Surf City Psycho-Cross: Photo Gallery

Take a tour through all the fun and mayhem of a Velo Bella Halloween! Follow the links for more photos of all the hijinx. And check back soon for more Bella reports from the races. Got Tricks?

Photo copyright Michael Hernandez, norcalcyclingnews.com. Used with permission.
See more photos by Norcalcyclingnews!

Photos copyright Lyne Lamoureux. Used with permission. See more Surf City Photos by Lyne.

For more photos and race results, check out the Surf City Blog!

I Heart Cyclocross!

By Beth Welliver
Pacific Grove, California

Today was my first ‘cross race of the season - CCCX #3 at Laguna Seca. It also happened to be the first race of the NCNCA Cup series.

I just typed up a witty, long-winded race report that my computer decided to eat, so here’s the not-so-witty condensed version.

The course had a stupid huge hill…one of those hills where you’re not quite sure if you going to be able to keep the pedals turning. At least it was paved. I kept trying to find one more gear when I got near the top but it was never there. Then there was this silly stupid barrier right after that climb on slightly off-camber 90-degree turn that I messed up every lap. But then after that the course was fun, fun, fun!!

My main goal today was to podium since it was my first real B race. Second goal was to maintain a good pace for the whole race rather than do my usual go-out-too-hard-and-then-die race routine. I did goal number two pretty well for me, so goal number one fell nicely into place - I got 2nd!! And a nice big box of strawberries to go along with the podium finish.

Even though that stupid never-ending hill sucked every lap, I  loved the rest of the course and I was having so much fun racing it - the fast corners, the fun downhills, it was a blast! And I’ve been so frustrated with my dirt riding skills lately - I’ve been sucking on my mountain bike - that it felt so good to be able to ride so aggressively on that course. Just the kind of race I needed to start the season!

Vegas! Marian’s Suffering-est Race Ever

By Marian Jamison
Reno, Nevada

Alternate post titles:

How I lost my helmet in the Las Vegas Airport.
The longest day ever.
The suffering-est race ever.

Erm, yeah, Cross Vegas!

So, my whole Las Vegas trip (lasting all of 24 hours) was a bit of an adventure. Cody dropped me off at the Reno airport on Wednesday, the day of the race, at 7 AM. When I got to Vegas my bike was there at the luggage claim (no seriously alarming holes in my bike box!) and I stepped out of the terminal to figure out how the hell I was going to get to the convention center. Ah yes, airport shuttle. $12.00 round trip, and I just had to call them to schedule my return trip the next day. Not too hard. The guy driving the shuttle grumbled about loading my enourmous box into the van, repeatedly telling me that they wouldn’t allow it in the convention center. Um, it’s a bike expo, and this is my bike . . . huh? But then he was hella nice and drove me all the way to the doors of the convention center, even though they usually just drop people off at the Venetian and make them walk. And Milo and Otis was playing on the TV in the shuttle van and some foreign dude behind me was cracking up. All in all a good start to the day.

So, I walked into the convention center and immediately saw the coat/bag check office. I asked them if I could check my bike (box and all!) and, after some deliberation, they allowed it! Sweet, one less thing to worry about. I picked up my badge that my boss had arranged for me (it said I was a distributor from Belgium . . . haha) and wandered around the expo for awhile. Talk about sensory overload. I found my coworkers at the Ridley booth and verified that I could stay with them that night (3 dudes sleeping in a room together, one on a cot, and they offered me the couch. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me!). Sampled some of Clif’s new offerings, tried to get some free stuff, and then took a nap in the lobby on the floor.

Ultimately I decided to take a cab to the race venue. It was a little pricey, but at least I could bring my bike and then build it at the venue. I was just putting my wheels on in the parking lot when I saw Alex from Velo Bella getting set up at the Kona tent. Yay! People I know! I walked over and said hi, met some new people, and set up camp. Lots of Bellas (really freaking fast ones!) racing. Anyway, the team support from Alex and Melanie was awesome!

Anyway, to get to the point (finally) the race started at 7:30. I felt decent - kinda tired from my early morning and my wanderings at Interbike, but ready for a thorough ass-whooping. They called everyone up, and it was pretty freaking cool hearing my name, “Marian Jamison, racing for Velo Bella, from Reno, Nevada!” - or something like that. My friend Harry was there at the start line (I think he’d had a couple beers at this point) and he yelled, pretty much right into Laura Van Gilder’s ear, I think, “This is Marian Jamison, people! Marian Jamison!” It made me smile.

