Otter Mischief

Yea…so it rained a little at the otter this year.

As if that was going to stop us any

Congrats to all who raced (regardless of whether you are listed in the results or not)
and bella kisses to all who helped out

Photos of the otter here

Soni’s report
Monica’s report
Wendy’s report

April 12

Prairie City Race Series #2, CA
1st, Renee Ridgley, Beginner Women 34 and Under

Kristin in ProCycling

Introducing the Texas State Champion

Kiersten Inserni has clinched the Texas State Mountain Bike Championship for Women 11-12 by winning every race she’s entered so far this season. More importantly, both she and her brother have been spotted wearing great flair…helmet flair, arm flair and look closely – she is rocking the Big Cheese bar grips. Suh-weet.

Congratulations Kiersten!

A big shout-out to her brother as well who has been spotted wearing rockin’ helmet flair on their dad’s blog. That’s cool! He’s also an amazing mountain bike racer. Check it out:

Rocky Mountain Roubaix Race Report

by Tina

After a lovely 5 hour drive the night before, I woke up to a sunny morning… The forecast had been touting mostly cloudy skies, threat of rain, and highs in the low 50s. With a start time at 10 am, that would mean temps in the 30s to 40s.

Driving over, I mentioned to my husband that I would rather have it be cold, rainy, and slimy – just to weed out the weaker ones, which may have been me after my ego was done trash talking.

It was only my second real race and nerves were tight – it was a miracle I kept my breakfast down – and only had one round of the nervous-rea. Rocky Mountain Roubaix takes its name from our favorite Belgian race with cobbles and unpredictable weather – only this one has lots of dirt roads and pavement that’s actually worse then the dirt!

They combined the women’s fields – we even had a Cat 1 road racer on her cross bike out there to show us just how bad we were – was 18 –which is HUGE for Montana. I was very excited. We had many Bellas – me, Jackie, Erika from Idaho, and soon to be Zoe (I think she just has to fill out her waiver) all in our Velo Bella kit and full of flair – me with the sparkly frog on the skateboard mojo and matching earrings, to Jackie with her cross bike and pink bar tape and matching sidewalls on her tires… It was fabulicious.

The race got off with a calm pace and the first sign of a dirt road sent an itchy Cat 1 racer on a desperate attempt for a breakaway –we chased her down like the dog she was…And – this was really funny – cuz’ it showed me the difference between men and women racers – on the first dirt section not even 3miles in, a lonely voice toward the back cried out “CRAP – I got a flat!” and the entire field went, in unison, “Awwwwww.” That’s when the Cat 1 took off.

Wasn’t that sweet?

Well, I got shelled off the main group about 1/3 of the way in on a steep dirt section, with two Bellas still in the lead group, Zoe andErika, to bring home the hardware. They ended up dropping the Cat1, and Erika and Zoe came in 2nd and 3rd – Woohoo!! Erika will have to give you more details on that one –

I managed to find some girls willing to work together and we roundedout a beautiful day of racing with a SWEET sprint finish – I took a flyer at about 100k to go and thought I had a nice gap, but justbefore the line one of the girls I was working with came up and got me by a couple feet. It was really cool though – I still get goosebumps. I like to Sprint. A lot.

And many many kudos to Jackie for toughing it out on her cross bike – she’s our awesome mountain biker, cross racer, 24-hours of dirt and mud chica and she did awesome!

Thanks for reading until next weekend – Helena Primavera RR – I’ll be donning my beautiful Easter bunny ears!

Master Women Wrap Up

by Monica

Circuit Race, Friday
W 30+ & W 40+
VB racers Liz Benishin & Monica Neilson
Weather some clouds, mild temp., windy

The officials combined the W 30+ and the W 40+ fields. I knew Jen Holladay, ofTamarack, who was racing in the 30+ field (we met at Cascade Cycling Classic (aNRC race) a few years ago. It was sweet to see her again. She is a pretty strong rider and I knew she was a good, safe wheel to be on. She seemed to want to lead so I sat on her wheel as much as possible.

I felt great on the climb up the Cork Screw and never felt like I was working hard. I sat in, watched my competitors and waited to see who would do what. Unfortunately, on our last lap, on the last climb, the officials neutralized us as the Cat 3 women were catching us. It was really discouraging, I felt really good. I planned to punch it on the last time up the climb and I couldn’t.

