Coconut Cup #5-Quiet Waters

Quiet Waters is another new trail for me.  It's located in Deerfield Beach FL.  This is the first time in years that the Coconut Cup has raced here.  I came early on Saturday so I could get a few practice laps in.  Like every new trail I go to in Florida, I struggle a bit at first.  There's just something about these Florida trails that is so different than the ones in Michigan.  The terrain was rocky and seemed pretty loose and gravelly in a lot of the corners but by the second practice lap I felt like I had decent handle on things.

The morning of the race proved to be just as cold and crappy as predicted.  52 degrees and light rain.  I was OK with it.  I've raced in conditions like this many times in Michigan.  Not my favorite, but I knew what to wear and how to ride in the rain! I was excited.  I'm feeling super strong right now and I was rested and ready to race.  I knew the weather would keep a lot of Floridians away.  This was a bummer for me.  I love it when more Pro women show up to race against.  Yes, it makes me more nervous, but it makes it so much more fun! Unfortunately, no other Pro ladies showed up to race.  I was bummed and it changed my game plan for the day.  All I needed to do was finish to get my first place points for the series. With this in mind, I decided to not warm up and stay out of the rain as long as possible. I also asked the race director if I could start behind all of the Cat 2 guys. This trail has zero passing options so I thought it best to stay out of their way since I wouldn't be riding "all out." I decided to ride fast but not my usual "ride til you barf or crash." There was just no reason to throw up or hurt myself ;-)

Heading to the start with Tom

I actually started out with the Cat 2 women.  After the first few minutes I took off from them and rode solo for most of the race. The trail was amazing with the sprinkling of rain on it! All of the loose dirt had firmed up and the course was fast!  In the first lap I was flying around a corner and was completely caught off guard by an animal in the trail! I screamed like a girl, jammed on the brakes, and skidded to a stop two inches away from a raccoon.  He would not move out of the trail and we stared at each other in confusion for a few moments. The best part of my first lap was coming through the chute and hearing "HEY BUCKAROO" ( My dad still calls me this).  My parents were in town from Michigan and had braved the super crappy weather to come watch me! So awesome!  My second lap was pretty uneventful.  I was just out riding my bike at a fun, but semi-fast, pace and giggling every time I got some air over the bumps!
I figured today would be a good day to practice drinking out of water bottles like the big kids do.  As I rode through after my second lap I reached for my bottle like a pro...and then dropped it on the ground.  Sigh, I guess we'll stick with the camelback for next time. By the third lap the rain was really coming down.  The trail had filled with an inch or so of water. This was Michigan-like racing at it's finest.  My shoes and socks squished with each pedal stroke, the water poured off my helmet into my face, and mud was splashing everywhere.  You know its cold and crappy when you can't decide if you should leave the warm snot on your face or try to wipe it off with your cold wet sandy glove...

Great day of riding with no crashes, just fun! However, I was glad to be done! I couldn't wait to get out of my soaked gear and into some warm clothes.  Come to find out, the winner of the Cat 2 women should have been Cat 1 so they moved her up to my category as a second place finisher which bumped up my first place payout. Weird day of racing but the first place points are nice for the series!  I'll take it!  Team Stradalli did awesome. Our newest team member Jonathan placed first and Tom finshed 3rd. Stradalli, bringing home the bling!

Camping at Alafia

I've never liked camping. I had a bad experience with rain, cold, and mud in my early 20's and said I would never go again! Well, never say never...
Last winter my friend Jen convinced me to try camping with her because we can camp at the mountain bike trails. Hm, that actually sounded interesting. Jen has a travel trailer and she is awesome at packing it with food and everything we need. So, of course, I ended up having a riot on my first camping trip last year.
This past weekend the Mudcutters planned a trip to Alafia to camp and ride for 3 days. Now that I am an expert camper (ha), Jen and I decided we should go!
We got there Friday afternoon wolfed down some lunch and couldn't wait to hit the trails!  We had friends coming up and some of the other Mudcutters were already there. We headed out and hit some of my favorite sections (North Creek and Roller Coaster). One of our friends brought us in to Gatorback which was too technical for me! It always takes me a few hours to get used to trails I don't ride all the time. Luckily I didn't kill myself or break my neck and decided to just take is easy for the rest of the evening. The next day was going to be a full day of riding.

Saturday we packed up the bikes and headed to Balm Boyette. I had only been here once before. It was as fun as I remembered. We had a great group of 5 of us. There is a trail called "ridgeline" which is 2 miles of punchy climbs and steep descents. We rode it once to get the feel of it and then we all decided to race it as fast as we could! It was a crazy adrenaline rush. The slightest mistake would have sent you off the ridge 20 ish feet down. We rode there for about 3 hours then drove back to camp for lunch. I had made some adjustments to Honey Bee the night before and the bike was really feeling awesome. The shocks were dialed in just how I like them.

After lunch we rode at Alafia for a few more hours. I think it's the best I've ever rode. I was feeling one with the bike and everything seemed easy!
The next day we decided to try another new trail.  Loyce E Harpe Park.  I had big plans for another 2-3 hour day but my legs seemed to have plans of their own.  Jen and I were wiped out!  We took a nice easy tour of Loyce Harpe.  There are some fun little sections I'd like to try again when I'm fresh! Overall a great weekend.  Here is some GoPro footage from our afternoon ride at Alafia!
Link to YouTube video of us at Alafia

Piggy's Revenge 2017

Piggy's Revenge is a great event put on near Venice FL by SCORR. $35 gets you a 40 mile race, a brat, and beer.  Doesn't get much better than that!  I love this type of race.  Single track to keep it interesting, and some long two track/gravel grinds where all I need to do is pedal -hard. The other cool part about these types of races is the "mass start".  I love this because I can start with my guy friends and race against the guys too! The morning started out a little crazy with temperatures in the 30's...with bitter wind....in SWFL....say whaaaat??  I grabbed all kinds of different clothing but didn't have much since I left my true "winter warmies gear" in MI. My friend Jen and I rode up together and I think we both felt a little crazy getting up before 5am to race in the cold!