Ready, set, hurt! The start of the race was sooo fast! LVG was right in front of me and she popped out of her pedals and almost went down. Holy crap, I almost ran over Laura Van Gilder. Anyway, we got going on the little parade lap and it was pain pain pain, hard hard hard from the very beginning. I was pretty far near the back, worked my way up past a couple of people, and then jockeyed back and forth with a couple of girls for most of the race. The course was mostly flat, with a couple little gnar up sections. Those little up sections made me feel like my brains were going to pop out of my eye-sockets. Seriously, pain. But there were lots of people around the course who knew me (I had no idea who they were at the time) and were cheering for me, and every time I went by Alex he told me to suffer more (that was essentially the gist) so I was pretty encouraged to flog myself for the whole race. Or, almost the whole race.

Photo copyright, Lyne Lamoureux. Used with permission.

My accomplishment for the evening was being the last girl to not get lapped and pulled. I was riding sooo hard going into my last lap so that Katie and Katerina wouldn’t catch me, and I think I went through the finish when they were maybe 100 feet back and closing in fast! So, there was no one behind me on my last lap, and the girl in front of me was pretty far away, so I backed off a little, since I was pretty sure I was dying at that point. But I did my last lap, and sat down on the grass to wait for death. Alex came by, congradulated me, and told me to cool down.

I took a spin and ran into a couple of the people who’d been cheering for me. Bella Marian (California Issue) was there. I hadn’t seen her since Kern, so that was pretty much rad, ’cause she’s pretty much rad. Also Maureen Kunz, Pro-MTBer extraordinair and collegiate rival (if you can be in a rivalry with someone who is hella faster than you) and maybe one of my favorite people to get beat by, was there offering congrats and catch up with. Plus Harry and his friend, were was pretty much awesome with the cheering. Ha! Even my old boss who I routinely avoid, and some fun ex-coworkers were there cheering for me like crazy. I felt like such a star coming in 5th from last that I can’t even imagine how those people who actually do well must feel. Golly.

So, thus ended the extremely fun and painful part of my adventure. I watched the men’s race, which was rad and hella exciting. There was some dude named Lance Armstrong racing? Anyway, people seemed pretty excited about him. It was so awesome to watch some of the fastest guys in the world (Frischknecht and Sauser were there) and they were all so fast. After the race there was a bit of a mass exodus from the venue to where they were shuttling people back to the strip. I was planning on taking the shuttle, but the line was like, a mile long, so I decided to ride. I strapped all my bags of crap on my back and got ready to depart. Some dudes from Boston offered to let me ride with them because they had lights, and we had a jolly nice ride back into Vegas. It was a pretty surreal experience, tho. I mean, I’m a Reno-ite, so I’m used to bright lights and tall casinos, but Vegas is on a whole other level. It was pretty weird riding towards all that through darkened neighborhoods at 11 o’clock at night.

My destination was the Rio - I was heading to the Sinclair party where my coworkers could supply me with a room key to get washed up and then go get drunk with Phil Liggett at the party (haha, only kidding). Long story short (too late), I was way too tired to enjoy the party much, but I hung out for a while because California Marian was there, as were my Bostonian riding buddies. So that was cool. Anyway, the pole dancers were a little much at the end of a very, very long day. So I headed to my couch at 2 AM, only to be woken up by a phone call from some number I didn’t know. See, in all the hustle and bustle to get back to the Rio, I’d forgotten to dispose of my cardboard bike box, and it had my name and phone number on it. Some dude was wicked pissed that I’d left it in the parking lot (totally on accident! I don’t litter!) and called me to tell me so. Sorry dude! It was an accident! Oops! Well, I felt like a jack ass. Oh well, moving on.

I got up at 5:45 the next morning to take the shuttle back to the airport. Ouch, 3:45 hrs of sleep. I left my bike with my coworkers (they would be driving back to Reno after Interbike). In my sleep deprived state I managed to leave my helmet somewhere in the Las Vegas airport. I realized I didn’t have it with me about 20 minutes before my plane left. D’oh! I checked, very quickly, with the lost and found folks at the Security check - the only placed I feel I could have left it - but it wasn’t there and if I waited any longer I was going to miss my plane. So that was a bummer of a way to end my trip.

Well, I’m still getting caught up on sleep from that trip, but I think it was worth it. I think next year I’ll go to Gloucester instead, tho . . . I know lots of people there, too, so I should have a good cheering section.

