Tour of Walla Walla

Team Bobs-bicycles.com warming up for the crit. Left to right: Jeanne Rumps, me, Sarah Brown, Kimberly Turner, Ally Stacher, Sarah Barber, and Mike Gaertner.





Mixing it up in the crit. Blue and white Bob's kits throughout.

One stage race down. The Tour of Walla Walla took place over the weekend, and it was a great weekend of racing. The race has gotten huge over the years, seeing about 550 pre-registrants this year! And, that is without junior and masters categories, which surely would draw even more racers.

Our team had 7: Sarah Barber, Sarah Brown, Jeanne Rumps, Jenni Gaertner, Ally Stacher, Kimberly Turner, and myself. It was our first weekend of racing as a team, and it was a great start. After the time trial we had four ladies in the top 11, giving us the lead in the team competition. Personally, I was not thrilled with my time trial; I wasn't so much unhappy with the placing, as I was with the effort I put out. My power output was, for whatever reason, not at all where it should have been. For a 6.5 mile effort, my output was significantly lower than what it has been for the local weekly 10 mile tts I've been doing. Still, my in Walla this year was far better than last year!

Saturday afternoon we had a 60 mile road race. Poor Jeanne flatted early on, leaving her to chase solo. Sarah Barber attacked and kept the pressure on the first time we raced up the climb, causing the field to split. After the summit, we had a group of maybe 15, including Jenni, Ally, Sarah Barber, and me. The pace was not kept high, so most of the other ladies caught our small group, which left the race to the final climb. Sarah again threw down some attacks, which were countered by other teams. Sarah, Ally, Jenni, and I all finished within seconds of each other, leaving us with 3 in the top 6 overall after stage two, and maintaining our lead of the team classification.

Sunday we had the crit. Both Jenni and Sarah Barber had riders who were very close behind them on the overall results. With time bonuses available in the crit, we really hoped to keep Sarah and Jenni in their respective places. Our plan did not work flawlessly, with Jenni being leapfrogged in the results, but we were one of the most aggressive teams out there.

Overall it was a great weekend for Bob's. We ended up with 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 18th in the 1/2 women, and 4th and 10th in the cat 3 women. We also held on to first in the team classification. Not bad for our first weekend of racing as a team. We worked well together, had a lot of fun, and showed that we will be a force to be reckoned with.

Ted's time trial wasn't what he had hoped for. It didn't help that he had a stretch where he could not get into his big ring, so he definitely lost time there. He got in an early break in his road race (within the first couple miles), and they ended up staying off for about 30 miles. The guy he was with was super strong, and Ted basically worked until he had nothing left. He said he barely knew his own name because he had ridden so hard! He ended up calling it a day, but was happy to have tried the move.

We, along with Mom and Dad, had some great meals in the Walla Walla area. Friday we went to Whitehouse-Crawford, which was good, but not as great as in the past. Saturday we went to CreekTown Cafe, which was really good. Finally, the best meal of the weekend was after Sunday's race. We had a late lunch in Waitsburg at the Whoopemup Hollow Cafe, which is definitely worth a visit. Make sure to get dessert if you go there.

This weekend we're heading to the western side of the state to visit with Ted's family; his parents will be visiting his sister. We'll probably throw in a race or two for good measure.

Sneezing Panda

I love this!

Gusty Chicken Dinner

Hitcher has a new best friend in the form of our neighbor's cat, Lily. She comes over into the yard and the two of them play. It is the cutest thing to see this tiny cat playing with our 50 pound dog.


We've had a couple beautiful days lately.

We headed south to Boise for the Chicken Dinner road race yesterday. It was another opportunity for me to race with my teammates - Sarah Barber, Sarah Brown, and Jeanne Rumps. The 1/2/3 women were grouped in with the cat 3 men and the masters men, and the race started up a decent climb. Ted and I arrived too late for a warm-up, miscalculting how much time we would have, so we started with cold legs. Not so great for a race starting on a climb. Thankfully, there was a horrible headwind of 30mph up the first climb, keeping the pack together. Without a warm-up, Ted and I both got popped when the winds turned into crosswinds at the top of the climb. I was stuck out of the draft and was not warmed up enough to maintain contact. Ted fared slightly better, but still was popped long before he should have been.

All four of the Bob's girls were separated on the course, so we were unable to help each other. Sarah Barber was the furthest up the road, riding some of the time with Ted. I ended up solo for almost all of the next two laps, which was brutal in the wind. I definitely did get a good workout.

Ted turned around part-way into the third (of four) laps, and joined me. We decided to call it a day and headed home. With the wind as it was, it took the winning 1/2 man almost 3.5 hours to do 65 miles, and for our field, the winners finished 56 miles in about 3 hours! Needless to say, I don't think many would say that yesterday's race was exactly fun, but at least it was sunny and warm!

It ended up being a fun weekend. We stayed with Sarah and Brian Barber, and they fixed us a fantastic dinner. It was great to get to know Sarah a little better. The sun and warm temperatures made the drives pleasant, so overall it was a good weekend.

We did witness one very troubling thing yesterday afternoon as we were leaving Nampa. We saw a car pull over by a wildlife preserve, dumping something over the fence. As we got closer, we could see that the man had dumped two small dogs. We continued driving and came upon the car at the next intersection, so we jotted down the license plate number. Ted was irate and walked up to the man's window, telling him we knew what he had done and it was inexcusable. He offered some lame excuse of how the dogs weren't his, and eventually said he would go back to get the dogs. Ted said he did show some remorse, but I don't buy it. He did head back to the preserve, as did we. If the dogs were there, we were going to take them to a shelter, but they were nowhere to be seen, as was the car. I'm sure he probably did pick up the dogs. He also probably drove to some other remote street where he could dump them.

