My Thoughts on the 2010 Tour de France

Well with the conclusion of another 3 grueling weeks of bicycle riding by 200 amazing athletes, I've had my fair share of gripes and agreements and the things I'll miss most. Here I share them in no particular order:

~I still don't like Alberto Contador - no matter what you can't trust the ole pistolero, but he is a damn good cyclist

~Andy Schleck is capable of riding without his brother Frank ~France is a beautiful country, but I still don't like French people and their attitudes

~Lance probably should have stayed in retirement

~There were some incredible crashes

~I think the cobbles should be included every year

~Mark Cavendish is fully insane

~Cadel Evans needs to toughen up... I mean really dude? crying after losing the yellow jersey? ~I'm definitely skiing Morzine / Avoriaz in the future and staying in one of those crazy cliff side hotels

~The Bobke said that he hates soccer and that the sport sucks!!

~Following the riders rants and pics on twitter

~The awkward kisses from the podium girls for the stage winners

~Punches being thrown by a couple of lycra wearing badasses

~Does Miller Light really think that we believe Lance actually knows how to kick back and kick in??

~Phil Liggets and Paul Sherwin's British accents

~The incredibly annoying hum of a helicopter

~Shaved Man Legs

~The Alps, but more spectacularly The Pyranees

~Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky were a huge flop

~The Spectators and their umm outfits (or lack there of)

~Do people actually drive up and over these insane mountain passes in little European cars?? Really do they??

~Head Butting

~Fabian Cancellara (Big Bear) and his beyond human TT's

~The French town of Pau is actually pronounced as Poo ("So today the riders have a rest day in Poo")

And what I'll miss most of all.........JENS VOIGT !!!!!!! See ya in 2011!


Vive Le Tour

Tour de France Spoilers everywhere!

For any bicycling aficionado or nerd for that matter, theres one thing that comes to mind each and every July... and that is?? Yep the TdF! Its like Christmas: it only comes around once a year and for those 3 weeks every July all eyes are finally on the bike world. Now don't jump to conclusions, I've been following the pro racing scene pretty adamantly this year, so I'm pretty well in the know and I've been really looking forward to the Tour all year basically. So instead of taking advantage of the three day weekend that the 4th of July weekend provided us with, hubby and I decided to stay home and watch the TdF! What losers!! But we love it and we've been going crazy over it. After all, they've only raced 3 stages and there have already been more crashes in those three days then there were over the entire three weeks last year! Great for spectators not so great for the poor riders. I feel bad for them, but hey this is what they signed up for right? So quit your whimpering fellas and get back on them bikes!

But here's where the problem arises for me and hubby and I'm sure for others too. Now that the three day weekend is over and we work full time jobs, we can't lounge around each morning until noon watching the TdF live :(. Boo we're stuck having to wait until 8pm to watch the re-run. No biggie right? At least we get to watch it?? Yeah okay no problem, only if you don't mind finding out what happened in the race. I mean ugh, its only the 3rd stage of this crazy race and my first day back at work and its already almost impossible not to unintentionally find out what happened. I mean I log onto Face book and first thing my other fellow bike nerds are all talking about it, so I had to regulate on them and banish all TdF banter on there. Then a co-worker came into my office specifically to see if I've been watching and to almost tell me this mornings outcome because he logged onto ESPN.Com and found out. Okay so I dodged both potential spoilers, but then I log onto AOL.com to check my email and right there is a headline "Lance Armstrong Crash". AAARRRRGHH really? Darn it, but could they be referring to yesterdays massive crash that wiped out the entire peloton including Lance? Or was this something that happened today? Shit now I'm confused and I definitely didn't risk clicking on the article to find out. So here I am, its 4pm and I've got 4 hours left to try and hide from any more spoilers. I've got it easier, Rick on the other hand? Well lets see, he owns a bicycle store so whats the first thing a bike nerd custy wants to talk about when they walk into the shop?? Hmm Rick's already had to threaten some custy's after some potential spoilers and he's still got 2 more hours at work! Good luck babe! Hope tonight's stage was worth our efforts!

Welcome Back Race Season

Well we are officially back!! Cross country racing is back in full swing again and we couldn't be more stoked! Just in time for the steamy weather too might I add. Race #1 of the 2010 NYS MTB Series was held this past weekend at the defunct Williams Lake Resort in Rosendale NY. Apparently there was a huge race held annually at the resort years ago that was a pretty big deal in the mountain biking community, but after the resort changed owners the race organizers pulled out. But now that the resort went out of business the fella's over at Favata's Table Rock Tours in Rosendale have been able to host a race there for the past 2 years now! I'll tell ya its pretty eerie racing past empty hotel and motel buildings where the beds are still made, but the trails are awesome and it even includes a cave which is a former iron mine that the race course literally rides thru! There was also a huge furnace I saw in the woods which I assume was for the smelting of the iron ore that presumably came from the "cave" we rode thru. Anyway the race was great! There was a huge turnout of over a 150 riders and the weather was HOT! But we dodged the rain that hit other areas of NY that same day so thats good.

