May might be Bike to Work Month, but for me the entire year is about riding my bike to work since riding my bike IS my work. And my “office” isn’t in one single location but it’s in a variety of places across the globe. In the month of May alone, I will be in Silver City, NM, Fayetteville, AR, St Louis, MO, and Los Gatos, CA. That’s not even taking into account all the incredible areas I get to ride that are right outside my door in Ft Collins, CO.

As a professional cyclist, most of my riding takes on a structured format these days, but I hold close to my heart all the reasons we ride – in May or any other month of the year.

We ride to get from Point A to Point B. We ride to get there faster than the cars contending with traffic. We ride to increase our connection to our surroundings. We ride to feel good about ourselves. Maintain fitness. Gain confidence. We ride to hammer and redefine personal limitations. We ride to slow down and gain clarity. We ride to make new connections and to disconnect. We ride for transportation. For competition. For fun.

Some days I ride for fun, some days I ride for my job, but every day I recognize how lucky I am to have a job that lets me see the world on two wheels.

After an unexpected (and unfortunate) near-two weeks at home, I’m heading out to California on Friday for several events held in conjunction with the Amgen Tour of California. Lucky for me, I have the time to squeeze in a mountain bike race in Vacaville on Saturday before all the festivities begin.

My schedule will go something like this:
Saturday: mountain bike race
Sunday: road ride in Woodside with several of my TIBCO teammates and sponsors
Monday: Lifestyle Festival in Aptos with California Giant and TIBCO Gala

Here’s the scoop on the Lifestyle Festival….

California Giant is one of the Amgen Tour of California stage two sponsors, which finishes in the hip beachside town of Aptos. Beginning at 11AM the finish city plays host to a lifestyle festival at Cabrillo College where cycling enthusiasts can congregate to visit all sorts of vendors and enjoy delicious food and entertainment.

I’ll be at the festival, along with the thousands of other cycling enthusiasts expected in attendance, to hand out berries from the California Giant tent. Festival-goers will have the opportunity to buy berries with all proceeds donated to Jacob’s Heart, Children’s Hospice and CASA.

Learn more about the Lifestyle Festival HERE.

After the festival grit has been cleaned off, I’ll head to Atherton for the TIBCO Gala at the Menlo Circus Club along with the legendary voices of the Tour de France, Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen and Bob Roll. It’ll be a fun night of celebration alongside my TIBCO teammates.

The day after I arrived, Anthony and I headed to one of the California Giant strawberry fields in Watsonville. The fields would set the scene for the commercial we would shoot. Cal Giant is proudly sponsoring the second stage of the Tour of California. The stage runs from San Francisco to Santa Cruz County with a likely sprint finish in Aptos. We shot a 30 second clip that will air on KSBW to promote the stage, specifically, and the race, in general. The commercial actually may already be airing, so you’ll have to keep your eye out for it and let me know if you catch you me on your television. And when you do see it, you’d never know that it took Anthony almost the entire shoot to get his lines right. Mine went lickity split from the gun. As usual. Ahem.

California Giant has been in the sport of cycling for over a decade. They’re one of the few brands in the produce world who gets it – berries, health and exercise. They just work well together.

Next up, I had a photo shoot with Light & Motion. In the past, my photo shoots with Light & Motion have been solo ventures. Just me, the photographer, the trails and some lights. This time was a bit different. I showed up for the shoot and discovered a huge group ready to roll.

A few group leaders led the bunch that included Ross Schnell, Dax Massey, Dejay Birtch, Nate Bird and me. Our photographer was actually from Denver, so he needed someone to show the way as much as we did. We all headed out for a trail ride in Santa Cruz. Basically, we played around in the woods for five hours while we had our pictures taken. To say that we all felt like kids in a giant playground would be an understatement.

At various points on the ride, we stopped to shoot specific sections. They had us ride over logs, jump through holes in trees and do other technically impressive stunts. And I use the term impressive loosely here, for myself anyway. While the guys were the ones performing the impressive stunts, I simply rode my bike between the trees rather than jumping through them. Which, for me, was a bit intimidating. I was the only woman in the group, and these guys are REALLY good mountain bikers. That being said, I had a ton of fun surrounded by such a strong group of riders who are all superstars in their own disciplines. The ride definitely pushed my limits as I attempted to do things I normally wouldn’t ride, especially not in waning daylight hours.

The lights were obviously the main focus of our photo shoot. During the last hour, when it was finally dark in the woods, the lights really shone bright. From the front of the group it was pretty sweet to look back and see a trail of brilliant lights snaking their way through the enormous redwoods! We finally rode out of the woods around 9PM after having ridden this crazy rock garden descent on “mailboxes”. Photos from the shoot will be on the Light & Motion website and in their brochures and catalogues.

