I was dreaming this up on the car ride back from Adam’s tonight. (YES! Got to finally see my man after ~6 long weeks)

10) You see billboards for Ron Bell
9) There are sticks in peoples’ windows to hold them shut in case a gangsta tries to break in
Adobe
7) You see low rider cadillacs/trucks with hydraulics. In the rear window there is old english writing of the person’s last name
(generally hispanic, but would be any)
6) When you go to a mexican restaurant, you know what they mean when they ask you if you want Christmas
5) Orange barrels and hooting construction workers…except they yell in spanish instead of white trash english.
4) You know what a hoochie mama is, what she dresses like, and how she talks.
3) Houses look like forts with black cast iron bars. (adobe forts of course)
2) You go to the Frontier to people watch.
1) The beautiful view of the Sandias!

I’m sure I’ll think of more later. If YOU think of more, don’t be shy to post it as a comment.

I drove back to Albuquerque today that way I have a day in between the drive here and the Gila. Silver City is only a few more hours down the road. The drive went pretty quick, I made it in 6.5 hours. My ‘94 Sentra was rockin’ today. I was driving 80-85 mph and getting ~42 mpg! I put some new spark plugs in a few weeks ago. I think that helps the gas mileage. I have never really appreciated my little car till now, where gas prices are around 3 bucks a gallon. Now all those gas guzzlin’ SUVs are really paying. Suckas! It’s always nice to come home and get spoiled by my parents. My mom was equipped with cake, cookies, two types of food for dinner, chips and dip, and my dad made us some mojitos. That’s what I’m talking about!

Actually, I figured out how to do well this week. For those of you who don’t know, female cyclists have a stereotype of being lesbians. I need to flirt or possibly bust a move on one of the fast women so maybe they’ll let me sit on their wheel. What do ya think? It’s going to be hard to stay motivated and get all my school stuff done. That looming take home final is causing a lot of pain and will eventually cause a lot of tears once I get started!! That’s it…peace out homie(I have to talk like an Alb homeslice since I’m here)

Despite going to bed at 2:30AM, I still woke up at 8 AM as usual. Unfortunately, I woke up to rain! This week is being mean to be!! I’m supposed to be getting in one last week of training before Gila so later, I may be doing intervals with my heart in my throat, and getting my bike all dirty. I guess it wouldn’t be the first time!

Last night was really fun. I had drinks with Fred Dreier, celebrity mountain bike editor at Velonews. Fred is a cool guy, goofy like me. At the Rio, there was this horrible band…so after pretending to rock out and suck down a rita on the rocks, we moved on. We ran into a lot of cool people including Henk Vogels… a totally badass European pro(on Lotto) who is just in Boulder for the week. He does the Giro, Tour de France, you name it!! We also ran into the Nicks(Ranno and Martin). It’s a good time. It’s actually fun to go to the bars in Boulder(compared to Albuquerque). It’s not super ghetto. Albuquerque boys would think they are heaven because there are a lot of hot chicks. In Albuquerque, homie G funks cruise up and down Central with their bling bling, old english last names on the back windows, hydraulics pumping, and their mouths screaming out the windows at the chicas. Most of these chicas are actually hoochie mamas. Hoochie mama= fat, too much make-up, big nasty hair, wearing clothes that are WAY too small for them and trying to act all tough, with the New Mexican accent. Hot! Hot! Hot!

TGIF! I’m so excited for the summer to be here! Yes! I have wanted to live in Colorado over the summer for my whole life.

Today I had a bike fit for both of my bikes in Ft. Collins. I tell you what, in Boulder, you can’t see the HUGE snow-capped mountains behind the flat irons. When you are further north, you can see them. It’s pretty cool.

I am getting some new road pedals from a friend. Egg Beater Quattro SLs, and they are pink. I’ll show a pic tomorrow…now my pedals AND my seat are pink. Sweet!! A lot of bugs decided to commit suicide on my face today during my ride. I tried out some aerobars for the time trial at the Gila and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I’m looking forward to going home and getting this semester ALL done. Tonight I’m going to the Rio to get some margaritas with a friend. I randomly made friends with the velonews moutain bike editor, so he’ll probably have some cool stuff to say!! This Rio place has a limit of 2 on the margaritas so I think one will be sufficient for me. Then maybe I’ll go to sushi happy hour at Hapa. 2 rolls for 5.50. no bad,eh?

My friend Chris Jung has wine and cheese parties(that’s sooo snobby Boulder! ha) every now and again. Our little cliche of cyclists gets together and sees who has the most lightweight tendencies(usually me…) Oh, and we make fun of roadies jk

Chris Jung, me, and Josh Bezecny. Those bunny ears were pretty clever!

Caroline Jaromilek, Jess Vogt, me. DHers teach me how to be cool

Collin is always trying to be a badass.

