Going to Disneyland!

By Raja Lahti
San Diego, Cali

I had a change of careers in April and pretty much everything else has had to sit on the back burner until I get settled.

In May I did Wildflower Olympic and had fun. Training this year has been hampered by one thing or another, illness, work, injury, you name it. The gods are holding me back! I didn't expect much out of Wildflower, and still came away bummed with my race. The good news, my swim was the best yet and I really was delighted with it. The bike & run, well, not so much. I ended up 9th out of about 200 or so that finished. The exciting part was the finish..

Then came Encinitas Sprint. I was 3rd with what I consider a crappy bike portion of the race. It wasn't bad, but I know I should be doing better. The run was ok.. and the swim.. well, I'm not so hot for surf entry so I survived.

This past weekend was probably one of the most fun races I've ever done. It was the Danskin Disneyland Triathlon. That's right, Kingdom of the Mouse, or in this case, California Adventure. The swim was in the lagoon in CA Adventure, the bike was a 2 loop course around the entire part and the run was a windy route through the park. With over 1300 competitors (all women), this was a big race.

Why did I enter? Well, when else can you take a dip in Disneyland without them giving you a life ban?!??

On check-in before the race I heard one woman say, "the water is disgusting! It's a lagoon! There were ducks right there pooping." Uhhh.. this is Disneyland where everything is sterile, that taste is actually chlorine and that brown water is dye so you don't see the tracks for the boat. If only she knew what nasty water really tastes like... As you walked in the water, it was warm, you know, kinda like bath water. No wetsuits needed so I wore a tri-swim suit for the first time. Couldn't wear my Bella kit as it's a 2 piece. Instead a put a Bella tattoo on my arm and wore my signature hair flair. The swim was a ton of fun, but a bit of a faux-Ironman. With about 16 waves (me in wave 9)starting every 3 minutes, it was A LOT of swimming over or around people in previous waves. Next time I think I'll actually race Elite instead of Age Group so I can get in the first wave and not have to crawl between quite so many ladies. But where else can you stroke, stroke, breathe, look at the ferris wheel, stroke, stroke, breath, look rollercoaster, stroke, stroke, breath, look Mickey...

The bike was fun, and my bike created quite a bit of attention (aka The Hornet) as there were a number of first-timers racing. I really enjoyed being able to answer questions, even got to give a fix-a-flat demo. Newby: "What are these?" Me: "These are tire levers, you really should know what they are and how to use them..."

Back to the race... so the bike was ok, still feeling a bit lacking in strength and it showed as I was unable to loose the cute chick in red on the cervelo with the disk. I should have been able to smoke her, but instead she latched on and let me take her for a ride. We leap frogged around for a bit between swim, T1, the bike & T2, but then she spanked me on the run. At least she was nice & cute!

By the time I got off the bike I was still coughing up the drink mix I managed to inhale. Note to self: don't inhale your drink!!! The run started and I had the glugs. You know that sloshy feeling from drinking then trying to run?! After the first mile I felt better and began to relax. Unfortunately the run was almost over by that point so I just ran my way past the popcorn and cotton candy, past the store where you can flatten a penny, past the churros, around the fountain, through the western-shoot-out store front and to the finish. With one great leap for Velo Bella, I was done!

I finished 2nd in my age group behind that nice cute chick on the Cervelo, and 6th overall. Not too bad.. but I know I can do better next year.....

We had a number of Bellas attend, I'll update this blog with a list, but CONGRATS to all, this was a fantastic race and HIGHLY recommended as a destination race.

More Bikes and Brews!

By Erika Krumpleman
Hayden, Idaho



The Northwest "Indie Series" took me to the quaint, beautiful, (although somewhat cheezy) Bavarian town of Leavenworth, Washington. I was a bit nervous about how my body would work after crashing in the previous Wednesday night race and turning my right side into one large hematoma. With almost 5,000 feet of climbing, my legs would need to be there!

After the 4 hour drive to the race course, I had a good warm-up and was ready to go when I hear that the start was delayed by 30 minutes because one of the sport racers had crashed and needed to be carried off the course on a stretcher. So—do I keep warming up, or stand around and talk? Hmm—stand around and talk wins. After 30 minutes and halfheartedly warming up a 2^nd time, I hear the start has been delayed another 30 minutes because the racer is badly injured. After climbing 1600 feet each lap, the descent was fast and buff with an occasional hump (water bar) added in that sends many a rider on his or her head. By now I’m starting to think conservative descending might be in order. . Also—my mental focus is pretty much gone. We finally line up to start, I dash into the bushes for one last pee, and then we are off. I took off hard and led up the climb. One woman passed me at the top of the climb, but I quickly passed her on the downhill and did not see another woman from the open class for the rest of the race—pretty uneventful! I kept expecting Kristy Berg, a former pro downhiller to catch me on the descent, but surprisingly she never did.