The next night, Light & Motion had an open house that included a tour of their amazing facilities. Their building is located in one of the last canneries on cannery row, so they have a pretty spectacular warehouse with huge windows overlooking Monterey Bay. Talk about the perfect setting for inspiration.

The open house was intended for guests to get a sneak peek at new product that isn’t yet available (but is coming out soon!) and learn a bunch about what makes the company successful. They demonstrated why their product is superior to other light brands and introduced the folks behind the brand that make Light & Motion such a cool place. None of this was new news to me since I have been working with Light & Motion for a couple of years now. I’ve known for awhile now just how cool this company is! So, seeing the smiles and hearing the excitement from the first time visitors was no surprise to me.

Most Light & Motion products are made in house. Not everything comes from within the US, but a lot does – and all their lights are assembled in house. As part of the evening, each visitor got to assemble one of their new Urban 180 lights to take home as a ‘thank you’ gift. How cool is that?!

Earlier in the day, before the Light & Motion party, I spent some time on site at Sea Otter. I pre-rode the the XC course and then dropped my bike off at SRAM for a little pre-race TLC. I went to the Ladies Lounge with Team TIBCO and super rad MTB’ers Katie Holden and Linsdey Voreis where we answered a bunch of questions from female cyclists and had fun hanging out with the Queen of Pain, Rebecca Rusch. Rebecca has a whole tour dedicated to reaching out to women in the sport so make sure you catch her somewhere on her Gold Rusch Tour. For every ounce of energy she puts into riding her bike, she gives it right back to help get more women on bikes. She’s pure Gold.

Friday was my first of two race days and included some sponsor visits with Team TIBCO. We spent some time at the FRS booth handing out samples and talking about the product before having dinner with the FRS crew in Monterey. Before dinner, we visited with DeFeet, and I spent more time hanging out with Specialized and SRAM – both of whom took such great care of me over the weekend.

Whew! It was a whirlwind of a weekend – packed with near-constant activity. I finally got to kick back a little bit on Sunday with a chill ride in Santa Cruz and a barbeque at Anthony’s before I headed home Monday morning.

Less than twenty-four hours later, I was back at the airport on my to Fayetteville, AR for my first stage race of the season.

Amanda was the only rider to go under 10 minutes in the 2.5 mile uphill effort. Kathryn Donovan (FCS-Rouse) finished second, one second down. We have a lot to look forward to in the new few days with Amanda in yellow.

This race traditionally come down to time bonuses as a break rarely gets away on any any of the stages. The field may be whittled down, but it’s unlikely that a small group will get away and stay away. Tomorrow’s road stage will offer up 10 seconds to the stage winner, six seconds for second place and four for the final spot on the podium. We’ll need to be extra attentive to make sure that bonus time doesn’t slip away from us. We’ll rally around Amanda and do what we can to keep the bonus time within the team.

CyclingNews has your full results. No pictures anywhere that I can find, but if I come up with anything, I’ll share them here.

I remember my first year at Joe Martin. I crashed at Tulsa pretty badly the weekend prior, and I remember hyperventilating in the shower as I cleaned out my road rash. It was a mess. I fought my way through the race the first year. I was hurting quite a bit.

Joe Martin for me is nearly as much about the host families as it about the racing. I like coming back here because I’ve stayed with the same family the last four years. It feels a little bit like coming home. I’ve gotten to see my host family’s daughters grow up. It’s comforting to sit back and chat with a family that I’ve gotten to know pretty well over the years. We keep up with one another on Facebook between each race. It’s a pretty unique bond we come to share with the families that host us year in and year out.

Joe Martin kicks off with the Devil’s Den State Park time trial. The uphill effort is short – just 2.5 miles – and it favors a good, powerful all-around rider rather than a pure time trialist. The first 30-40 seconds are flat and fast. Then, the road kicks up and it’s uphill to the finish.

Two road stages follow the time trial. We have a hilly circuit race on Sunday that includes one steep climb each lap. The rest of the course features plenty of rollers. Depending on how the field chooses to race this stage, it can be a really hard day in the saddle. Last year, the bunch broke up a bit over the climbs — and the stage featured a new harder finish than we had seen in previous editions.

The point-to-point race on Sunday typically comes down to a sprint. There’s one big climb in the final two-thirds of the race, but it’s far enough from the finish and is followed by a fast descent, so there’s enough time for things to come back together. It’s another hard finale with a little kicker before a right-hand turn leading to an uphill finish. Like the time trial, expect a strong rider with a good finishing kick to win this stage.