We ended up passing the Cat 3 women at the last left hand turn before you make your way to the finish line. It was here things got all messed up, groups mixed together that weren’t supposed to. It was a cluster **^#! In the end, I took 2nd and Liz took 3rd.We did get to sit outside in the rain for three hours waiting for the results to be right. Amazing when there were only 12 people in our field! Gee, maybe the”official” decision to only start the various fields 40 seconds apart (vs the stated 2 minutes) caused more work for the officials too. hmmmm……

Road Race, Saturday 4:17 start time
Weather: beautiful but windy

Once again combined the W 30+ with the W 40,VB representation- only me. We had four laps and a big part of this race is attrition so its important to be patient, play it out and see what happens.

Each time up “the wall” the field narrowed. On lap 2 we were down to 6, 3 30+ women and 3 40+ women. We had some trouble getting a good working pace line going as not everyone wanted to play. That’s okay, there’s no written rule that you have to participate.

Every lap on the long descent I took the lead. I know this course well and I know that leading through the big left turn at the bottom of “the wall” allows you to carry as much speed as possible up that hill. This worked out great. I seemed to set the pace up the climb, not intentionally, it just happened.

The last lap as we made the right up Barf Boy to the finish line, everyone was watching everyone to see who was gonna go, or who was gonna do what. The pace was pretty mellow. I kept my eyes on my two opponents and kept them off to my side, making sure they weren’t resting on my wheel.

We picked up the pace as we got closer and closer to the finish line. At the 1km mark, Alexis (of Joselyn’s and the W 30+ group) and I rode a little harder. We found ourselves with a little gap….cool! At about 500m to go, Alexis hit it hard. I got out of my saddle to go with her but she gapped me off a bit. I kept my pace up and crossed the finish line just behind her but for first in my field! It was so great to see Michael, Sabine, Jeff, Soni, my crazy husband, brother in law and nephew out there cheering. It was late, it’d been a long day for everyone and I really appreciated you guys sticking around.

It was a challenge to try and read the posted results in the dark, have the awards at 9PM and finally, eat a sandwich at 10PM. We had to miss the Kona party, dammit….but hey, it was sweet leaving the Otter at 9:30 at night with no traffic!

April 7-9

Sea Otter Classic, CA
Road Race
1st, Monica Nielson, Women 40+
2nd, Patty Selbicky, Women 3
13th, Deborah Levine, Women 3
7th, Amy Fischer, Women 4
20th, Kathie Reid, Women 4
21st, Heidi Horton, Women 4
27th, Soni Andreini Poulsen, Women 4
29th, Denise Ramirez, Women 4

Circuit Race
28th, Jane Ziegler, Women 1/2/Pro
34th, Kele Murdin, Women 1/2/Pro
2nd, Monica Nielson, Women 40+
3rd, Elizabeth Benishin, Women 40+
21st, Denise Ramirez, Women 4
30th, Amy Fischer, Women 4

Super CX
19th, Wendy Simms, Pro Women
26th, Kristin Danielson, Pro Women
50th, Shannon Holden, Pro Women
53rd, Noel Weddle, Pro Women
56th, Sami Fournier, Pro Women
59th, Jennifer Tilley, Pro Women
63rd, Erin Duggan, Pro Women
68th, Kim Passafiume, Pro Women

Time Trial
4th, Wendy Simms, Pro Women
30th, Kristin Danielson, Pro Women
50th, Shannon Holden, Pro Women
58th, Jennifer Tilley, Pro Women
60th, Erin Duggan, Pro Women
61st, Kim Passafiume, Pro Women
64th, Sami Fournier, Pro Women
65th, Noel Weddle, Pro Women

Short Track
17th, Wendy Simms, Pro Women
34th, Kristin Daneilson, Pro Women
51st, Kim Passafiume, Pro Women
52nd, Shannon Holden, Pro Women
53rd, Jennifer Tilley, Pro Women
58th, Erin Duggan, Pro Women
63rd, Sami Fournier, Pro Women
65th, Noel Weddle, Pro Women
9th, Alex Fabbro, Expert Women
11th, Ryan Hostetter, Expert Women
6th, Julie Starling, Sport Women
10th, Kelly Miller, Sport Women
11th, Daphne Hodgson, Sport Women