My first race was pretty good I'd say. I actually trained and worked my butt off all winter for this! I've got a podium to defend after all! Well I was happy with my riding, I even passed a few girls which in my head led me to believe I secured the #3 spot on the podium. Woop Woop to that! But when I checked the results it turned out I placed 5th. So with a sad face, I sucked it up to my over excitedness and didn't say anything. But when I got home I started sniffing around a little and I noticed that the names of the 2 "girls" that finished ahead of me seemed more like guys names so I contacted the race promoter and he in turn contacted the race official. Well guess what?? During the race registration a mistake was made and the 2 guys were accidentally signed up in the cat 3 women's category and not the cat 3 mens. So we're waiting to hear back from Favata's to see if they are willing to call the riders in question just to verify that they are in fact "men" (which I'm almost 100% positive they are). I'll let you know when and if I ever hear back, but it did make me feel better knowing that I did as well as I initially thought.

This race was also Rick's first time racing Category 1. Boy there was some fierce competition going on there! There was approx. 20 riders and he finished 6th which is great! He's super excited and happy with his results and he should be. And he's doing the right thing on top of it, he could have stayed in the Cat 2 group and dominated, but he moved up to Cat 1 where its more challenging. I think its great when riders do that and I've got a bit of a chip on my shoulder about a certain female rider who looks like she's going to be sandbagging my category this season, but more on that another time. So thats it for now, Tha Jones' were pretty happy with the race and it was great seeing all of our awesome race friends on top of it. We're totally stoked on the season thats for sure!

Photo of me courtesy of Doug Southwick

A Promise

To be more of a blogger!! When I originally set out on this blogging thing, I really thought that it would be a piece of cake to spend 20 minutes each day blabling online about whats going on. I was totally wrong it looks like. Its been over 6 months since the last time I attempted to update this page, so I've made some changes and I'm making a promise to be more bloggish. First off, I've changed the name of the blog. Its come to my attention that the blog revolves more around my husband then it does me, afterall I would rather talk about somebody else than myself anyway so I figured instead of Adventures of Skiergirl it would be aptly named Tha Jones' after our flickr name. And since Rick and I do pretty much everything together it only makes sense to make the blog more about our adventures and not just mine since I seldom have any solo adventures. So thats where we're at. If you've been checking out our flickr page than you can have a better idea of whats been going on, but if not then here's a few pictures to bring you up to speed.
Grand Targhee Wyoming

Jay Peak VTHarriman State Park

Where does time go??

Holy Cow! I can't believe how badly I've slacked on the blog. I've pretty much neglected to inform all ya's on the totally radical Cyclocross season that has just ended. So to make a long story short, the cyclocross season was totally radical!! In addition to the Newburgh race we could also be found at the Saratoga Race, Tymor Park Race, Hidden Valley Club Race, Whitmore's Super Cup and finally Staten CX. We had tons of fun and Rick did great racing the Cat 2/3/4. He pretty much secured top 20 in all the races, with even coming as close as 5th at the Tymor Park Race!! And I photographed each and every race, spending my fabulous evenings uploading and uploading all the photos onto flickr. So with the end of the bike race season we get to start thinking about the upcoming ski season! We head north in less than 2 weeks to hit the trails of Jay Peak! Just need the temps to get colder and get some snow round here. And I'll try to be more diligent with my posts, I promise! Here's some pictures from the last few races.

And we have a winner!!!!!!

Congratulations Rick!! Last weekend my totally Radical hubby won the Cat 2 men 19-29 New York State Mountain bike Series!! We are so excited!! He's been training non-stop 7 days a week for the past year, so I'm super happy to see all his hard work finally pay off! The Series was so much fun and we made some good friends this year too! Normally I'm pretty stoked for the approaching ski season this time of year, but I have to say that I'm kinda bummed to see the cross country season end. Oh and by the way.. yours truly came in 2nd place overall for Cat 3 women 12-34! And my little friend Gili won!! Way to go girl! 12 years old and the overall winner is a great accomplishment! Thanks to the guys at the NYS MTB series for doing such a great job and to the rest of our XC crew - see ya's next year!! Great job everybody & congrats to Rick again!

Cyclocross Season is Underway

Rick raced his 3rd ever cyclocross race this past Sunday and boy did he do great! I'd say a 6th place finish out of 40 guys ain't bad for only somebody's 3rd time racing cross! And I love it!! I even got my own cowbell this time - and the picture opportunities are endless. A big thanks to the City of Newburgh in lovely Orange County NY for the use of their beautiful park as well as a great job by the NYCross guys in setting up a great course and of course how could I forget Wafles & Dinges. I have never feined for a Belgian Waffle so much in my life as I did this week! Looking forward to more cross races in the next 2 months, but first and finally we need to survive our NYS MTB series championship race this weekend at the wonderful Reidlbauer's resort in RoundTop NY. The forecast is calling for 6 inches of snow by Sunday (prime conditions for a MTB race right?). So that should call for a good story (and a good blog post). Wish us luck, I'll be lucky not do freeze to death, but Rick can clinch the championship!! Good luck Rick - beat Yandeau!!!