epic racing continued

Gina Grain celebrates birthday with 3rd place finish and a storm for the ages

by Jim Williams

The Nature Valley Grand prix is turning into a survival contest for the Colavita/Co oking Light Team. Tonight was supposed to be a downtown cycling celebration in Minneapolis but it turned into a little bit of everything with an emphasis on wet and wild adventure. One hour before the race a sprinkle started from what was expected to be a quick passing thunderstorm. The sprinkle grew to a hard rain and then to sideways sheets of rain. The staff had set up the temporary race camp sandwiched next to 2 big buildings and huddled under their race tent with Sue Palmer Komar and Gina Grain to weather the storm through. The rest of the team was out warming up and had to seek shelter in a bus stop. Every minute when the rains seemed as though they should be letting up they some how managed to come down harder until the rain turned to hail and then the hail got larger and larger. Form the loosely protected area those in the tent were able to watch tents from other teams blow apart and then had to run out and rescue equipment that began floating away after the streets flooded over the sidewalk. Sue Palmer Komar the wise experienced racer put on her race helmet to protect her from the flying chunks of ice and Gina Grain laughed and claimed, “this is the best birthday present ever” When the storm finally passed and the damage surveyed, the only lose for the Cola vita/Cooking Light team were the race radio’s that got a drenching even though they had been put in zip lock bags. The upcoming race was shortened and for the third year in a row would be contested on slippery wet roads. Nerves were high as a wet crit course usually means crashes but the team had been equipped with high friction Michelin rain tires and everyone stayed up right during the race which was fast and aggressive and strung out single file for its duration. Colavita/Cooking Light rode a conservative race and at the end rain specialist Gina Grain gave it a go at the line and was able to earn a spot on the podium and even more reason for the team to celebrate with her. .


Okay, so that is Jim's report and it just about sums it up. It was NUTS!! I was not a happy camper to be racing a crit in the wet. But it's true about the tires, they were super grippy michelins and I love them. I wish I had my camera to take a picture of the hail. Let's just say there was no need to buy ice for the coolers, we had tons after that!! You need to check out Doug's and Timmy's blog, they took pictures so hopefully they post. Plus the water was up over the curb and the waves were approaching our little protected encampment. It was wild. Alas, the flood waters receded quickly and we were able to race, in the wet but at least it stopped raining for a bit. Different story for the guys though, they had to call their race 17 min into it. Better them than us.

Today it was windy again for the long day in the saddle. I wasn't too happy about that either. I mean 80 plus miles of crosswinds only to come into town and have to do 4 circuits with a heinous hill. BRUTAL! I will never do this race again!

Meanwhile, at home, Trinity scored 3 goals in her soccer game!! Way to go girl! I am finally going to get to see her play next saturday before I head to Rochester for the Twilight crit. She has scored 6 goals in 3 games so far.

well, I should go prepare mentally for this stillwater hell that's in store for us tomorrow. Sounds like a fun day, ha!

crazy chaos

that about sums up the first road stage out here in minnesota. colavita certainly had some bad luck yesterday and bad timing with the bad luck. crazy cross winds and 2 miles of loose gravel (some tail swishing goin on) made for a hard day at the office

it was a killer wind with lots of open type roads and a huge 132 rider field. It's annoying how a promoter will boast about the size of a women's field. It's so large this year, blah blah blah. Great. the only reason our field is so large is because they let in the 3's. It does look good on paper but most courses lately are getting more technical to "challenge" the riders. some 3's just don't have the experience and skill level to be in some of these races. Certainly the philly organisers are guilty of that. They would never throw senior 3 men in a men's pro12 race would they??

anyway, just saying that could open a whole can of rotten worms but I don't have time to go on now, i have to get ready to leave for tonight's crit. thank god it's only 40min. but yesterday didn't go as we had planned, lots of crashes and mishaps. we'll make up for it in the next three days hopefully. there are a lot of tough women on this team.

gotta fly!

return of blogger sue

okay, so blogger sue has been absent lately. It's been so long I don't know where to start. last post I said I'd write about Athens and Roswell. So, they were tales from the big ring. We didn't win those two, tina was second in both but then she won the sunny king crit the next weekend in Alabama. I wasn't part of that. I was bummed we didn't win athens or roswell but i was happy to be feeling waaay better after a less than stellar april. I felt pretty useless most of the month and just started feeling better about 3 days before athens. there was a time I thought it would be useless for me to even go to athens. it all worked out okay though. i wasn't exactly myself but the form was coming back.

I went home after athens until joe martin. I did a local race but didn't win it, that always sucks. Joe martin I was feeling better still and it went okay but we didn't win that one either. Although, the lead out in the first stage was a drag race between kori seehafer and myself. that was fun and hard and we created a gap to the rest of the field which was kind of neat. At the finish when I pulled off to let tina and dotsie do their thing, I kept waiting for everyone to start coming around me (I was pretty cooked). but they never did so I was able to snag 5th place.

I had a rotten tt though. Dotsie had a good one and before the race we were figuring there was no lynn gaggioli this year so probably around 10min flat would win it. Wrong! Dotsie did a 10:01. erinne willock blasted up the hill to win in 9:43 and dotsie was 2nd. then the crit the next day was super hard and we lost 2nd overall to alisha lion so dots ended up third. I hate that crit.

I went home again after JM and did a local race the next weekend. it went better cause there was a significant steep hill that we did 8 times. I finally won a local race! At the other race I did a few weeks ago that i lost, there was a kid's race that Trinity did. it was a ton of fun and she was pretty psyched for it. she was telling me before how much she wanted to win and me, being concerned about her being disappointed if she didn't said "well honey, it's about having fun and trying your best no matter if you win or lose, just have fun!" she seemed to buy it and a little later while we were walking to registration she said to me "mommy, it's my dream to come 2nd, then i'll be on the podium". maybe she didn't buy it. So, in the race she rode so hard she did cross the line first. there was a tight battle between her and the son (Ethan) of a riding buddy of mine. they were neck and neck going like crazy until ethan pulled up about 10m from the line.

After we crossed the line she started crying and I was like "what's up? you won the race!!" she blurbled out that she had a leg cramp in her leg. I wanted to laugh but thought better of it but what a trooper. she said that her leg was cramping in the race but she had to "KEEP GOING" cause "Ethan was right there!!" YOU GO GIRL!!

so that was my proud mommy moment. there has been lots more racing since then. montreal, somerville, captech, CSC and Philly. Now I'm in nature valley for a 5 day stage race. It starts today and I hope I have my tt legs. At least I have my CDN TT champ skinsuit. This is my only chance to race in it before Nationals again at the end of the month.

i hope to continue with the updating later this week, i should have the time, i just might be lazy. or occupied trying to find a bug cage or bug catching kit for trinity. later.