Cross Country
4th, Wendy Simms, Pro Women
19th, Kristin Danielson, Pro Women
31st, Noel Weddle, Pro Women
35th, Shannon Holden, Pro Women
45th, Kim Passafiume, Pro Women
49th, Erin Duggan, Pro Women
50th, Jennifer Tilley, Pro Women
3rd, Alex Fabbro, Expert SS
3rd, Kathleen Bortolussi, Expert 40-49
??, Lorena Seldon, Expert 40-49
5th, Julie Porter, Expert 35-39
7th, Sabine Dukes, Expert 35-39
??, Ryan Hostetter, Expert 25-29
6th, Dana Lookadoo, Sport 40-49
10th, Kim White, Sport 30-34
12th, Piper Ehlen, Sport 30-34
6th, Teshia Cordia, Sport 25-29
13th, Meredith Obendorfer, Sport 25-29
7th, Daphne Hodgson, Women 50+
3rd, Katrina Loera, Beginner 45-49
14th, Rosalind Rondash, Beginner 30-34
1st, Nicole Bumbaca, Beginner 25-29

Downhill
23rd, Allie Rau, Pro Women
5th, Jeni Udall, Sport Women

April 5

Prairie City Race Series #1, CA
1st, Renee Ridgley, Beginner Women 34 and Under

Saddle Up

It Must Be the Booties

by Raja

Today turned out to be a bootiful San Diego day. Sunny, no wind, nice temp.. and perfect for a bootilicious time trial at Fiesta Island in the middle of Mission Bay. I had just realized that once you get in line, your nerves escalate exponentially the closer you get to that guy straddling the bikes. “It must be the booties” said the guy 3 up from me. “All the fast ones have the booties” he joked. It was his first TT, as it was my first as well. I replied, “yeah, I don’t have one of those crazy helmets… but I got booties!”

Whitney DeSpain had just finished the first of her 5 loop course and looked great. So Cal Bella’s got to stick together, “Go Whitney!” I screamed. All you bellas out there… Whitney is the BEST support and cheering squad one could ask for -Bella Extraordinaire- she attracts energy and happiness, what could be better???

“Twenty seconds…” said the voice behind my left ear, “you have twenty seconds.” He kept speaking but all I heard was “blah blah blah.. blah blah…” and all I could think about was “OK, I have lost the ability to clip into my pedals…” He said something about laps and finishing and luck. I’ll take some of that with a side of fries please!

And I was off, my first TT now under way. Having a triathlon background, I’m a little more familiar with racing TT than road racing, having said that, I haven’t owned a bike for year yet…so “familiar” is a relative statement. I was however pretty familiar with that ache in the legs left over from the half IM 2 weeks ago. Yesterday I hopped on my bike for a couple of hours to wake up the legs – thought perhaps that would be wise…Eh, ache, smake… whatever.. right??!? Laps 1 & 2 felt nice and smooth. Lap 3 errr… and lap 4, well.. not so much. Lap 5, you can feel the finish… my bum hurt, my legs hurt, heck, even my arms hurt (???). I’m still getting used to aerobars… I finished in something like 33:17, happy for my first TT. Lots of improving left to go. Whitney looked at me sideways – “THAT’S GREAT!!” she said… “you should stick around.. your new fiance just may be a podium boy!”

Here’s the REALLY interesting and important part of the day… A woman walked up to Whiteny & I and smiled a great big smile, “you have the best looking [kit] out here.” Really she said that! Then a guy from Pez Cycling seemed to agree and took our photo (so look online on their something or rather “distractions” part of their website!) for their cycling news website. VB making the news! (well, not really, but I can dream can’t I??). So Whitney & I made a pact… more flair next race!! We’ll show ’em “distraction”!

Results came out, and my new fiance, Dave, did indeed become a podium boy and I placed second behind the Master aka Yvonne. Can I tell you how EXCITED I am??!? Whitney gave me a huge hug and said, “you realize the only one to beat you was Yvonne?” Now I don’t know Yvonne personally.. but let me tell you.. she makes the guys look slow. Not only is she wicked fast (like 3 minutes faster than me!).. she’s pretty too! Ugg! So jokingly I replied to Whit, “well, I’ll just have to catch her now won’t I!”. (I stress jokingly!) So on to the next race. I doubt I’ll catch Yvonne… but the good news, in 2 years she’ll be on to another age group.. so there’s hope!!

That’s it from bootiful Southern California. It was the new VB booties, I swear!

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