Bella Italia!

Amy Dombroski nominated for US Worlds Team!

USA Cycling has announced the first round of nominations to the U.S. national team for the 2008 UCI Cyclocross World Championships in Treviso, Italy, January 26-27. Sixteen athletes were nominated to the squad in the elite women's, U23 men's and junior men's categories based on their competitive performance over the course of the last year.

...

Discretionary nominations to the elite women's team went to Rachel Lloyd (Proman-Paradigm), Kerry Barnholt (Tokyo Joe's-Van Dessel), Sue Butler (River City Bicycles) and Amy Dombroski (Velo Bella-Kona). See Velonews for the full story.

Update: Velo Bella-Kona is raising money to help send Amy to Worlds and you can help! Visit the Velo Bella-Kona forum for more information.

Crazy in Kansas

By Kari Studley
Bothell, Washington

It was hard to believe how fast the season flew by and that it was finally time for nationals. I have been the joke of my friends and family for the last month with my ambitions to go race my bike in circles…in Kansas…in the middle of December. My mom took it a step further in telling me the night before I traveled east, “ I thought it was funny until this week, but now I think you’re crazy!” (especially in light of the ice storm Kansas City experienced earlier that week – my game plan: bring a lot of knitting to be prepared for any flight delays). Always good to have parental support in such endeavors. I also remained undeterred in my national quest when my host family asked, “why Kansas in December?” You know it’s a good sign when even locals think you’re crazy….

Our flight to Kansas was unremarkable other than I woke up that morning with a faucet for a nose and congested sinuses – not fun, especially on a plane. We even managed to navigate correctly to our host family and discovered in unpacking the bikes that my seat clamp bolt had gone MIA in flight (I really did tighten it, but lesson learned in the importance of taping bolts as well). The time change suited me well because even though it was 6:30 in Seattle, I could still justify going to bed since it was now 8:30 in Kansas.

My head cold remained persistent through the weekend, but fortunately, I felt good on the bike. I had THE BEST start EVER for me. Going into the first slippery turn, I was right where I wanted to be and even stayed upright as everyone else went down around me. Since there was no space to ride around them effectively, I was forced to dismount and run up the slight hill. At the top, I remounted and pushed down the pedal only to have the other side smack me in the back of the calf with no resistance and no momentum gained – my chain had dropped! Always a first for everything, but what an unfortunate time & place – especially in this race. I really think I would have placed 20-30 had it happened anywhere else other than the first half lap, but that’s the way it goes. So back to working up from almost dead last…

This was my first (and only) experience of riding/racing on FROZEN mud. It wasn’t quite as bad as I anticipated, but certainly the most challenging technical riding I’ve done (I quickly figured out the concept of “tripoding” I overhead before the start of the race, now it made sense). I actually felt quite good once I got racing – I think I’m like Shannon Holden in that I do better the more adverse the conditions. I only took out one course barrier stick (with a spectacular summersault to accompany it) on lap two and slid down the last mud hill on the last lap (had to run back up the hill to get my bike!). With my season of mechanicals and crashes, it really could have been much worse, so I’m pleased with my 40th place. I know I can achieve better, but with all things considered with a dropped chain and head cold, that’s the way it goes. If anything, it has me super motivated to get next season started. My season of “experience” is completed and now I’m ready to RACE in 2008 & I can’t wait!!!!!

Thanks again to all our sponsors – especially Donn with Challenge Tires (who went out of his way to ship me a new tire just in time for this race and graciously helped us in the pits – that’s sponsorship!). I really have appreciated everything our combined sponsorship has helped me achieve this season. I also want to thank our gracious host family who had never heard of cross before our stay but are now hooked. Plus it’s great to see someone get as excited as I do in having their OWN cowbell. And HUGE thanks to Alex for all his coordination for this and throughout the season and our great crew of mechanics. I really appreciate it and look forward to crossin’ in 08 with everyone.

Podium Finish for Junior Bella!

Alicia Styer finished 3rd place in the Junior Women 10-12. Her race started at 9:00 am on Friday morning. It was about 21 degrees with the wind it felt alot colder than that. The ground was frozen and very rutty. Some sections were still muddy with just a layer of ice that made the course very different from the previous days pre-ride. Alicia said she felt like she was mountain biking on parts of the course.


