Single & 29

Showing off my trophy!

Lucky me for the # & the boy. Love his silly head.

The "mud" part of the race.. not so popular on a 50F day.

Teammate Molly & fellow winner-winner with our trophies.

Part of Team 2011

So... you KNOW I'm far above & beyond 29 but I am single again... well, I always have been but this time with 29er wheels. Yep, dismantling of the geared bike took place a couple of weeks ago & now I'm racing it singlespeed and LOVING it. My first race was last weekend & it initially appeared that I'd be the only female on ss. Thank goodness another was on the roster the night before and one more registered day-of race! Whew.. some competition. Well... I was actually competing in my head against the girls on gears in the expert field. Last year, in the small field, I placed 2nd. This year I knew that was not going to be the case with some of the big, LOCAL roadie-girl names signing up. Oh well... all about year-to-year improvident, or something like that.

So, it was a fast & very fun race. The temps were in the 50's and perfect by my standard for racing. I wore shorts with light knickers over the top, toe covers, head warmer for my ears & chilly day cycling gloves. It worked out GREAT.. Oh, I had thin arm warmers with my team jersey. Perfecto!

I don't like race reports in 2011 any better than the previous 4..5 years, SO, I won't bore you with details but will say this... GLEN will NOT catch me again. Darn, he started 6 minutes back & caught me within the final 15 minutes of the race. When he found me spinning my brains out on the flat back-stretch.. he simply said, "oh hai." Nice huh? Well, I took that as an opportunity to draft him for a couple/few? miles until my legs said they just could not keep that RPM.

Definitely time to move up a notch in back... 34/18 for MSB 2011... looks like 34/17 for the remainder of the summer unless I find some combo I like better. Looking for and finding that perfect place... does it exist?

So, in the end I would up on the top notch of the podium with my 2 ss competitors standing near but far off in the time standings. Feeling hopeful that I made the right choice going ss.

The most rewarding part was finishing up as 5th overall in the women's field against some pretty seriously road women. Yippy!


p.s. Glen hauled in his group... top 10 outta almost 200 (I think?) yah, he's starting strong.