pace, because it's actually a beautiful view from the top of the climb.Friday was Katheryn's birthday, so after a delicious Thai dinner we sang Happy Birfday with a chocolate cheesecake.My dad came up for the World Cup - a 2 1/2 hour drive from Jericho, VT. I was stoked for him to come watch and ride for a bit in the follow car. Plus, I always seem to race well when he's watching and it was no exception this time! The race started at noon, shortly after the rain had cleared, the roads dried, and the sun was full-board.

In the Montreal World Cup we do 11 laps of 10km each and each lap we climb to the top of Mount Royal which is a 1.6km hard climb. Emma Pooley attacked from 400m and held it! This is very unusual, especially in World Cups and so not everyone reacted very quickly. Luckily for Webcor, Katheryn reacted and got away about half way up the first climb with Andrea Dvorak (Colavita)and Eva Lutz(Nurnberger). Columbia was missing from the front as well as Tibco, Lotto, Selle Italia and everyone else of course. Emma Pooley continued to gain time and Katheryn’s group of three also did for about 5 laps. Back in the field Columbia had a couple attacks and kept the group rolling but no one ever drove it until just before half way through. At that point, Eva had gotten dropped from Katheryn’s group so Trixi and Amber Neben attacked and split the field. Katheryn’s group was caught another lap after their attack and from then on Nurnberger and Columbia were chasing hard. There were only a few attacks after that since the pace was high. We brought Emma’s lead down from 4mins to 1:15mins by the end but she was never caught and rode the whole race solo.

On the second to last climb up Mount Royal, the chase group split again with Amber Neben and Mara Abbott driving it, at the top there were only 9 riders left, with our Erinne present. This left Nikki, Alex, Katheryn, and myself in the follow group. Erinne took 8th after a bold attack which ended up being gobbled away. Katheryn was pooped from being in a break for the first half of the race and ultimately pulled out. Nikki and X made the executive decision for us all to fend for ourselves at the finish and see what we could pull out in the sprint finish. Nikki just missed winning that bunch sprint, claiming 13th. I followed in 17th and X in 19th.

Gina flew in to town last night and today we all went on a nice little spin to check out the upcoming TT course. Cirque du Soleil is in town, but all the tickets are sold out! So sad - woulda been wicked. But the festivities were wild and we stopped to see some tyco drummers. Monday night we will start the Tour de Grande Montreal.

Pictures from Durango

Durango Time Trial

Memorial Day leaves me memories of pain and achievement. My time trial began at 9:58.30. I was on my bicycle at 8:28.30 and rolled over to the start, at Bread, the best darn bakery ever. The owner, Rob was waiting for me with a piping hot Americano. To y’all who raced Tour of California – Rob was the rockstar who gave us all the cookies, bread, granola, and hats!

Everyone brought their A-game with TT bikes, disc wheels, aero gear, rockets, and after-burners. I already looked off the back with just my lucky Leopard road bike, with dorky clip-ons. Little did all the geeked out martian-looking time trialists know that I was angry from the day prior, and anger can breed the most rampant of fires. My warm-up didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked. The bathroom was out of order at Bread…darn overly caffeinated bike racers! So I had to go hike off into the woods. Then my shifting was all out of whack, and I couldn’t get into my 53, which I figured I might need for a mostly flat to downhill time trial. After my hike I couldn’t get in or out of my pedals, so to keep from falling over, Michael Engleman had to hold me up! Leggies still weren’t kicking as I would have liked, but after a couple sets of pyramids my heart was beating a bit faster and I was licking my chops.

The 15-mile time trial was mostly tail-wind, and quite rolling on a quaint country road. When living in Durango the year prior, I had ridden the road, but was still surprised by how much downhill there seemed to be. The last half-mile finally kicks up a good climb, which is still big-ringable. My eyes stayed glued to my power meter for the entire race, and it served as a friend – a brutally honest friend. I maintained the numbers I wanted and was pleased with a time not-far-off of some known and geeked out time trialists, and ahead of a lot of silly looking aero pedalers.

Kristin McGrath of ValueAct is coming back from a knee injury, and had the green light on the TT. She smashed the competition, posting a mid-34 minutes. Tiffany Cromwell of Colavita was a minute behind her in 2nd. I was a minute off of Tiffany in 5th place, with Terrie Clouse of CO Bike Law and Marissa Asplund of DFT in between.