I called and reported the whole thing to the Nampa sheriff this morning, so hopefully they'll at least look into it. With Hitcher being a dog that was potentially dumped, it disgusts me to see someone doing such a thing. Horrible person.

Frozen Flatlands, literally

This guy was assembled near Saturday's race start.


Ted won the sprint.


Michael Costello snapped this side shot of Ted's winning sprint.


The women's field was larger than in years past.

I received an email from Martha Friday telling me I was smart, weather-wise, to stay close to home and race Frozen Flatlands. As we headed to Spokane early Saturday morning and saw at least five cars off the road in the 15 mile stretch between Pullman and Colfax, I began to question my judgement. Not long after, big white flakes began to fall and the hills turned white. Hmmmm... would Ted's race really be going of at 10? Or, at all?

The call was made to delay the start of the first race (Ted's field) by two hours. This would allow for the snow plow (!) to get there and clean off the 2.5 mile circuit. It's April, people. What is going on?

Sure enough, the plow was there at 11, and Ted's race started right at noon. Ted is normally very frisky and aggressive at this race, so I was surprised to see him sitting near the rear of the pack for most of the race. At one point he yelled to me that he was feeling "awful." Needless to say, I think he was a bit surprised when he took the finishing sprint by a large margin, coming up with the win.

The track was actually pretty dry by the time the women's race started. I had one teammate, Jenni Gaertner, and it was our first time racing together. All the women raced together, giving us a field of about 25. Jenni and I decided to be aggressive and make the race hard to get a good effort. None of the other women were very aggressive, seeming mostly to key off of us. We attacked and couter-attacked, working very well together and having fun. I got the prime I wanted for metabolic testing, and Jenni won the final sprint, taking the win. It was a good race for our team.

Sunday was wet and cold, but better than Saturday. Ted was hoping to have a good finish to take the overall omnium. Someone broke away early in his race, and very few people were willing to work to chase, so the breakaway rider ended up winning. The race came down to a sprint and Ted got a little boxed in, so he wasn't as happy with his day as he had hoped.

Jenni and I decided to take it easy for the first portion of the race, hoping some other people would take a more aggressive role. Plus, it was good to keep the cat 4 women with us for a while, rather than just trying to dump them from the gun, as I have seen other 1/2/3 women do. Our plan was for me to attack on the hill and try to get away. If that didn't work, Jenni would be there to sprint at the finish. Our pack splintered around mile 30 and we had a small group off the front. A couple miles later, I got a rear flat. The wheel change was not fast, as the car was not right behind me, and I had to do my own change. I chased for a while, catching some women, but I could never regain contact with the leaders. Thankfully, Jenni was able to win the final sprint again, making it a double win weekend for her!

Weird racing and a dog cake

We did two races last weekend, starting with the Tour de Dung in Sequim. This race was put on by Ted's team, so it was good for us to be able to go and volunteer. The fields were small - the 1/2/3 women's race had 8! Ted attacked from the gun in his race, and ended up in a 36 mile break that was eventually caught.

The women's race was weird. An attack went in the first few miles, leaving four of us off the front, and all four teams represented in the break, if you could call it that. None of the ladies behind were chasing, so it was pretty boring. It was not long at all before we had minutes on the others. Three of us in the break were working very well together, rotating through and keeping the pace fairly high. We also had one woman who sat on and refused to work. I have never really raced with her before, but apparently she did the same thing a couple weeks ago. She offered up a variety of excuses, including the fact that she has a job and goes to school, which prevents her from training a lot. I could not believe she said that! None of us are professionals, all having jobs and lives.

She told us she was going to throw up and was not strong enough to pull through. Our repeated attempts to drop her showed that she was definitely strong enough to be up with us, so we knew she was capable of pulling through. I had no doubt that she would sit on for the whole race and sprint at the finish. No understanding of etiquette at all. We eventually forced her to pull through by sitting on her wheel, but she continued to sit on regularly. If she only would have tried, I think we all would have been fine with it, but she thought it was fine to just sit on and do nothing. We were all incredibly annoyed and worked together against her, eventually dropping her. She is definitely creating a bad taste in the women's peloton, and will soon have very few friends to race with.

The race came down to a sprint for the three of us, and I ended up at the front for the final kilometer. Oops. I knew I was the weakest sprinter out of the three of us, and I ended up 3rd.

We headed south to Woodland, Washington for the Piece of Cake road race on Sunday. I woke up Sunday morning with a horrible sore throat and was not enthusiastic about racing. I opted to do the cat 3 men's race with Ted in the morning, rather than waiting until the afternoon for the women's race. I try to support women's racing, but it was very appealing to get home at 7:30 pm, rather than 11:30 pm, so I did the men's race. It was a pack of about 70, and I opted to sit in. With how I was feeling, I was just happy to hang in. Ted attacked a couple times, but found his legs unwilling to respond, so he sat in too. This weekend we have the luxury of racing close to home in Cheney, which will be really nice after a few weekends of driving.

Monday marked one year since I adopted Hitcher, so I had to mark the occasion with a cake, of course. I also say it is his birthday, since we really don't know how old he is. He even got a small slice of cake, and he almost never gets human food. Speak of the devil... I think someone needs to go for a walk before I head to work, as I have now been brought two shoes and a sunglass case. That's my cue.