Monday 30 April 2012

Planet of the Apes ride

This ride is probs one of the most epic rides I have done...what made it even better is that most of us thought we were doing a 3-4hour ride haaahahah.

So it all started on the Wednesday 9am Stahl ride (meets at peets coffee for a decent endurance ride that changes the route every week). This ride is apparently for the un/under/self-employeed, retired, or pro cyclist wanting a long enduro ride. 
Generally you can choose if you want to turn of early or ride longer. So on wednesday, we all met, there were 4 of us 'australisian' girls, Loren, Bec, Em and I. I left home at 8.30 am and got back just before 4pm, a little bit longer than 3-4 hours huh?


Well it started off with about 20 of us rolling our, and after about 1.5 hours we wondered why the group had got down to about 10 (the others had turned back). So we headed towards pacifica beach ( and were treated with some AMAZING veiws as we descended there). It was when we were here (about 2.5 hours into it) we started to ask where we were going next, we were soon to find out that we were going to climb about 3 mile dirt road climb, then decend it. Then stop for lunch...oooh and you should be home at about 4pm! Whaaat?? 
So we started the Dirt road accent up the 'palnet of the Apes' climb. Apperently there is a gorilla called Coco that lives in an inclosure up this climb...hmmm, oh and the planet of the apes was filmed up there! Lets just say we all developed a love for mountain biking, even if it was on our road bikes! It was awesome! The decent was a little scary, we all took it pretty slow as it was sandy/gravelly/ had quite a few drop off's to make us feel real bad ass on our road bikes. Numerous punctures and a few minor crashes here and there we got to half moon bay and refueled with a much needed coffee and food. 



After lunch we still had about an 80km ride back home, and the only way back was back over Mountain range.  we headed back over Tenetis Creek Mountain...just a casual 15km, 40 minute climb after the 4 hours of solid riding we had already done! Definitely was a releif to get to the top non the less, and with the endorphins riding high we started the decent down Kings Mountain...a few voms from a particular rider that ate a bit too much at the 'lunch break' and we were good to go!

Now we just had to drag our selfs along foothill (thankgod we had some guys to draft behind). Foothill is an express way that runs right along the base of the mountain range, and basically everybosy turns off it at some point to get home. And lucky for me, my turnoff is the last one. So I normally have to do the last and first 30mins on my own, which also increases all my ride times by 1hour! Thankfully though, Em and I had a plan, and I rode to here house grabbed Betrice (the maroon little car Em has been using, whilst Moira (the murder van that Jazzy, Em and I have been using) is broken) and drove the rest of the way home. Thank goodness for that, I dont think I would of made it home otherwise! So I was home at 4pm. Pretty Solid day of training!

If you are ever in California, I would seriouly reccomend riding around here, it's awesome! And I swear no body works....and everyone rides!!
The past week has been quite busy, we had a ANZAC bbq a few days late on friday night...only to be asked by an American "is New Zealand involved in ANZAC day as well as Australia??" hah old americans aye!

 We even had some shrimp on the old barbie, and Bec (one of the Aussies) made an awesome Pav!




Since the anzac bbq we have been busy with Car washing in santa cruz, eating sushi, and Bridies birthday bbq.








Next up is Catshill Classic on Saturday the 5th followed by Dana point Criterium in Orange County on the 6th.


After this our big summer racing trip begins on the 10th of May first up with Tour de grove! 


Can't wait!

Thursday 26 April 2012

Sea Otter

Heey,

So this is what has been happening my last few weeks, my host family went to Japan (how cool is that? family trip to Japan! Lucky Kids :) ) so I dog sat for a week, and then went straight from dog sitting, to cat sitting in Palo Alto. I have never had to look after a cat before...and to be honest they kind of creep me out a little. This one was called Oliver, he was very friendly, and he could open doors... when they were closed... apparently he has really strong biceps?!! Who would of thought!

This past week, Nor Cal has really started to heat up, the leg warmers and arm warmers all have come off which has been nice.

In between the dog and cat sitting, I did the Santa Cruz Criterium. This was a good warm up for VK before Sea otter, as for most of us, it was our first race back from being sick...and was our first race together with the team that we had lined up for sea otter. I ended up in 4th with Em in 5th.

