(ARCHIVE)
:: MAY NEWS ::

Monday May 26th
>> I’m on the way to Scotland for the first leg of the European World Cups and the madness has just begun. Lisa Sher and I are traveling together and have done a fine job on getting to LAX about 2 ½ hours before our flight so we wouldn’t have to deal with the bike crap. Everything went smoothly. we had our boarding passes and about an hour till’ the plane left. all we had to do was make a run through the x-ray machine with our bags. Then all of a sudden, it was as if the Nazi woman appeared out of nowhere honing in on my bike pro. It was like she had tunnel vision and went straight for it. I didn’t bring my DH bike, but had spare parts, pads, shoes, the usual extras and I knew it was a bit on the obese side. She took one look and gave it a tug and says to me….”Zis is too heavy. You must do somesing. Ve cannot let zis on zee plane!!” I politely responded and asked her what she’d like me to do. After a ½ hour dispute with me putting things from my bike pro to another spare bag and only 10 minutes to actually get on the plane, we made it.
>> The flight itself was a dream except for the little boy in the seat in front doing the peek-a-boo routine. He was really cute, but I still wanted grab his little hands and just zip tie them together. I watched a couple movies after kinder-care and then was passed out the rest of the flight. Once into Edinburgh Tracey Moseley picked us up and we drove 2 ½ hours to Fort William. A quick trip to the market for some snacks and then off to meet the rest of the Kona crew, Lisa’s teammate Todd, Will Cory, Steve, and two of Tracey’s good friends Anja and Mike for a nice little curry dinner. We didn’t make it back to the house till’ about 10ish, and decided who was in what rooms. Lisa and I picked the junior suite with the bunk beds and it was pretty much straight to bed and sweet dreams.
May 27th
>> so much for sweet dreams. It’s 4:30 a.m., I’m UP and not happy about it. Lisa is completely passed out and snoring like some 60 year old Man with emphysema, but I didn’t want to wake her up so I went out on the couch. I’m a fairly light sleeper which can be a pain in the ass sometimes. The next thing I hear is the kitchen clock ticking in digital dolby stereo and I felt my head moving in perfect tics with the tocks. AHHHHH!!! Sleep, just a little more. Instead I gave in and grabbed my new laptop and watched XXX. O.K, I wasn’t impressed. I can’t believe that Diesel guy makes 20 million a film. Geeezz, there just giving money away these days. I’ve somehow made it to 7:30 a.m. and totally exhausted. I head back to bed and just finally yell at Lucky to roll over in hopes it would help. It did and I was out for another couple hours.
>> Once we were up we had some porridge which is the equivelent to oatmeal in the states except much soupier, and then Lucky and I rode into town to buy some soap and a towel which we both forgot. After feeling like a Seattle grunge band for over a day I had the best shower ever and reveled in the fact that there was actually hot water.
>> All seven of us staying at the house finally got out of there and went up to the venue and walked the downhill course. I’m not doing the DH here and it’s probably a good thing because it’s flat out straight down the mountain and I would have to binge on the fish n’chips and gain a few pounds to be competitive. I mean the speeds are easily going to be in the thirties and faster and the braking bumps would’ve just swallowed me up. Nope, I think I’ll stick to the 4-cross here. Besides I tried it the first year on Yeti and it’s Murphy’s Law that if I don’t have extra parts and a mechanic that everything that can go wrong will go wrong. The 4-cross I has heard was going to be extended, but I heard wrong. I guess they wouldn’t let them build any higher so they just changed some of the jumps and it looks like it’ll still be around 20 seconds long. Oh well. I know those guys worked their butts off and were still working when we walked it, so props to all of them.
>> Earlier in the day Mike was designated the cook for the week and I guess he is just awesome in the kitchen, so I was down with that since my cooking skills still have a bit to be desired. He ended up making this awesome portabello mushroom, chicken, sweet potato masterpiece. Thanks Mike….I’ll let you cook for me anytime! Mike and Jake are getting their hair bleached right now by Ann-Marie, Lucky is showing everyone some crazy cat videos, and I am done writing my journal and off to bed. Good-night.
May 29th
>> Today is Thursday and it feels like I forgot a day in the journal, but it’s easy to lose a day in Europe. My alarm went off this morning at 8:30 a.m. and I had to pout for a quick second being that I wasn’t quite ready to pop out of bed yet, but lucky (Aka: Lisa) had to get up to go do some downhilling. Besides our room is pretty much connected to the kitchen so when they are up, YOU are up. Before I could even get all five bikes out to make a path through to the kitchen, Mike wandered in and asked what I’d like for breakfast and the morning took a turn for the better.
>>I decided to go up with the crew to try to get online and to find my pits for the weekend with will corry, todd, and steve. I wandered about for about an hour and got my business done and then drove back to the house to go for a little jaunt on my hardtail. I layered up being the cali sally that I am and went out for about 45 minutes. Came back took a shower and about an hour nap and then cruised on over to the safeway for more noodles for tonights din din. Ahh, the life of a 4-cross rider. I better live it up now, since I’ll be a full time 4-cross and downhill rider the rest of the year. I really do like my DH bike though so I’m looking forward to it.