The criterium on Sunday is just hard. It hurts. A lot. It course includes a good climb that practically guarantees the race to break up. Riders will get dropped every lap. At the finish, it’s usually one rider crossing the line at the time as they make their way uphill towards the finish.

It’s a small field, but I suspect we’ll have a good battle on our hands with Optum Health. They bring a full squad, and they know how to race smart. We’ll both be going for it. I’m interested to see how things pan out.

Date: April 26-April 29

Website: http://www.joemartinstagerace.com/

Live updates – @JoeMartinStageRace is the official race twitter; will update if other live updaters surface
Official hastag – #jmsr2012

Team TIBCO for Joe Martin Stage Race:
Lauren Hall
Amanda Miller
Merdith Miller
Jen Purcell
Kendall Ryan
Sam Schneider
Jennifer Wheeler

When I started the race today, I was nervous (again!). This time my nerves had more to do with my concern about what I would do if something went wrong out on the course – if I flatted or had a mechanical – rather than how I would stack up against the rest of the field. The SRAM cross country course wasn’t especially technical. There were a few sections with ruts where I would have to be sure I kept my head up, but I knew exactly where they were and was easily able to safely negotiate through them.

Ten minutes into the race, we hit a steep rutted out climb. It was so steep that people were riding really slowly, and it quickly got crowded, which meant we didn’t have a lot of options for choosing which line we wanted to take. As people slowed down, it had a domino effect on the second half of the field. Those of us (which included me at this point) in the back ended up going too slow. Because of lack of speed, the person in front of me put a foot down, so I had to my foot down, too.

Climbing is my strength – descending? Not so much. I really can only make up ground on the uphill section, so having to unclip probably cost me a little bit. Eventually I was able to settle into a rhythm, and I got going okay. I started picking people off one by one.

Towards the end of the race, I was trading spots with Allison Mann (B4B/RNR). She finally got me on a climb and was able to hold me off for the final spot in the top ten. I ended up in 11th place – squarely in the top half of the field. Nearly in the top third of the field, actually.

It was super hot day – a hard day but a good day. It was one of those races where I was definitely ready for the end of the race despite how much fun I was having. I would come around a hill and think I was almost to the finish only to crest the top and see another climb in sight. Then, I would come around a turn, sure that I was approaching the finish, and there would be more trail.

I also was having some back issues that impacted the second half of my race. My back started to tighten up, and I had to back off quite a bit. It hurt to pedal any harder.

All in all, it was a solid weekend. I loved getting kudos from everyone at the finish line that was impressed with the way I raced – or that I was out there racing mountain bikes at all. It was fun racing with a different group of girls this weekend.

Of course, I know there are still a lot of areas where I can improve. Clearly, I’m not super fast on the descents yet – and if the course had been technical, my weaknesses would have been more exposed. That’s why I’m out here. I’m racing mountain bike to isolate the areas that need improvement and work on them. The more I’m on the mountain bike, the more I’ll see improvements.

I have a stint of road racing upcoming with Joe Martin Stage Race beginning next week and Tour of the Gila the following week. After that, I’m slated for more mountain bike racing at Teva Games in early Junes – and I’ll either race Ironhorse or Exergy the weekend before the Teva Games.

I have to give a special and heartfelt shout out to Cal Giant, Specialized and SRAM. Their support this weekend made my transition from the road to the dirt seamless. They are the reason I was able to go out there and have fun.

Full results from today’s race can be found on the Sea Otter website.

I raced my first mountain bike race today. Well, okay not my first ever mountain bike race – but my first REAL mountain bike race. My first mountain bike race with the pros. I’m managed to finish in the first half of the field. I’m totally satisfied with this.

Sea Otter has something for everybody, and while I’m usually here for the road races and sponsor events, this year, I decided to make my debut in the dirt with the SRAM Short Track race. 20 minutes + 3 laps of leg-busting, lung-bursting fun.

Even though this is the first time I lined up for a pro mountain bike race, I was lining up with girls I knew. They couldn’t have been any more welcoming. It felt really good to have them come up to me and comment on how happy they were to see me out there with them. Their staff and mechanics all echoed this sentiment. During the pre-rides, the girls were giving me all sorts of advice. It helped ease the whole new kid on the block mentality.

I have to admit that despite that fact that I didn’t have much pressure or any expectations, I was a bit nervous when I lined up for the race. Before I started, I said I didn’t want to get lapped. The course was short – maybe a bit more than 1K – and super bumpy. Getting lapped didn’t seem like it was an unreasonable concern here.

