British Columbia Superweek – Loca Adventures
July 17, 2006
by Bella Loca
British Columbia is a great place to be in the summer – even better if you get to race your bike 8 times in 10 days. I arrived on Friday to compete in the first three events of BC Superweek, and the rest of the Bella team will join me tomorrow night for an evening criterium on the waterfront and then continue racing through July 23.
Travelling to other countries by yourself with a bike and luggage in tow can be difficult… but I think I got the worst of it out of the way on Friday. I flew into Seattle and drove up to Burnaby, which is a suburb of Vancouver for the Giro di Burn Baby. An hour wait on the I-5 at the border crossing put me into a world of suffering… a bad time to have your hydration habits catch up to you! Once I got through (whew!), I drove straight to the event. I found the Dizzy Chicks warming up and a local espoirs team with a Schwalbe tent, and I figured they’d have to be my friends for the day. I pulled my bike out of the travel case, set it up, and went to check out the course and warm up with 40 minutes till race time.
It was a long course on a main drag through town, with eight turns and some gentle hills. Lucky for me, the crew was behind on setting up the course. Come staging time, there was a big truck on the course unloading hay bales. We all took another warm up lap… to find the bumpy, off camber corners were now covered in hay! We went back to the line and waited for the brooms to come out. As you might expect in BC, out of nowhere, the rain came. Out of the sky dumped big raindrops for 10 minutes while we shivered on the line… and all I could think of was that now the hay in the corners was soaking wet. Forget the brooms, get a Zamboni out here!
The rain subsided, and we were off, and quickly. There were multiple $100 primes, and a field of great sprinters. The crashes started early too, but no pile ups. The first half of the race, I rode like someone who had spent all day travelling. The field was dwindling as girls popped of the back with each acceleration. I studied the lines through the turns and stayed in the lead group. Eventually I found my groove, and had some fun near the front. I’m racing on Schwalbe tubulars, and they are super fast and sticky in the corners. Into the final sprint, a long slightly downhill straightaway, things slowed up. A recipe for disaster, and once the sprint was on, there was crash right in front of me. I avoided it, but came in near the back of the group in 16th.
The next day we moved onto the coastal town of White Rock for a hill climb time trial. It was only 700 meters long, but with 16 percent grades. I was matched up with Marni from Symmetrics, who had placed 4th in the Giro di Burn Baby. We paced each other evenly up the hill, and she sprinted ahead at the end. I thought I must have done pretty well, keeping up with her… until I saw the results and I was very much near the bottom of the page. At least it’s only July…. still a few months to work on that top end speed for the real season – cyclocross is right around the corner!
Photo Credit: Photo ©: John Blankfort/www.SnapMe.Net from CyclingNews.com
Today, Sunday, was the White Rock road race. It is actually more of a circuit race, with 8 laps on a 10km course along the waterfront. There were a couple of killer climbs, each lasting about 2-3 minutes and maybe 14 percent grade. The attacks on the first few laps were unrelenting. Finally a group of 4 or 5 got away, and I was happy to see them go. With a teammate up the road, Symmetrics controlled the pace of the main pack. There were some girls still eager to join the break, so the pace stayed high and our group whittled down to about 13 riders before long.
It was great to race on the Kona Queen Zing. The carbon frame is very forgiving on the rough roads, and light as a feather up the steep grades. I even had another racer compliment the bike, during the race. Maybe she wasn’t working as hard as me! With two laps to go, our pack shattered, with 5 or 6 girls going ahead, and I was in the next group of 4. The pace through the finals laps was comfortable for me, but lacking a sprint I came in at the back of my group – hopefully good enough for a top 15. I’m not good at math while my heartrate is over 190, so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to know the results.
Meanwhile, I’ve been wishing I had brought mountain bike! I’m staying at a college campus on Burnaby Mountain. The campus is in the middle of 1400 acres of conservation land, with a network of trails. Every time I drive up the hill, I see mountain bikers with full padding and all-mountain bikes zipping in and out of the trees. This place is crawling with fat tires! Sigh. I’ll have to come back another time for some recreational riding.
In the meantime…. I have a feeling things at BC Superweek are about to get turned upside down with the arrival of the full Bella squad! Fresh off some very impressive racing at Cascade, we are going to rock the White Rock Criterium Monday night!
Sarah aka Bella Loca
MTB Nationals
July 17, 2006
Just some pics to tease you with…
reports and more pics soon!
Cougar Crit Prom Women/Men Race Report
July 17, 2006
by Lula
Yes, you did read it right.
It was a combined field: PRO 1/2 MEN & PRO 1/2/3 WOMEN; isn’t it lovely?!