Iron Horse Classic Criterium

Sunday the 24th was the Downtown criterium of the Iron Horse Classic in Durango. The course consists of 8 bold corners that zig-zag through Durango’s lively Main St and lovely side streets. The start/finish escorts you onto a left turn and up a punch-in-the-gut 200m kicker, to a soft and gradual uphill right turn. This 150m had a head wind, as did the finishing drag. A hard and man-hole laden left turn shoed us onto a cross-winded 100m before a fast left and a 250m tail wind section. We flew into a rough and cracked left hand turn and then a quick pot-holed S-turn. Gaining more speed in this 200m tail wind, we railed another left hand turn down a short and sweet descent, before pinning a hard left to the long finishing head-wind straight.

We awoke to pouring rain, so instead of a mellow coffee shop spin before our 4pm start, we were beckoned to the rollers. Instead of the sand man bringing me sweet dreams, I think he opted to pour sand into my legs…or mud, or lead. However, after some time spinning I felt much more spry, and ready for a nap! Waking from the nap I didn’t know what day it was or whose legs I was wearing. All the caffeine in the world couldn’t wake me from this funk, nor could any amount of efforts. I arrived to the start line yawning and unable to get my heart rate above 150. And so it began.

Carmen Small, now riding for Colavita, joined forces with Tiffany Cromwell. Carmen came out to play, all rested, snappy, and amped to win in front of her hometown crowd. Though groggy, I knew I had to stick to Carmen like a fly on sh…compost. From the gun it went with a slew of attacks from the two Colavita members, the Defined Fitness Training squad, and the Colorado Bike Law gang. For the first 15 minutes I surfed wheels, following bridges, attempting to awaken my body a bit before pulling any superhero stunts. But there were no superhero stunts to be had today. The tipping point was a counter off Tiffany’s attack by Carmen following the little kicker. I found myself a few wheel’s back when I tried to bridge to the four escapees. That extra gear wasn’t there, and I found the remaining field glued to my wheel. The stragglers and individual riders wouldn’t help me, and instead of pulling through, on multiple occasions they attacked me.

I did make a few other attempts to bring myself to the break, but never had the pop to break free of the chase group. After pulling hard on the front, again some individual would attack. This left me feeling jaded, frustrated, and uninspired. I sat in for the remaining laps until 4 to go, when I made my way to the front to contest the sprint. Sitting second wheel for the remaining laps, I thought the finishing straight would allow enough real estate to overcome the driver on front. Again my plan fell through. Tiffany, Lauren Hall, and myself came to the line, a hair between each of us – mine being the thickest for a 7th place finish.

Beat the Train Road Race

May 23rd kicked off the Durango Iron Horse Classic, a 3-day omnium consisting of a 50-mile road race from Durango to Silverton, a downtown criterium, and a 15-mile time trial. Part of the Boulder contingent – Fred Dreier of VeloNews, Tiffany Cromwell of Colavita, and Mara Abbott of Columbia, and myself, Amy of Webcor Builders–- drove the seven hours early Friday morning. Fred’s Subaru was busting at the seams with seven bikes on the roof, one bike in the back, along with a menagerie of wheels, duffels, food bags, and us four large bike racers.

Sunday’s road race began all too early and soon, at the raw time of 7:26 a.m. There is a train that runs from Durango to Silverton, so the object of the day for the citizen riders is to “beat the train." For the women, the object was to cling to Mara’s wheel.

There is always a calm before the storm, so we rolled along the first few miles before the climb began at an easy and quiet pace – either because it was so early, or out of anticipation of knowing we would be climbing out of our skin at 11,000 ft! Sure enough the storm began when Mara went to the front, so I grabbed her wheel knowing that if anyone were to open a gap on her it would all be over. Within a minute of this, the 60-women field was reduced to a front group of Mara, Marissa Asplund, Alicia Welsh, Melissa Mcwirther, Susannah Gordon, Tiffany Cromwell, and myself. The storm had crushed its first victims before ultimately decimating this group of seven. About 25 miles in, I couldn’t match Mara’s final surge, which separated herself from the group. Toasted, I watched Marissa, Alicia, Susannah, and Melissa ride away from me too. Tiff had fallen off, and I found myself all by my lonesome at 9,500 ft.

The road race had turned into a hillclimb time trial for me, so I went through a variety of different mental states, ranging from ‘this sucks! A $50 entry fee for a training ride?!’ to ‘Harden up, you can get yourself top 5 instead of lousy 6th!’ to ‘screw this I’m tired of pedaling’ to ‘OH, she’s right up the road, pedal harder, stronger, faster!’ to lyrics from another song…”There’s no way you’ll march on top of me, not how this is gonna be – it’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the fight in the dog." Ultimately, through all my mind games I pulled myself out of the dredges and even made my arms go numb.