Pre Santa Cruz


I went straight from Cat sitting to Monterey California to race the Sea Otter Classic. Monterey is known for its aquarium... unfortunately we didn't get a chance to go to it, but apparently the Jelly fish are awesome haha.

Sea otter was heaps of fun...a bit like zoo in a way, as everyday along with the racing there is a festival that thousands of people attend...was pretty crazy, and soooo American!

The stages went like this:

Stage 1: Criterium
We had an 8 am start...8AM!! Sooo early, I thought they had got the am and pm mixed up in the race bible....but no we did in fact start at 8AM! So up at 5 am...the earliest I have been awake all year!
The race its self though was heaps of fun! The plan for the team was for me to go for the intermediate sprints and try to win the sprinters Jersey, and for Emily to go for the Finnish. After the stage I was 2nd in the points classification ( 1 point of Alison Powers) and Emily got 3rd on the stage, so happy faces all round.

Jazzy and I post Crit


Stage 2: Road race
A bit of a later start today, 12pm, but also ment for peak hour of sun and heat...and it certainly got HOT!
The course was awesome, hilly and undulating. Jazzy and I were going to go for KOM points, but (hopefully my last bit of bad luck for the season) at the bottom of the climb when I was changing into my small chain ring, my chain dropped on the inside, and got stuck under my chain catcher, and then twisted. I couldn't pull it out, so had to wait for the neutral support to fix it. Once it was fixed the bunch was long gone, so my chase begin. After about 10km of chasing, the bunch was finally insight, and my team mate Bridie came back for me and dragged for a few km to finally reach the front group again. Once I made it back to the front group I was well and truly spent. Everything hurt, and my legs started cramping which was awesome.  I stayed in the front bunch for the rest of the day, until 1km to go when I blew. I had nothing left, and lost 5mins in 1km. crazy. I could barely even peddle. I was pretty annoyed with my race, as I was feeling awesome until I had to do a whole lot of chasing because of my mechanical incident...but hey that's bike racing, and I know I pushed my self to the limit.
I was also still 2nd on sprint points to Powers by 1 point.

Stage 3: TT
Seeing as I lost time in the road race, and I was not going to make up 5 minuets in the TT, Jono, our team director decided that it would be a good idea if I did not go 100% in the TT, to give my legs a rest day so that I could be fresh to try and win the sprints Jersey on the final day. So I did this, and my legs felt really good which was nice!

TT

Stage 4: Circuit race
This was a super cool Circuit, 4km around the race track with a hill and a cork screw decent.
I felt really good, and was loving the race. But unfortunately Powers and her  team were too strong in the sprints, so I ended in 2nd in the sprint points, and finished the stage in 7th

Circuit race

Now back in the bay area, ready for some more good training...still loving the roads around here, the training is so awesome :)

Hopefully ALL the bad luck it out of the way!


Kate :)

Thursday 5 April 2012

Hey guys!

Well it has been a busy few weeks, filled with ups and downs, but hey thats what its all about, right?!
SO san dimas: well was feeling awesome on the bike which I was pretty happy about. Unfortunatley in the finishing sprint of the 2nd stage (It was pooring with rain the whole stage, and about 4 degrees, not even exaggerating) I had a wee incident with the concrete. I was on about 5th wheel and was out of my seat sprinting and the girl infront of me must of hit a cateye or something.... she came down, and I flew overtop. lets just say my knee/ leg took majority of the impact, and my chainring or maybe break lever??? dug two nice holes out of my shin. Luckily though because it was so wet, the gravel grazes were kept to a minimum which was good :)
Nice and green- to match st paddys day ;-) wooop

After the crash, I spent a good amount of time with the friendly ambo ppl as I hit my head pretty hard... and was practically frozen from the stage. But came out alright, and my teamies and DS Jono were the total toppies :)
The final stage 3 (Crit) went pretty well, it took me what felt like half a year to clip in on the start line as my knee was not co-operating too well, but once I got going and moved my way to the front of the bunch I felt good and my knee held up ok to finnish 13th.
So overall in san dimas I ended in 4th U25, 1 sec of 3rd and 7sec of 1st. Which was pretty frustrating, and 19th overall on GC.  With  83 starters, a crash and a lot of the best women in the world racing (Armstrong, Teutenburg etc.) I was content, but was defiantly looking forward to and ready to rock and roll at redlands!