The course basically went up and then down – so it became a matter of getting uphill and pedaling across the bumpy top section to get to the descent. I had a decent start. There weren’t a whole lot of places to pass easily, so initially, I was just following wheels.

The group started to separate right away in the first few laps. I caught people and managed to make my way past them. I started to die in the second half of the race, so once that happened, I was getting caught and passed, too.

It’s my first mountain bike race (have I mentioned that yet?) and only my second race of the season, so I was definitely okay with my effort – and I’m thrilled with the outcome. No matter what, I knew today would be good training. The result is a pleasant surprise. I had fun out there, and I’ll be the first to admit that short track is much harder than a ‘cross race.

I race cross-country tomorrow at 12:20PM (PDT). It’s not a super hard or particularly technical course, but it’s totally exposed and a little bit rutty. Tomorrow is slated to be even hotter than today (and it’s already 90°F today), so it’s going to be a tough race.

Post-race tomorrow, come find me at the SRAM Ladies Lounge organized by Rebecca Rusch. The Ladies Lounge is a place where all athletes sponsored by SRAM gather to meet with female cyclists. We put on tech clinics, answer questions and mingle. Rebecca is also raffling off tons of sweet prizes. The SRAM Ladies Lounge is happening today and tomorrow from 2:30-4:30PM (PDT). Read more about it here.

Check out the official race report on CyclingNews for more details from the women’s pro short track race.

I got a call-up tonight (as the above picture via Weldon Weaver demonstrates). Rolled up to the front line. Stood next to the other girls who had all already gotten their first race of the season out of the way. I anticipated nerves, energy, anticipation. Deep breaths.  Lots of deep breaths.

The gun sounded.
I missed my pedal.

My call-up nullified in an instant, I shot to the back of the pack. Immediately.
I can laugh about it now.

The race was fast from the start, and gaps began to open. I found myself thinking “Eek! I’m in trouble.” I have notoriously bad starts in ‘cross – not so much on the road – and it’s so much harder in the back of the pack where the accordion effect means extra energy is constantly expended simply to stay in contact.

I followed wheels and counted on other people to close the gaps as they opened while I attempted to settle into some sort of rhythm. It took me a little bit of time to get my nerve back. Yes, even I need to reintegrate myself into the pack after time away.

There were lots of new wheels in the race tonight. There were faces I didn’t recognize. It took a long time for people to slow down a little bit. Finally, the field swelled and I could move myself towards the front.

As my position improved, my head and legs began to feel better, too. People were dropped, and the fight for position lessoned. I was able to keep myself in the top-20 during the second half of the race and even saw the front of the field a few times.

My teammates had to do a lot of work tonight. NOW and Optum Health were firing constant bullets. Those two teams rode really aggressively. Towards the end of the race, Lauren Tamayo (Exergy Twenty12) did a lot of work to cover moves for her teammate Theresa Cliff-Ryan. I found myself following Lauren’s wheel. She just got back from Track Worlds where she raced the pursuit. I knew I could count on her wheel to be steady and safe.

With one lap to go, I was shuffled back a bit. While I wish I could have helped Kendall Ryan out a bit more, I was okay with playing it safe, too. Lindsay Meyer, Alexis Ryan and I came across the line together – I haven’t seen full results yet, but hopefully we finished in the top-25 to get a little bit of money. Kendall managed fifth – which is definitely a nice result for her.

Tonight was fast – one of the fastest Presby’s in recent memory. You can gauge the speed of the bunch by the shape of the field, and we were pretty much strung out from start to finish. I think the date change – because it wasn’t so hot and people were that much more fresh – had a lot to do with the pace of the race. There was lots of money on the line, too, but that’s nothing new.

I wasn’t sure what to expect tonight. I did two local races in the last three weeks, and they made me a tiny bit nervous about my fitness. It’s not that I haven’t been training hard – I have. But training isn’t racing. The speed you see in a race like this is nearly impossible to replicate during a training ride.

Tonight hurt.

Fourteen years of competing at this level, and you might think that I’m an old hat at all this. And while you might be right, I still have to start somewhere every season.

So tonight, I started.

It’s done. It’s dusted.
The first race of the season is under my belt.
I have Sea Otter next week and Joe Martin at the end of the month.
From the front line to the back up the pack – and back to the front again.
I know I’ll come around.
I’ll be back with tales from the front of the race again soon.

For the full scoop, check out this race report from CyclingNews.