I’m lounging around in Little Rock, AR with my teammate Chrissy and our team mechanic Eric playing the ‘waiting game’ until my next race this weekend in Russelville, AR. Joe Martin just finished up, and Ford-Basis had an impressive showing the entire weekend. We walked away with 3rd overall and with a stage WIN! Way to go Ford-Basis!!!

Now we’re staying at our bike sponsor’s house (Javelin). It’s really cool to kick back and relax a few days before hitting it hard again this weekend for Tri Peaks. Scott and his wife, Amanda, are super nice and they have a really cute dog named Daisy. She’s a lot of fun to play with!

We’re going out for a shop ride tonight in Conway, I spose that’s a suburb of Little Rock. It should be fun meeting new people. I love going on bike shop rides just because of that… meeting new people and talking about cycling. It’s a lot of fun to ride with people that aren’t necessarily racers.

Tonight is an ice cream night… I’ve already decided. No one on my team has quite the sweet tooth I do, and for some reason I can’t get them to go out to get any frozen dessert. DANG! Amanda is going to make some banana pudding tonight… which Chrissy and Eric have NEVER had!!! What weirdo’s, they’re really missing out… banana pudding is SO good! And we’re having some vanilla ice cream too- even if I have to go out and buy it myself!

My teammates, Chrissy and Kele, working on their webpages at the Tour of the Gila. “DANG!”

Check out their sites at:

chrissyruiter.com
kelekele.net

Title reference to Napolean Dynamite– we enjoyed watching this movie countless times between stages. Okay, so maybe I’m a little behind the rest of America on pop culture… that’s what happens when you ride 25 hours a week and wake up in weird places that are not your own bed (airports, airplanes, where am I?, host housing in random states… you get the point).

Tour of the Gila proved again to be a tough race. I came down with a stomach bug after the TT and that made the race more interesting than last year. I actually threw up on the last climb on the last stage… let’s just say chocolate gu doesn’t sound “yummy” anymore.

I love New Mexico. We have our team training camp in Ruidoso, NM, and it’s really become a home away from home for me. I like the mountains and how quiet the area is. There’s hardly any traffic when you’re out riding, which is always nice. (hmm, come to think of it, there’s hardly any traffic when you’re driving too!)

The view from our host house in Silver City, NM

Ford-Basis had a good showing at the Gila-

Kele was 9th in the Time Trial, and Chrissy, Nicole, and I were all in the top 20.
I finished 4th in the crit after the team helped create a break.
Chrissy and Kele rocked the last day in an early breakaway. Chrissy held on to finish 4th in the stage and Kele and Nicole climbed strong to the finish.

I’m happy to say I finished the Tour of the Gila, slumped over my bike with aching stomach pains… but at least I finished!!!! See more pictures of our stay in Silver City, NM

That’s right… SNOW. Chrissy, Kele, and I went up to Detroit to run a women’s road cycling clinic for our sponsor Ford and this was the weather we were greated with! It snowed nonstop from our arrival there Friday night until we left on Monday morning.

And, believe it or not, we raced a 30 minute trianing series criterium in this weather! By the end of the crit you could barely see where you were going because it was all white.