Friday, May 30th
>> today was the first day of practice….finally!! You almost feel guilty coming all the way to Europe on a Monday and not riding till’ Friday. Oh well….I don’t make the schedule. Anyway, I got up about 8:15 a.m. with Lucky, Moseley, and Anja and had some breakfast with them and then went back to bed. I figured if I didn’t get up with them then I wouldn’t get any breakfast. Slept in a bit more and then up for a quick ride to the store for some lunch. Mike came back and picked the rest of us up to go up to the venue.
Practice went fairly well and only had a slight mishap with my brakes. Luckily Steve and will were there and fixed it up in a jiff. Straight back to it and a few more runs before qualifying. I do have to say that I was pretty stoked at the fact that I kind of just jumped everything without really thinking about it, and that’s a good thing. Then in true UCI fashion right after practice they decide to take 3 feet off the side of a jump where there was a decision maker and nobody even the guys doing it seemed to know why. I love it when they do that just before quialifying. So after Lopes and a bunch of other guys came down to bitch at them (which they should) we were allowed another 15 minutes. Just enough time for me to hit the triple again and case the shit out of it. Ahhh, good times.
>> On to qualifying and I have to say that there were only a handful of guys that actually looked smooth. I don’t know if it was that the course didn’t have a good flow to it or they were just having an off day, but it was strange to see regardless. As for the women Katrina was looking fast as usual and I was feeling good too. My run in qualifying was alright, but I bettered myself by casing the triple once more but this time I 50/50’d it. I mean I wasn’t even close, but hey at least I went for it. It ended up Katrina in 1st with 26.5 and me with a 26.6…Almost, but almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Jill looked to be having a good run from what I could tell, but went for the triples and ate it hard. I hung out at the bottom for a few minutes and she still wasn’t up yet. She’s tough so I’m sure she’ll be back.
>>So now I’m back and sitting in my room with Lucky throwing down with the midggies (little annoying black bugs that eat you alive) and winning. I of course can’t forget the absolutely amazing 5 star dinner Mike served up tonight. Unreal is the only thing that comes to mind. I had a few glasses of wine though so if none of this makes sense that’s why. Goodnight.

May 31st
>> it’s race day. We didn’t start practice till’ 5 p.m. so I slept in of course and waited for everyone to come back from downhill practice. We headed up the hill a couple hours before. I had to get up there in enough time to go by the mavic tent and get my wheels trued from yesterdays slam fest. Started practice and was getting my timing down in the gates and was feeling comfortable. I hit the triple again and just hit it sweet and finished practice on a good note. The rounds started with the men as usual and in the first heat was lopes, holmes, and two other guys that I can’t remember. Now, I didn’t see what happened, but from what I heard Dale and Brian got a bit tangled up and Brian went down in the first straight pretty hard. I think he broke his ankle so he might be out for a bit. They ran the men down to eight and finally we got to do some racing. I couldn’t believe it actually. Ten girls qualified out of the fourteen that signed up and they only took eight of those girls that qualified. How screwed is that?!! I’d be pissed if I were them! You fly all the way to Europe and then the UCI just decides they don’t want to make a bracket with more girls. True UCI fashion…you never know what you’re gonna get.
>> So anyway, on to racing. My semi-final heat was with Sabrina Jonnier, Celine Gros, and Anneke Beerten. I had the inside lane and snapped out of the gate. I went a bit high in the first turn and Anneke dove from lane four and came out of nowhere. We ended up dicing to the finish and I qualified just behind her. I crossed the line and thought O.K, good warm up race now it’s time to get your head out of your ass and pay attention. In the final it was me, Katrina, Mio, and Anneke. I knew I had to get a good gate and cut over and the first part of that sentence was executed. I actually left a little early on the gate or so I thought, but it turned out to be just right. I had the snap and was in the lead, but that’s where I wish I could just rewind and have a do over. If you give Katrina an inch, she’ll take a mile and that’s what she did. I left the door open on the inside and she took it, rode me high in the first turn and pretty much let everybody else pass me down below while I just hung out waiting to pedal again. Once I could pedal I tried so hard I spun out heading for the triple and had to roll the damn thing. I crossed the line and don’t know if I could’ve been more disappointed in myself for something so basic and stupid. So I beat myself up for a bit and then headed to the pub for a couple pints.
>> Unfortunately from the top of the 4-cross you can’t see any of the racing so I wouldn’t know how the men were doing until they came back to the top. In the final it was Minaar, Carter, Peat, and Michael Prokop. I was already at the finish, but coming around the last turn it was Minaar in first, Carter second, and Prokop in third. Something happened to Peat and his ankle looked to be in pretty bad shape, which sucked since the DH was the next morning. The U.K loves their Steve Peat so I was hoping they could bandage him up for one more good run. We’ll see.