This is Karl, not a statue. Amazing, amazing.

The roads were dry so I got to ride today, but here’s a pic I took on the way to school…

Yesterday and all last week: Sun and 80 degrees. Today: snowing…. 32 degrees. What’s going ON? I saw several confused victims to the weather, trying to fight the strange day still wearing shorts and t-shirts. Maybe feeling cold made them feel better…I don’t know. At least it was an excuse to take a rest day. I did want to try out my new seat though. I also got some aerobars to practice with before Gila next week.

Here’s a quick overview of the race yesterday: The course was an out and back circuit. It was about 7.4 miles/lap, we did 6 laps. The road had 2 huge rollers and was on a closed section of highway. I arrived at the race bright and early (7:10 AM to be precise). I did the pro race(cat 1/2/3) and there were about 20 women in the field including Ann Trombley(former Olympic mountain biker). Basically the race consisted of me getting hammered. I am no roadie, and it’s quite evident during the races when someone attacks. I can hop on the attack for about 10 seconds and then POW! Off the back i go. It’s the super high end bursts of speed that I do not train for, nor have. As a mountain biker, I train to sustain a pretty hard effort for a long period of time. Road racing is more about riding in the pack, conserving energy, and then going super hard when someone attacks. I need to work on that stuff. I don’t it will be as big of a problem in the Gila next week because the climbs are pretty long and if people jump the way they do on a roller(a relatively short, steep hill), they definitely will not be able to hold it. I got dropped off the back 4 times over the course of the race and was able to flog myself and chase back up to the main group. I’m pretty satisfied that I’m able to get dropped and catch back on, but dang it, I would save so much energy if I could just hang with people on the attacks. I didn’t do so well, got like 15th or something. The official results aren’t in yet, but I had a good time and got some good training. I was trying to get used to riding in a pack again before I hit the big time next week where there will be more like 70 women in the pack versus 20!

I’m leaving sometime this weekend so I have a day or two in Albuquerque before I go down to Silver City. I still don’t have a confirmed place to stay, but hopefully it will all come together!! This week I’m just trying to wrap up my schoolwork and get ahead.

Adam has been missing my cookies(more than me I think, haha), so I did some work in the kitchen and here is a picture to tease him… now you can take joy in his pain as well. muhaha

There’s that crazed look in my eye!

Well, I am tired of getting chami sores so I decided to get a new seat. This is the Terry Damselfly seat, made for women. I got it in pink so I can really piss off guys when I pass them and made chodes feel like wusses when they try to hammer me and then blow up. Sweet! I’m trying to pimp my ride a little, but hopefully next year I’ll get me a nice, new road bike. The frame on this one is a handme down and it’s actually pretty heavy compared to what the other girls are riding. It’s a leaned out frank the tank. The original frank was my 35 lb mountain bike that I thought was light before I knew better. More later on the race I did today. All I can say is that I will be in a world of pain next week at the Gila.

Ok, so I figured out how to put a pic of the Sandias up. I may change this template again… you have to let me know what you think.

I had to go in for a drug test today for my internship. I drank THREE Nalgene bottles and then left(about 96 oz of water). It all hit me at once and I ended up having to wait 40 min. By the time they called me back, I was clenching every muscle in my body trying not to pee my pants. I think they purposely wait till you’re at your breaking point so they can laugh at you.

Howdy howdy. I got in a killer ride yesterday. The state of my legs never ceases to amaze me. Tuesday I was totally blown from my weekend and long ride Monday. So blown that I cut out my ride. Yesterday i went out and did some of the canyons, and it felt like I had my race wheels on. I guess that hint of fitness is a little encouraging for the Gila. A preview of this weekend: 50 mile road race in Grand Junction/Fruita and crit in Fruita. it should be pretty fun. next weekend I will take a break from racing and get ready to go to the Gila. I gave notice at Wild Oats…I just can’t justify working there if I make twice as much at my internship this summer. I am so excited to have school over and done with. This year has been incredibely challenging in both school and life. It’ll be great to have fun, go camping, race my bike, and have a change of pace with my internship at Xcel Energy. It shouldn’t be very technical since it’s for a utility company.

Sierra, you would be very proud of me. I was talking to a friend at 11 last night, and we spontaneously went out for Mojitos. I am such a wuss… I had ONE and was feeling prettty good. ha I was the decoy for my friend Thurein. He likes this girl and is trying to play hard to get. He wasn’t going to show up tonight b/c the girl he likes asked him to go. Instead, he decided to show up with me and I laughed at him when she wasn’t there. Why do guys feel like they have to play all these stupid games? BOOO

On another note, I’m trying very hard to change the template of this blog. I don’t like it, but I’m no whiz with HTML coding, and I am picky.