The first pass to get over was Coal Bank pass at 9,600 ft, which shoves you down a wicked descent, dropping you at the looming doom of the second pass – Molas Pass, which tops out at 11,000 ft. From there, you then have the final four miles of a joyous and ripping descent into the finishing town of Silverton. Mara had told me that two years ago she had been in the lead up until the climb ended, only to be rocketed past by a speedy Alison Powers in the final 2k of the 50-mile/2.5 hr race. I took this ticket of information and stuck it in my back pocket.

I was relieved to have made it over Molas Pass. I had tried to eat a Powerbar gel blast while climbing, but apparently only my legs were still functioning, as the first one hardly made it out of my pocket into my hand before being dropped; I missed my mouth with the second one; got the third one in my mouth, only to see it careening back out and onto the pavement with a string of drool. To add to this, I have had problems with my left eye closing at high elevation, so I fought this as the ascent turned into a switch-backing descent. Fortunately with my right eye I was able to see my prey a couple switchbacks ahead. It was Susannah Gordon, a rider from Colorado who can definitely hold her own on a bike uphill, downhill, and all around. But I had my 11x26 on, which was the ultimate gearing, so I could go faster than I should have been going. With 3k to go I blew past Susannah like she was standing still and held onto it for a 5th place finish. In the end I fought through all sorts of mental states and was pleased to see that over a two-and-a-half hour climb I was only four minutes off of Mara who has proved to not suck when the road goes up.

North Boulder Park Criterium

Sunday the 17th was the prized North Boulder Park Criterium, which used to be part of the Red Zinger and Coors Classics, back in the glory days. I spectated last year and watched the field let Mara Abbott ride away to solo in for the win. The previous year was similar, though I was racing, and was the only person willing to chase. That's how some Colorado racing can be – negative, frustrating, with no one willing to work. A lot of people can't seem to grasp that if you're not first, you're last. So, I was ecstatic to have Gina in town for this crit. It's a fairly technical crit, starting on a slight incline before diving down a hard left turn, which leads to another hard and rough left turn into a pot-holed alley way. The alley way is a straight shot of about 500m with a tricky and dangerous left turn into a quick s-turn before another left onto the finishing straight. The finishing straight is a long grind; an uphill drag into a headwind.

Gina drove down from Vancouver in her VW hippie bus, and set up camp outside of the house I am currently renting. The race didn't start until 5:40pm, so we had all day to get in a morning spin and drink lots of Grain's Grinds coffee – smooth like butter with a swift kick in the arse like jet fuel.

The race started off at a fast pace, as one of my fellow cross racing rivals rocketed off the line. I was on her like white on rice and we already had a gap on the rest of the field for the first lap. The announcer didn't waste any time before calling primes, as we heard the bell for $50 on the second lap. It went like this throughout the 45-minute crit, and at one point there were five primes in a row! This kept the pace hot and the 50-woman field was decimated within just a few minutes. Indeed, in the end there were only 12 women sprinting in for the podium. It was aggressive racing throughout, as Meredith Miller of Tibco showed up and showed off with a few solo attempts. Tiffany Cromwell of Colavita is always gunning to ride hard. Mara Abbott was active, smartly attacking when everyone was gassed. A few fellow Colorado-ans whom I have raced with for the past few years were riding strong. And everyone was contributing to stringing the field out like a runway model.

After Gina claimed five primes, there were four laps to go and it was time to get the guns primed. With three laps to go I was sitting pretty, 3rd wheel from the front, just maintaining position. At one lap to go, Gina was glued to my wheel as I sat on Meredith's wheel through the alley. I took Gina around her through the s-turn, and went hard up the first 200m of the finishing stretch, utterly excited about my first chance to lead Gina Grain out! With about 300m to go, Gina jumped around me, taking the W with Tiffany Cromwell following in 2nd. I rolled in a couple bike lengths back in 8th.

It's always exciting for me to race at home in Boulder because it's like a giant party with all my friends and riding buddies out grilling, heckling, and cowbelling. It was especially exciting this time to be aggressive and work together with a teammate and come out victorious!

Joe Martin Stage Race

Today kicked off the 32nd annual Joe Martin Stage Race in Fayetteville, AR.

Here is Katheryn's race report:

Devils Den State Park
2.5 miles/4km

"The course would challenge riders over a 2.5 mile climb out of Devil's Den State Park, beginning with a brief flat secions before the raod steadily climbs 680 feet to the finish with an average grade of 6.8%, with most of the climb at 10%.