I found a pair of toe warmers in my gear bag!

After a few last minute wardrobe changes I headed for the start. My race plan was to head out with the lead group of guys and hold on to that group if it killed me.  I've never done any road biking/training, ever, until 4 months ago.  I was anxious to see how months of training on the road would pay off.
There was a 1 mile roll out before we dropped right in to the single track.  The leader had a nice pace going, one I could easily hang with.  A mile or so in, the rider in front of me was getting dropped.  He let me and my friend Joe pass, and from there we formed a group of 5 and left the rest of the riders behind rather quickly. Riders 1 and 2 were local and they knew the course and the single track.  Rider 3 was a fast rider that I have raced with before and know from the Naples Velo road rides. I was 4th and Joe was 5th.  Poor Joe had to follow my sketchy lines through the single track.  I actually heard him go down behind me at one point.  I thought for sure I had accidentally brake checked him but it turned out to not be my fault, phew.  I slowed down to see if he was OK, then yelled at him to hurry up and get up! We had a pain train to catch! The five of us worked great together.  I did give the boys a little crap when they happily let me pull for a while on a two track. 
Somehow the perfect mountain bike race never stays perfect, does it?? In the second set of single track I crashed.  Nothing crazy, but Honey Bee was making a weird noise after that.  It took me a while to figure out what was going on.  I looked down and saw the skewer on my front wheel was coming out!  Ugh, crap, $*%! I had forgotten to tighten it down after transporting my bike inside my car with the front tire off.  Stupid E, stupid stupid stupid.  I had to completely stop and get it all fixed up.  Major bummer, now I have no one to draft off and no one to follow through unfamiliar single track.   Shortly after this the trail signs point to a river....like IN the river.  It took me a minute to realize we had to cross the river.  Not enjoyable with a 40 degree temp.
At this point the race is about halfway.  So much for my "easy pace" with a group.  However, even with my stop I was still in 5th place.  No one had caught up. I'm thinking in my head that I'm really going to have to drop the hammer to catch 4 fast guys working together while I blow myself up in the wind by myself.  I did drop the hammer but it was funny because the ground was so uneven and bumpy...11 miles an hour was balls out.  This part of the race was a two track along power lines.   It was painfully boring and just mile after mile of grinding along by myself.  I got excited multiple times because I would see people but it turned out they were racers doing the 20 mile race.  I asked a few of them if they had seen "four fast guys".  They said "yes, but they were long gone." I tried to not get defeated but I was pretty tired at this point.  Just as was starting to feel completely blown up my friend Kris came FLYING up behind me.  "Hop on Erica"...and I did.  I think he must have drank jet fuel or something.  He was flying!  Amazingly enough we caught Joe (he unfortunately had a tire that kept going flat, boo) But then we caught and passed "Rider 2" he had fallen off the two lead guys.  I lost Kris, he didn't share any of his jet fuel, and I just couldn't hang after my solo grind. I pedaled to near death to make sure I didn't lose my 4th place finish!  Photo below of the top 4 finishers.

Joe went through 4 air cartridges to keep his tire inflated and still finished right behind us in 6th

What a super fun day with my FL mountain bike gang. My new Stradalli bike was awesome, the food and beer was great. We even had two of our friends join us for their first mountain bike race.
Quiet Waters Jan 29 is up next!

As a cyclist, I don't think there is a happier day than when you get a new bike! This was yesterday for me.  But let's back up.  A few months ago I was offered a sponsorship from Stradalli Cycle. I couldn't be more excited to be working with a great company and riding on a team with Bob McCarty.  The last few weeks have been spent chatting with Bob about building me the perfect race bike.  I'm not very mechanically inclined so I didn't have a lot of input besides "make it fast" and "carbon please".  The weeks waiting for it to be complete were torture but I finally had a free day to head across the alley and pick up the bike!  Longest two hour drive ever!  I finally arrived and couldn't have been happier to see the results.  I love matte black so I picked a matte black and yellow frame. I like to name my bikes so I decided to name her "Honey Bee." I came up with the name because of the color but also, there is a Honey Bee nest on one of my home trails.  It always scares me when I pass it!
Tom, Bob, and I decided to head for Markham Park to test it out!  It looked pretty but, how would it ride??  Bob made some changes to my previous position on the bike.  We dropped the stem and changed my seat position which was great.  We also left the handle bars 3 miles wide! This is going to be strange to get used to.  I had my doubts about it, but when a mountain bike pro that's 10x the rider you are tells you to do something...well, you listen!

The ride went great! Better than anticipated.  Markham is one of the hardest trails in Florida to ride and I have not mastered it yet so I was a little nervous about taking my brand new bike there. I was able to make some of the steep punchy climbs that I previously struggled with.  The bike felt super light and fast.  I will admit, I even got used to the handle bars after an hour or so.

I gave poor Honey Bee a full test ride!  I took a wrong line and went down about 10 minutes into the ride. Rider error, not Honey Bee's fault.  Bob took us through a bunch of mud and I was not happy to be getting my new bike dirty! All in all it was a great day and I headed back across Alligator Alley with my new dirty bike and muddy and bloody shins. I love this sport!

This week is a taper week.  I will be racing Sunday at Piggy's Revenge.  It's a 40 mile race that is partial single track/two track/gravel.  Can't wait!