Now on to redlands....
There was not alot of rock and rolling for team vanderkitten unfortunately. Whilst we were in san dimas, our host dad unfortunately got sick, it must of been pretty contagist as my team mates Emily and Courtney Dimple caught the bug. I thought I had got away with out it.... but turns out my body must of been out of wack from my crash and my immune down trying to heal my wounds and knee, so I caught  the bug too :-(
And redlands begun, first up was a crazy hard tt, I definitely did not feel one hundy, and was struggling to breathe but put it behind me and was ready for the road race the next day. Well as I was soon to find out I got the bug too, and could barely even ride my bike...as in I was trying to pedal but was going no where. Unfortunately I had to pull out, so redlands was over for me. As well as me, Ruth (another team mate) did not feel good and had to pull the pin too. So we were down to 4 riders...out of 8 of us! 
Looking on the bright...atleast we have got all our bad luck out of the way early in the season, a crash, 2 punctures in the first km of a race (both happened to Jazzy!) and 4 girls sick. The rest of the season is definatley going to rock!

After redlands a group of kiwis and aussies lived our childhood dreams at none other than the happiest place on earth, disneyland! It was great, we got there right as it opened, and left as it closed, 13 hours. We were certainly tired by the end! From disneylad we sort of winged our trip. We managed to book some accom in west hollywood...  it was probly the safest looking motel on the sunset but we did have some dodgy neighbours that came and went at all hours of the morning, haha. Anyway we decided to spend as little time at the motel as pos, so we caught a bus to santa monica and rented some bikes and biked along the beach to venice. Santa Monica was so nice, and who new you need so many stores for medical marijuana in venice beach??! We stayed in santa monica for dinner, and caught the bus back to hollywood, finding out why we were warned not to use public transport at night time....we were the only non homeless people on the bus haha, but there were 5 of us, so it was ok. We spent the next morning exploring hollywood, and then caught a 5 hour bus back to the bay area. It was deff a great experince to explore LA, we were all sooo sore from so much walking the 5 hours on a bus was nice just to be able to give the old legs a rest. Turns out cycling and walking don't use the same muscles! 

I was feeling a lot better when we got back (I had just under a week off) and now am finally feeling back to my normal self again. Loving training here, its so awesome! 

Loving being back in the states, especially here in the bay area... I missed the mexican food and froyo!
Here in the bay area there are quite a few of us Kiwis and aussies, so we hang out alot which is cool. Although what is up with australians trying to claim Kiwi stuff, apparently they think that Fish n chips and pavlova both come from Australia...not nz...whaaaaat?

I have moved to a new host family, the Golan family. They are super nice, have two kids, and a big Dog and have been to NZ! Alon (My new host Dad) Makes a GREAT coffee every morning, the best I have had since I have been in america, which is great motivation to get out of bed before 7.30am to get one :)

This weekend in Celebration of easter, we are having and aussie/ kiwi (and a few Americans...maaaybe ;) ) BBQ with a treasure hunt and secret bunny (like secret sant, but with chocolate instead), should be 
fun!

Hopefully I will try and make this a more regular thing... I will try :)

I better be off now, Sorry this has been such a long post. 

Kate :)

OOoh yeah nearly forgot: here are some pics of my last few weeks.

San Dimas TT
A picture of San dimas road race...rain and more rain. And about 4 degrees.

KIWIS (Courteney Lowe and I) stoking up on some Jelly bellys

San Dimas

Redlands (Our super cool Kask helmets!)

Warming up. We got to spend the week relaxing pre and post race in the Jelly belly bus!

At the legendary, Cid Breyers house in redlands. The best host mum ever!


Old mate Charlie and I

Loren Rowney, Jazzy Hurikino, Myself, Bec Werner, Courteney Lowe and Em Collins (photographer)


Finally got to meet goofy...in person!

Got in some training along Santa monica / venice beach
Stopped for a gym sesh at muscle beach


VK