The End of the Road

I'm getting pretty stoked now...in the final stages of prep for the season. The sponsors logos are on the van, most of the stuff is packed up and I just went today to pick up my freshly painted THE Carbon lid!!! So sweet. Rich did a great job of adding his own flair to the already wicked standard helmet. I love it! I can't wait to ride in it this weekend at the Bike Show (NEC in Birmingham).

We've been putting so much effort into the new van this season that I think my poor Siat Ibiza (nicknamed...."the boat") felt left out. Last night on the way back from a visit with my bro in Manchester my car definately got our attention! Jill and I were happily belting out a bit of Nelly Furtado on the radio when I heard a strange clunking noise. It was one of those noises you just don't turn the radio up and ignore. Just as I pulled off the highway to find a petrol station the car finally gave up, stalled and steam started pouring out from under the hood. We push our little boat up onto the side of the road to assess the problem. Looked like our water pump had quit on us and everything was boiling (literally!!!). We were a solid 30 min. drive from home, but luckily Jill's crazy collection of empty water bottles in the back supplied us with enough plastic to carry the water needed to get us home. 2.5 hours, 20-25L of water, 5 stops on the road side to cool the engine off and about 10 honks from passers by cheering at the steam pouring from under our hood and we were finally home!!! The good news is - my Dad thinks he can fix it. The bad news is - it will have to wait until August when we are back in the UK long enough to look at it again! Always an adventure.
Off to bed. Early morning drive out to the Bike Show. See you there!

UK Nationals #1

Just another quick one to keep everyone up to date. Just driving back down from the National at Innerleithan. It wasn't the greatest weekend for me. The track was alright, but I was just having a rough time riding it. I think jetlag may have caught up with me a bit since we have been flat out busy since we flew in early Wednesday. I was constantly hitting trees and missing lines all weekend and could shake the bugs out for my race run either. I finished 3rd, behind Rachel Atherton and Helen Gaskell who both rode wicked all weekend.
We have just stopped off at Jaymie Mart's place in the Lake District tonight to rest up and do a little XC tomorrow morning before we head home to start packing for the trip to Vigo (which starts on the 1st).
Sleep time now ..... Zzzzzzzz

Airports

Its' really amazing just how much time I spend in transit between events. We are travelling again. We left Monterey at 10am yesterday and have been busy carting around 3 bike boxes, 2 massive bags and a whole slew of hand luggage. We were travelling with Niki Gudex until about 10pm last night. She had an equally impressive amount of stuff.....2 bike boxes and 3 bags....I have attached photos of the van and us packing and unpacking. It is hard to describe how difficult and flustered you can get trying to move that much stuff around from place to place, over and over again. They wouldn't even let us on the shuttle this morning to check in from the hotel!! Thanks to a wicked cabbie who piled all of our stuff in the back of his tiny mini-van. I was even in the back, on top of the bags and wedged between boxes!
Anyway, we made it to check in and we are just sat at the airport amusing ourselves while we wait for a flight delay. At least we have checked all our bags by now. Good thing it is early in the season....I can still deal with the stress and then complete boredom of airports. There is a reason that I feel the way I do about airports........they are just S%@*!
I had a wicked time at Sea Otter though. 2nd was a great start to the season. The best part of Sea Otter though is catching up with friends. I haven't seen so many of them for so long so it is great to grab a meal together and catch up. I've been trying to talk Joanna Petterson into hitting up the World Cups with me this year. She pretty cool and travelling with both her, Jaymie, Jill and Lee all season would be a blast. She is an awesome rider and I think she will go far when given the opportunity. Hopefully she'll be joining us at Vigo. She's the one sat on the tailgate with Jill and I.
Alright, I'm out! BYE

Sea Otter

Just a quick post as I haven't had any internet access. Sea Otter went well. The weather was great aside from the Dual Slalom on Saturday which saw torrential down pours and even the odd touch of hail during qualifying! I was riding well and qualified 4th. I felt fairly confident but Melissa Buhl knocked me out 2nd round. That girl can SPRINT! I finished 5th at the end.

DH went very well this year. It was a British 1 and 2. Rachel Atherton got her sprint on and beat me by 1 second to win the event. Melissa Buhl came in 1 second behind me and Sabrina Jonnier was right behind her. It was great racing!
Anyway, off to pack and get to the airport. Catch this flight and then off to the National in Scotland next weekend.

Last Days In Vancouver

These last few days in Vancouver have been awesome. The weather has been great so Jill and I have just been kicking back with friends by the ocean enjoying the sun. There are a set of rocks out in North Vancouver that I absolutely love to hang out at. They are super quiet and a great place to get away from the stress of the city. We all went down there Friday and had a great time catching crabs and listening to the waves.
We threw a bit of a get-together for all our mates Thursday. It went pretty well and by the end of the night we ended up down at the Columbia listening to one of our friend's and her hip hop group. DDR is the name of the group and Shay Faded is our buddy. There stuff is pretty sick and they are awesome live!
Off to San Fran on Tuesday. My bikes are already packed and heading down with the Norco crew. Fingers crossed now that the weather is wicked for Sea Otter!