See more photos from Cross Vegas, by Lyne Lamoureux.

Winning in Watsonville!

By Natasha Perry
Santa Cruz, California

It’s hard to pass up a crit that’s basically in your backyard and my hubby said that it was a fun course, so we packed up the truck and drove all 12 miles to the crit. This race has been going on for something like 31 years! It’s in a little neighborhood in Watsonville - it has a small, big-ring hill, then a short down hill, sharp right, zig-zag - harrrrrd left (avoiding the two cars they couldn’t move off the course), hard right, hard right, hard right…and back up the hill. No snoozing on this course for sure!

Who was racing: All of the prosies were off to SLO or some other destination - phew. A crew of about 16 or so of us were at the start line. Jenny Philips - Wells Fargo, Amanda - Code 3, Lauraleen - Walthour, Village Pedler, couple of Eastons, a Mintie and some others. So no team tactics were going to be seen today, but I knew Amanda and some of the others were feisty riders so figured it should be entertaining.

Off we went for our 28 laps - Amanda was just killing it for the first 5 or so laps. She wanted a frisky race and was determined to get it. About three of us played cat and mouse - throwing out some attacks the head wind before the final right corner made it tough. Prime bell!!! The Villiage Pedler and Mintie, previously quiet, put in some impressive sprints. I was starting to see who the competition was - and was working on just maintaining a good pack position w/o just leading everyone around (favorite old trick of mine).

With three laps to go there were some good efforts and then with one to go Lauraleen took a huge jump on the hill. That’s it I thought - my wheel to the finish. I have to say that Laureleen and I do the Berkeley TT together so I said, go, go, goooooo!!! The course design strings out the course and Laureleen kept the pedal down and no one could pass. Final right hand turn and I jumped as hard as I could….and won! I was so worried about going hard enough to the top that I couldn’t even dare think about the winning salute thing (but don’t worry, LillyBelly was there and she’s getting me straightened out).

All in all - this crit is a little charmer. Totally entertaining, low-key, great practise for cornering and pack position. It would be fun to have a bunch Bellas out there next year!

Most Epic Track Adventures

AVC easy as 123

by: Sabine Dukes

The American Velodrome Challenge is sort of the NRC of track racing. I remember watching the San Jose stop of the AVC last year at Hellyer. I had just started racing on the track and I was in total awe of the women’s racing.

So, one year later, I’m still in awe. I had planned on just watching and partaking of the free wine offered at the AVC, but bella Andrea had made the trip down from Portland to race, and well, you know how i love myself some teammates.

I decided to do the miss and out and the scratch race.

The miss and out is like musical chairs. Each lap there is a sprint, and the last one across the line is out. Repeat until you are down to three and then sprint. I hate the miss and out. It gives me anxiety attacks. I was a complete nervous wreck at the start, wondering what I was doing. Since I am horrible at positioning, I decided to take the front. While this is the safest place to be, its also the most work because there is no draft. I am in no kind of fitness to be pulling such a stunt, but, damn it was fun anyway. I lasted quite a few more rounds than expected and then I finally blew up and was out. I finished 11th, which is just out of the official placings. I almost placed at an AVC!

Susie was waiting with some wine for me to celebrate.

Next up was the Scratch Race. A scratch race is like a mini criterium. First across the line at the end wins. Simple enough. Except Proman was out in force to attack and set Shelly up for the win. The stop and go of responding to attacks was getting tough because I was in my massive 93inch gear. So, I decided to attack where at least I could roll at a constant speed. I bridged up to Hanan, but just as I caught her, I could see she was fading. Damn. I made it out there for almost two laps, so that was exciting. The rest of the race I mostly just recovered from that effort. Afterwards, I wondered what I was thinking by attacking, but what the hell. In the end, shelly lapped the field, and Andrea finished strong in the top ten. (andrea placed an awesome 4th in the sprints too!)

Susie was waiting again with some more wine to Celebrate.

While I was definitely outclassed, I am so glad I did those races. It was a complete thrill to line up and race with so many strong women. A total thrill.

And the wine was good too.

Thanks to Rob Evans for the photo.

Kern, thanks from the boys

More: continued here

Bella and Fella

By Soni Andreini Poulsen
NorCali

Ok, time trial race reports aren’t all that interesting. And I already messed up my first attempt and it got swallowed up in cyberspace. So I’ll keep this short and sweet. Jeff and I rode this on our tandem, of course!