We arrived with plenty of time to preview the course before the Pro/1 men went off and it was nice to be able to what we were about to tackle. This also allowed us plenty of time to rest and relax before the first women's rider was off. I took a quick nap in the sprinter and chatted a bit with other riders who I had not seen in a while. As time grew closer to the designated start times, we each climbed onto our bikes, which Dave had set up on trainers. I will say it was a bit of a shock to the system to go from high altitude and very dry, to sea level and warm and humid.

I was the third to last rider off, chased by 2007 winner Kat Carroll (Tibco) and Robin Farina (VAC). As this was a short effort, pacing was less of an issue than a longer one as you had no time to waste get up to pace. I quickly made time on my 30" rider and this helped keep me on top of the gears and motivated. I did my best to keep the legs ticking over at a good cadence and never get bogged down. With 1k to go I knew the road flattened out a bit before kicking up and I dug deep to keep the power up. With 200m to go I put my head down and grunted over the finishline with nothing left to give."

In the end the Webcor women had a great day (see results below).

1 Alison Powers (USA) Team Type 1                                      9.37
2 Katheryn Curi Mattis (USA) Webcor Builders                           0.04
3 Erinne Willock (USA) Webcor Builders                                 0.18
4 Kristen Lasasso (USA) Mellow Mushroom                                0.19
5 Robin Farina (USA) Valueact Capital Cycling Team                     0.22
6 Katharine Carroll (USA) Team Tibco                                   0.24
7 Dotsie Bausch (USA) Jazz Apple Cycling Team                          0.25
8 Ruth Corset (USA) Jazz Apple Cycling Team                               
9 Christina Ruiter (USA) Valueact Capital Cycling Team                 0.33
10 Alexis Rhodes (Aus) Webcor Builders                                 0.39
11 Amy Dombroski (USA) Webcor Builders                                 0.40
12 Kristin Sanders (USA) Valueact Capital Cycling Team                 0.42
13 Rebecca Much (USA) Webcor Builders                                  0.44
14 Kori Seehafer (USA) Team Type 1                                     0.46
15 Lauren Tamayo (USA) Team Tibco                                      0.47
22 Nikki Butterfield (Aus) Webcor Builders                             1.07
46 Gina Grain (Can) Webcor Builders                                    1.56

Gila Monster RR

Stage 5 was a 71.8 mile point-to-point road race with 5,610' of climbing, leading the riders from Silver City to Pinos Altos.

Here is Katheryn's report from the field:

"After 4 days of hard racing, the green machine was feeling a bit fatigued but knew everyone else was as well. Our goal was to move Katheryn back up into 2nd place in GC as all she needed to gain on Alison Powers was 11". With a time bonus sprint coming just 10 miles into the race, we wanted to ensure Alison not gain any more time and use Gina or Nikki to scoop up the time. Fortunately, Lip Smackers was interested in the $100 prime that came with the sprint and took the money and the time. They continued to be aggressive and finally an ideal break got off a few miles later. Rebecca was the Webcor representative in the break and was given the green light to go. In the break with her was Amanda Miller (Lip Smacker), Nichole Evans (VAC), Rachel Heal (Colavita). A few smaller teams missed the break and tried to bridge but were unsuccessful. With all the major teams represented in the break, the main peloton relaxed and were spread out across the road.

As we wound our way along the valley floor, we were informed that the time gap was close to 4' and Alison Powers got nervous since Rebecca was less than 2' behind her on GC. As she had no teammates, she did her best to get other riders help her manage the growing time gap. Kristin did not feel threatened by Rebecca as long as the time did not get too much above 4:30'. With the assistance of some riders and rolling through herself, by the base of the final climb she got the time gap down to under 3'.

Kristin immediately went to the front when the climb started and set a hard tempo. Katheryn did her best to stay with her but soon fell off the pace. She found the wheel of Sharon Allpress (VAC) and as Rebecca was still up the road, allowed Sharon to set pace at the front. The pace was too hard for Alison to hang with Katheryn and Sharon and she fell off, unfortunately, the climb mellowed out and she was able to catch back on.

For the next several miles, the course rolled along and other riders caught back on as the pace slowed. Chrissy Ruiter (VAC) made a couple attacks but was covered by Katheryn and Alison. Alison was very aggressive on the decents as her ski racing background provides her with very good descending skills. Amy, who had been one of the riders who caught the group, did a great job of covering her and making sure Katheryn did not get gapped. The chasing group eventually started to pick up remnants of the break and over the radio Karen instructed Rebecca and Amy to help lead out Katheryn in the final mile to try and put time on Alison.