They removed the barriers the second lap. Alicia was the first one to ride right through that section. She had the help of alot of people cheering for her. She was battling it out with Julia that was from Farm Team Cycling for most of the race. Finally they were on their final lap. Once Alicia got on the road after gaining ground on the stairs she hammered it to the finish line.

We are very proud on her!

Snow Day

By Natasha Cowie
Boulder Colorado

Yesterday was the Colorado State Cross Championships in Lyons. It was essentially forty-five minutes of utter stupidity, plus warmup time, although it totally wasn't warmup. It was more like, hey, I'm already dumb enough to be out here in fourteen degrees racing my bike, why don't I ride around for another hour first in order to bring my core body temperature down about fifty degrees and make sure that I feel like I've been sitting in liquid nitrogen. And then I'll claw my way across the frozen tundra to the start line and stand there for another five minutes so that hypothermia can fully set in before the announcer yells go and everybody immediately runs into each other.

Jen and Amy demonstrate race preparation.

The pictures tell everything. Thanks to Chellie and Jim (Tim) and Beth for taking them and for being great great cheerers and cow bell ringers. I would tag your blogs here as a token of my gratitude, except that as I mentioned last post, I do not know how to tag other people's blogs in my own, and this probably makes me an inferior life form. I mean, Amy probably thinks it does, but then she's always damaging my self-esteem anyway, and trying to steal my wheels and stuff. sniff. You're so mean Amy.

So, this is what I wore.

It took approximately 52 minutes and two mugs of ovaltine (the classic chocolate malt flavour, in the orange container) to put all this on, and by the time I was finished dressing, I had to pee. It was a long morning.

It takes work to look like a seductive doofus.

And then we raced through the playground from hell frozen over.

A Gaggle o' Bellas

So snowy.

Then the race was over, and Amy won some badass socks and a silver medal. Jen tried to steal the entire stack of gold medals, which is as good as winning them if you can get away with it. Everybody hallucinated the whole way home. And the best part! After the race we had snacktime!

Thanks again to everybody who cheered and took pictures. and way to represent Bellas. we had Shannon G, Mo, Amy, Jen, and me. The flair was taking over the field.

Hey, it totally wasn't cold enough. Time to head to Kansas City for the nationals afterparty.

Oh, I think there's a race there too.

Anna Wins!

Read all about it!

Many Much Epicness

By Amy Dombrowski
Boulder, Colorado

USGP, Races 5-6, Portland Oregon

Anna! You bet your kielbasa she's Polish.

Whateva I'm bad, I do what I wanna.

1/3 of the pit crew that saved the weekend and let the show go on.

Before the first epic day...trying to stay warm and avoid the rain.

Another third of the most excellent pit crew.

And Sara, the crazy Velo Bella downhiller who put Jen, Anna, and I up for the weekend! Who is psyched in the background?

Anna works on her game face.

Muddy much Shannon?

Epic and cluster were the words of the weekend. Geez, it wouldn't stop raining. There was a brief 30 second period when we spotted the sun, but it vanished before the words could escape from our frosty shivering lips. Saturday was fun, but I'm not sure I can say the same about Sunday quite yet, as I can still remember the compulsive trembling shivers for 45 minutes post-race. I crossed the line cross-eyed with chills, bolted for the van, dropped my mud-soaked bike, stripped naked as quickly as possible, attempted to wipe the layer of mud off, and put every single layer of dry clothing on, while sitting in the van with the heat cranked to the max. But no, the shivers would not cease. Shaking, teeth chattering, out of our minds, we sat for 45 minutes, drinking hot chocolate until finally, slowly we mustered some sort of control over our shocked bodies. Before, during, and after was a cluster, but my-oh-my, was it epic.

I had my first bike change. Though messy and a cluster, it happened with Donn's (Challenge Tires) help. It's something I need to work on. I was stubborn and didn't take a bike change on Saturday, when it was really needed, so by the end, my bike had about 20lbs of excess mud on it! Sunday wasn't so bad because there was water falling from the sky and spraying up at you as the course had basically been drowned.

Our tents blew away on Saturday night, so yet again, Ben Turner and the Clif Bar Development Team let us take over their trainers, tents, and compost for warming up.