The short:

19.2 miles, flat

it wasn’t too hot (80–which is like a cold spell for Davis in June)

it wasn’t too windy

pre-riding the course last week really helped (we didn’t miss any turns or crash like some people did)

i like having somebody steer for me–i never saw or felt a single bump in the road

but since i couldn’t see anything but Jeff’s butt (which is a nice sight, ordinarily), i missed the camelbak bite valve on the side of the road–if i’d seen that, i’da known that lilly was on the course ahead of me….

the sweet:

we won!!

and beat a few boys in the process….

Chasing Down the Beast

By Erika Donald
Berkeley, California

Kern County Womens’ Stage Race

“Insanity has company, they are called teammates and they all show up to race Kern.

Lilly is so right.

i love my insane teammates. our 35+ group just keeps getting better and better. we will be back again next year. did i just write that? the other teams will see us and know they have their work cut out for themselves. if they were smart they would copy our style. they’d start getting sillier and insaner and funner and winninger — like us.

we slayed the kern beast…no, i don’t like that metaphor. bellas don’t kill animals. what do bellas do? we tame the beast. we make the beast purr and roll over and then we put pretty shiny flair around its furry neck and say, can i get you a beer?

but it takes a team to soften up the beast and we each played our part.

we all let the beast roar and howl at the TT — whatever beast. do your bad beasty thing. we’ll see you in a bit.

lilly faced down the beast at Walker Basin. she attacked and attacked. chased after time bonuses which would help her and take away from the other teams. the pack was closing in after lilly and i moved over to andrea to suggest she might get ready for a counter attack.

“Andrea,” I began…”
“Yup,” she said. and off she went.

oh we are so good.

and there was linda with the water bottle to cool riders down. getting up to the front on the hill sprint to help me get back on. shutting it down when we realized we weren’t all there. and then in the last lap linda, sabine, and Andrea moved up the side as we approached the 1K mark. the field strung out and we had it.

the hill climb was key. last year we didn’t know the course so we rode at the other teams’ pace. but this year we knew we had to go from the gun if we were going to make the time we were down from the TT.

and so sue and I went. we looked back and the beast was chasing. we rotated taking pulls. and soon the beast was nowhere in sight. silly beast you have to be fast to catch us.

and you’re so gonna look cute in flair.

on to Woody. we had a 34 second gap between first and 2nd. and a 1.43 (?) gap to third. our main objective was to hold the 34 seconds and secondarily to move Sue into second. the course this year suited us very well. since it started on the rollers followed by the steep downhill and then more flattish rollers. we kept watch on the Protech TT’ers and any moves by the Kalyra gals who had nothing to lose by going out and trying to get away on the descent and rollers — which they tried! But no luck. And having the teammies there calmed me immensely because i always fear that section as i’m no tt’er and if the other teams worked together they might just possibly get away taking Janet with them and our 34 second lead.

Purrrr…pretty, pretty beast, pretty baby.

Linda and Andrea patrolled the descent and then on the rollers Sabine and linda set pace in the wind going up the hills. Linda worked so hard. resting and recovering. And sabine gave 110 % coming back for more and more…and more. Sue and I sat in. We knew our part was coming. I kept seeing Maryanne and Janet whispering and it made me edgy. But then I would see Sue with her game face on and I felt better and I just had to remember how we’d drilled it on the hill climb. And i couldn’t help but notice that Janet was in a big, big gear and i wondered if she would be fresh for that steep finish.

and then linda and Andrea hit the rollers. Sue and I had discussed that we might go at this point and I really should have been ready for it, but when it happened it threw me into shock. I thought perhaps Linda and Andrea were going to be given a little freedom to fly, but Janet was going with everything. EVERYTHING. I waited for the initial acceleration to ease. but it kept going. Linda was like the energizer bunny. I wanted to shout “I’m getting dropped!” but of course I knew tactically this was like shoving raw meat under the beast.

so I did the only thing I could. “LINDA!” i shouted in that special loving married couple voice.

but then Andrea was going strong and Sue was jamming and Janet was covering EVERYTHING. aw jeeze.

And then we looked behind and Maryanne and the professor…i mean Sonia were coming up. Sue attacked. Janet covered. I attacked, Janet covered. So finally it was the five of us hitting the final hill. I marked Janet until the end though I was never certain if she was going to jump me create a gap and get the bonus finish points — and possibly the overall GC.

But it was not to be. we had the beast feeding out of our hands. it rolled on its back. Lilly removed its beast’s mask and we slung bella flair around its neck.

we will be back.

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