Unfortunately in the end, Alison hung tough and managed to outsprint Katheryn, securing her 2nd in GC.

Amy finished like the superstar she is for a 6th place in the stage and Rebecca was not too far behind. Alex, Gina and Nikki, who had done a great job all week, did a great job on a tough finishing climb."

GC results:
Katheryn - 3rd
Rebecca - 10th
Alex - 16th
Team - 2nd

Stage results:
1st place x 1
2nd place x 2
3rd place x 1
4th place x 2
6th place x 1
7th place x 1

Stage 4 - Downtown pain city Crit

Today was the downtown Silver City Criterium. This stage usually draws a good crowd of spectators, but this year there was the extra "Lance Factor" to make it even more popular! Webcor put on a good show with all our riders at the front controlling the race and covering any significant attacks. We wanted the race to come down to a sprint for Gina and to have another opportunity to fine-tune the team leadout. The team rode very well together with everyone contributing, but our leadout got derailed in the final turn, which was a good 300m of uphill headwind from the line and Gina had to go early and Carla Swart from Lipsmackers came around her in the final meters.

Here is Gina's Report:

"Well today's stage started out with Nikki, Alex and I making bets on all the kids racing. We cessed out the competition of all ages from 4-10 in their respective age categories and picked our racer. Probably the best incident was this kid who had food all over his face and the smallest bike in the gang and Nikki chose him...he rolled in last (she'll make a great mom)!!! Alexis made progressive improvements and finally chose a winner in the final race.

Then our race. Everybody with tired legs fighting a "breeze" so they called it. Well winds swirling and twisting our tent in a pretzel. The main goal of course was to not let anything up the road that would put Kathryn's GC in danger. Kristen Armstrong laid the brrrrrrrrrrraaap down in the first 2 laps tearing our legs off. She continued to do that a lot of the race. A few attempts were made for breakaways but the wind was so strong that it was tough to stay away. Nevermind Kristen and Alison Powers bringing things back that didn't really matter. That was ok though because we wanted a field sprint anyways...

A girl got away and was away at 2 laps to go. We learned a lesson in patience today. We panicked a bit and brought her back too quick too soon, leaving not the whole team for a leadout. We needed to control the race with a solid leadout because of the wind and the course. We are capable but because of the circumstances of PANICK we didn't. So Alex was there as the last leadout, which as usual she had under control...then comes the out of control Alison Powers basically cutting her off and making some erratic move before the last downhill off camber left corner. Alex was in her 53x11 leading me out downhill...spun out. Alison comes PAST her right before the corner...I had to make a split decision and follow the fastest person...well, I made it through the corner with her line and speed, following a 2 wheel slide for me and then (what we think happened) Alison scared herself!!! Because she kind of hesitated and didn't continue driving it to the finish...at that point I had to jump at 300-350m to go...yep I basically lead somebody out for the win. And I got first Loser...2nd place.

Criterium racing is so fast and takes split minute decisions, which is what makes it so fun and exciting. Sometimes things work out and sometimes not. All in all Webcor rode a really good race and continues to show how we shine working together as a team on and off the bike. We've been on the podium everyday...tomorrow is no exception!!!

Tomorrow I think are more hills....:-))))))

gina"

May 1 Tour of the Gila Stage 3

Stage 3 of the Tour of the Gila was a 16+ mile time trial. The Webcor team had a good day with Alexis placing 3rd behind Olympic TT champ Kristin Armstrong and US national champ Allison Powers. We continued out trend of podium placings every day so far! Kristin smashed the 9-year old course record set by Jeannie Longo. Her time would have placed her 66th out of 146 pro men!

Allison's 2nd place moved her into 2nd overall, but only 11 seconds ahead of Katheryn. With another big climbing day on Sunday, there are still opportunities to move Katheryn up.

Here is Alex's Report:

"Stage 3 or the Tour of the Gila was the race of truth otherwise known as a Time Trial. The approximately 16- mile undulating course was a lot of fun, for someone who likes 39 odd minutes of Mindless pain!!!!!!

Kristin Armstrong again showed us how it is done, and in the process smashed the previous course record by nearly two minutes. I managed to ride out of my skin and placed third behind Alison Powers. Katheryn rode solidly to hold onto third place in overall classification.

Tomorrow is a criterium in downtown Silver City. It is such a great feeling in the team at the moment, as we are all excited about the crit tomorrow, so hopefully we can continue the daily trend of being on the podium."