Adventures on bicycles: Long overdue update

So I've been a bad blogger the past few weeks and neglected writing any updates. Here's a recap. Elite Crit Championships in Downer's Grove a few weekends ago was pretty fun. Big fields of women show up for the chance at the Stars and Stripes jersey with 90 starters on Saturday and 70 on Sunday. The 8 corner course with a couple of hills is always fun and we were all curious to see if Tina Pic would try to reclaim the jersey from Brooke Miller. Team Kenda had Christy, Kat, Catherine and I on Saturday with Jackie added in on Sunday.

We went for a couple of primes on Sunday and tried sticking in the mix at the end. I was 22nd Saturday, 26th on Sunday - Jackie was our top finisher in 20th on Sunday.

Solid enough results for me as the legs aren't feeling incredibly snappy this time of year. I'm back into base/build mode in preparation for the fast approaching cyclocross season.

Speaking of cyclocross . . . have you heard the big news??

American cyclocross superstar Katie Compton has signed with Planet Bike as her title sponsor for this season. Pretty unbelievable. She dominates this sport in the states (she's won the National title the past 5 years) and consistently finishes top 3 at World Cups and races in Europe. It's super cool that she's signed on with Planet Bike and I look forward to racing with her in the early season before she heads to Europe for the majority of the fall.

We've got a great team put together for the upcoming season. All 3 LaLonde brothers will now be sporting the Planet Bike colors as well as Minnesotan Linda Sone. Wisconsin is a hot bed of young cyclocross talent and we've also brought on 2008 National cross Champ Sarah Huang (age 13-14) and bronze medalist Kaitie Antonneau (age 17-18). It's going to be a fun year!

Life has been sort of hectic but good the past couple of weeks. I've been working a lot and splitting my time between Planet Bike and Machinery Row. At PB we're ramping up to Interbike time and I'm really excited to be headed out to Vegas for the biggest bicycle industry tradeshow in the nation. In addition to working in the PB booth I'll be racing in Cross Vegas which should be a blast. A wicked way to start the cross season but with a planned schedule of mostly UCI events I might as well get used to it!

Cross Vegas is on Wednesday night September 23rd and then it's a flight back to Madison Friday night to prepare for our BIG Planet Bike USGP race in Madison that weekend. I'm super excited for the event and it will be a who's who of North American cross racers with a few European guys thrown in for good measure. I can't wait.

As a preparation for cross I decided to do a WORS mountain bike race last weekend up in Green Bay. The course is literally a mile away from my parents house so it was fun to go home and do the local race. It was a looong race at 36 miles but a fairly non technical course with some fast singletrack and some doubletrack for roadies like me ;) I used to race a few MTB events back in the day but it's been 3 years since the last one and I was admittedly a little nervous.

I'd only been on the bike twice before the race - Dave's sweet Specialized carbon hardtail. It's very convenient than we ride the same size bike! The race was super fun although my back was killing me midway through. My singletrack skills are severely lacking and I couldn't stick with the lead two riders and they pulled away at the end of the first lap. After a couple of crashes I was in a group of 3 other women and by the start of the final 3rd lap I pulled away in the open stretches and tried to maintain my lead.

Thanks Gary for the photo!

I'm not used to a 2.5 hour full on effort though- that last lap I was hurting! Another crash with a few miles to go almost had me losing my position but I pushed through the final doubletrack section and finished in 3rd place overall.

Thanks Amy for the photo!
It was an awesome day to be riding a bike out in the woods and it was nice to have my parents and some friends cheering me on. Cyclingnews report

One final weekend of crit racing in St. Louis starts tomorrow with Gateway Cup and the Tour of Missouri womens crit on Labor Day. Racing will be fast and furious with lots of the nations top riders coming out for this fun series. Team Kenda will have 4 riders in the races and it will be a great way to finish off the season for us.

And then next weekend is the event we look forward to all year in my household . . . the Madison Ironman. Dave has been training really hard for his 3rd IM and I'm looking forward to being a superspectator again. He puts in so many hours throughout the season in anticipation for the big day and his fitness is really good right now. Will be a fun day!

It's been nice to hang out more with Dave the past few weeks with some weekends at home and with no racing.

We celebrated his birthday by riding bikes to our favorite local burger joint . . . mmm, burgers!

We are also very excited to announce we have a new baby nephew! Congratulations to Dave's brother Mike and his wife Karla on their beautiful son Adrian. How cute is this!?