Luckily my bruised and swollen right leg still worked! The best part about it was the pay out--$250.00!! This may sound pathetic, but I’ve never won that much before! In most races, the men’s payout is about 5 times the women’s, but in this race it was almost equal—yay for progress! It might actually pay for a few tanks of gas….

Thanks to Stan's for making an incredibly light and strong set of purple nippled wheels! Less weight on the bike equals faster climbing!

It was also great to see teammate Kari Studley out there. She rode very strong considering the lack of fuel!

Thanks for reading!

Bella and Fella

By Soni Andreini Poulsen
NorCali



Ok, time trial race reports aren't all that interesting. And I already messed up my first attempt and it got swallowed up in cyberspace. So I'll keep this short and sweet. Jeff and I rode this on our tandem, of course!

The short:

19.2 miles, flat

it wasn't too hot (80--which is like a cold spell for Davis in June)

it wasn't too windy

pre-riding the course last week really helped (we didn't miss any turns or crash like some people did)

i like having somebody steer for me--i never saw or felt a single bump in the road

but since i couldn't see anything but Jeff's butt (which is a nice sight, ordinarily), i missed the camelbak bite valve on the side of the road--if i'd seen that, i'da known that lilly was on the course ahead of me....



the sweet:

we won!!

and beat a few boys in the process....

Bikes and Brews

By Kari Studley
Bothell, Washington



Highlights of the race:

- Getting to ride my bike in the sun! it’s been POURING rain the last 10 days in Seattle. Yuck.

- Amazing views. I had to refrain from singing “The Hills Are Alive” from the Sound of Music as I enjoyed the panorama of mountains view.

- The sweet smell of Lupin and you ride through trails blanketed by the beautiful purple fragrant flower on either side.

- Sunshine! Sunshine! Sunshine!

- I won my first cowbell trophy! I’m a sucker for racing for t-shirts & cowbells, guess it’s a cross thing.

- Fun race atmosphere. Beer garden & bands and community turnout = fun!

- Perfect Kari-course (4 miles of Kari-grade climbing up, 4 mile single track downhill. Repeat 3 times.) I had a GREAT second lap!

- Erika Krumpelman WON her race in the open women category. Whoo hoo Erika!

The not-so-highlights:

- I won by default as the only other racer in my expert 19-34 age division had to leave emergently as her father crashed severely (rumored initially unconscious) and had to be carried out by stretcher by mountain rescue in his race prior to ours. I was very distracted the first lap thinking about her and her dad and hoping the very best for the whole family. (Please help me in sending good healing & well-being Bella vibes to them). So it was me in my <34 category against the 6 women expert 35+ category racers.

- Because the my race kept getting delayed by half hour increments (my race at noon became 12:30 to 1:00 and my race actually started at 1:15) for the rescue effort I kept having just enough time to not do anything productive for my race. I just want to clarify that his life/well-being is SOOO much more important than my silly race and I have no problem with being delayed (or canceled) for such reasons, but I’ve never had a situational delay like that or that long before my race. So I didn’t eat/fuel up enough to make up for that hour since I kept thinking I’d be racing in 20-30 minutes and didn’t want to suffer that consequence of indigestion.

- Hence my perfectly timed out food & warm up prep lasted me to what would have been a perfectly timed race finish according to the original plan. Or the end of lap two (of 3) for the revised plan. I had just solidified first out of all the expert women when just after the feedzone my hamstrings cramped really really badly to an almost paralyzing point (also a new experience while racing). And then just as I was able to get back into a normal cadence I completely food bonked (with 3 miles left of the climb and 7 miles total for the race). It’s really not pretty when I food bonk and I’ve never been that hungry before on the bike, much less, racing.

- So I tried to at least enjoy the scenery and not think about eating the plants and watch the lead 35+ expert woman pass me and take first overall for the expert women field (a matter of personal pride since I beat her by 8 minutes the last time we raced. But, kudos to her, as this was her hometown course and she definitely ate time into me on the downhill part).

24 hours later I still am hungry (I don’t think I ate enough the day before either, so I’ve learned my lesson). But very glad I at least got to go spend a day riding my bike in the sun, lupin flowers and spectacular views. We’re back to rain and clouds in Seattle. And a big plug for my Zeal Mistro sunglasses: not only are they the PERFECT tint for sunny & shady trails (a balance I’ve never been able to find before with previous sunglasses), they fit perfectly around my helmet, AND (most importantly!) I didn’t get a sun-headache that a Seattle-ite like me is often prone to when I go suddenly from no sun to tons of sun in a day.

Photo stolen from the collection of Sabine Dukes, because it looked pretty.