Bermuda was a great way to end the season with the Ford-Basis team. I had a great time boogy boarding, running, and hanging out at the beach with all the girls… oh yeah, and racing too!

Our host family was great. Thanks to the Ewles family for putting up with me, Nicole, and Eric during the race! We had a wonderful time and I look forward to coming back next year. Hopefully I’ll be able to talk my husband into coming also.

Here’s some results from the Bermuda Racin… and some pictures too… some racing and some just because.

After living and training in Munich for a month, Joe and I packed up and headed up to Nürnberg, Germany to meet up with Team SATS (a Danish based team) for the 116km Nürnberg World Cup. I was so excited about racing again and also very nervous because this would be my first race in Europe. I’ve heard mixed stories from people about racing over here. Some people say that it’s so scary and so much faster than any of the races in the US, but then others say that it’s not so bad and it’s more exciting because there’s always attacks and it’s real racing all the time.

So, with a lot of fear from the stories I’ve heard and a little bit of confidence thrown in from solid training I got ready to race. It made things a lot easier that the girls on SATS were all very welcoming and they all understand English. Three girls are Danish and one girl is from Great Britain. Language barriers are the biggest obstacle over here, so I was happy that at least that wouldn’t be a problem.

It was a gray, drizzly morning in N√ºrnberg the day of our race. This was definitely NOT welcome as, like in all German cities, there are tram tracks everywhere. We would have to cross tram tracks during parts of the circuit, and if they are wet that makes for some dangerous possibilities. Well, as we were warming up, an official made us cross over the tram tracks to go to the other side of the road. And, as you can guess, they were slick. And, as you can guess my luck‚Ķ I‚Äôm already nervous and scared and not knowing what to expect from this race‚Ķ my wheel slid and got stuck in the tracks. I slid on the wet road on my left side. I scraped my ankle bone bad, along with my hip. My arm also hurt, but it looked like it was just swollen. Read the rest of this entry »

So I spent the weekend riding my little butt off… I’m sure you’re thinking, “what else is new?!” but I went on some great rides this weekend and I thought I’d write about them.

Joe went to Brussels, Belguim for the weekend with some co-workers, and I opted to stay home since there would be a bike fee of around 80 dollars there and back. For a two day weekend, that gets kinda pricey. I am getting ready to race the Nuernberg World Cup and the Giro Toscana, so I wanted to get some good mountain training in beforehand. Boy did I get what I wanted…

To give you an idea of what I’m actually talking about when I say the names of towns and all, check out the overview map. Every day that I ride I take either the s5 train to Holzkirchen. Then, I either come back on the s5 or I end my ride in Wolfratshausen and take the s7 train back into town. I live right in center city Munich, so by taking these trains I get about 30k south of the city before I start riding. …Quite nice so there’s no traffic!

On Friday I went on a nice loop starting in Holzkirchen to Kufstein, Austria. It had a 23km climb in it, along with other gradual climbs. It was a nice ride, 85 miles in 5hrs I think. It drizzled on me a little bit when I first hit the mountains in Austria, but it stopped after a short bit. That short rain period was enough to totally trash my bike and get me really dirty with road grime… oh well. I’m sure the people on the train thought I was disgusting, but that’s life!

So on Saturday I opted for a shorter recovery ride of about 3 hrs. I ended up doing a “u” shaped loop starting in Holzkirchen and ending in Wolfratshausen. It was a beautiful day, and I just took in the sights. As always, I got turned around in Bad Tolz… and I ended up somewhere I wasn’t sure if I was east or south, so I stopped at a gas station and bought a map with the change I had on me. Now I won’t have that problem anymore if I miss a turn! (hopefully! )
Read the rest of this entry »

This is the gateway to my neighborhood in Munich. There are several old city gates that still stand around the center city, but I think Sendlinger Tor is the most stunning of all of them. I may be a little biased about that , but it is the only one that is made of old brick and has the ivy climbinig up the sides. I will try to get pictures of the other gates (i.e. “tor”) and put them in my NEW Germany section.