Winner: OLDS, SHELLEY
Second: LYONS, BRENDA
Third: MARPLE, STACY
My Placing: 6th
First of all, when I showed up at the Infineon Raceway I saw right away the “Kona-Schwalbe” tent and I knew where my first stop would be.
After a “little” chat with Jed and the guys I went to registration and there I learned that there were only 6 women registered: 4 Proman, 1 Webcor and me 
And I said: Grrrrrreat! Meaning, no surprise here as even Casey once said: I “choose the races that do not have enough racers to count for upgrading points”. Oh well…
Anyways, at my car getting ready Yana (Proman) told me that they delayed our race about 1/2hr and no point warming up now. Then, she came once again and said that and we would start right after the Pro 1/2 Men field – so I stopped warming up AGAIN. Later, she came again, with more bad news, saying that we would start with the Pro Men field @ 4:15PM. I laughed…
I decided to rear that myself and at registration I did also learned that our field had grown from 6 to 12, including Kendra Wenzel and Brenda Lyons (Victory). Yeahhhh!!! I was happy because the reason I chose this race was because I wanted to have a hard/fast pace race and last year lots of great racers appeared. And this year I got more, I would race with the Pro 1/2 Men. God has really been leasing my prayers.
At that point, I was almost feeling like recruiting more riders around to make up the 20 racers needed for upgrading points – Hey, you! Do you have a road bike? Let’s ride! But wait a minute, since we raced with the guys we did have more than 20 racers, right?!
Anyhow, at the race, the pace started easy for a couple seconds and then…..it was a battle to save your life! Fast, fast, fast. There were about 25-30 of us, including the guys. The race had no primes and only 2 real turns: it starts with a small right/left on a descend, a short straight line, a U turn to the right (just like Fremont Crit), and big straight line with a HUGE cross wind pushing everyone into the wall, and 1 big right turn back to the start/finish line. A fast and very technical track.
The guys went up front and pushed the pace and we all followed. Attacks and counter attacks later, and I got dropped; just like Jed said it would happen; I wished I had warmed up….. Well, that was my warm up. I waited for another rider and, Yana again. We worked together to bridge back and the official told us there were more people dropped behind us, including some guys, and we could have a neutral lap and wait for them and the peloton. We kept a steady pace and this time, when the peloton came I knew I had to stay on. There was one group of 2 guys off the front and right after a second/chase group of 8 racers with 5 gals in it, the same group I was dropped before, and this time I knew that the 6th place had to be mine.
For the last 45′ I worked hard moving back and forth in the peloton but found myself quite often at the back. The guys would pull hard and since they couldn’t drop us they would get frustrated. hahaha. Well, our group broke again and this time I was still on and a couple laps later, before the last lap, we lapped the other riders and one of the lapped riders from Proman helped Shelly by pulling her and us into the last long right turn and slowed down in front of some of us opening a small gap in front of a couple of us and I ended up with 2 guys 3 other women. At the last turn, and 200 meters to the finish line, I jumped and sprinted to 6th place.
At the end, I was happy when some of the guys came to me and congratulated me for my performance; weird; but it looks like the announcer kept saying that “Velo-Bella Luciana Vecchi a Cat 3 is looking good and strong in this insanely fast peloton”.
I still think the “look good” part is because I’m a Bella!
And, a HUGE thanks for the Jed and the guys at “Kona-Schwalbe” tent who feed me and fixed my bike. You’re all awesome!!!!!
Monica earns silver at Nationals
July 13, 2006
Monica stormed the tough, hilly, windy and wet time trial course and earned a silver medal yesterday at USA Cyling Masters National Championships at Seven Springs Pennsylvania. Other bellas competing in the time trial included Barb Grabowski and Liz Benishin.
Racing continues on Friday for the criterium and Sunday for the road race. The masters team will be joined by Lisa Samuelson and Diane Castor. More reports as we get them and I find a coffee shop to post them. 
Full time trial results here
Bellas get super "toit" at Deer Valley
July 12, 2006
Wendy writes in about the team’s latest adventures at the Deer Valley NORBA.
What happens to a cross country team when the downhiller invades their world?
Wendy’s report here!
Deer Valley NORBA report
July 11, 2006
The band is gettin’ back together!It’s been 2 months since I have raced with my teammates so I was giddy about catching up with everyone at the Park City NORBA. Alex organized us, his mom Judy fed us and Jed & Jessie kept our sweet Kona Kula Lisa’s dialed. We stayed in a swank condo at the base of the hill which was amazing – HUGE thanks to Arleen Jouras! Although we got booted from the $2.4 million penthouse (the owner saw 6 bikes in the entrance), the first floor was still the nicest place I had ever stayed. Jed is still going off about the 3 headed shower in his bathroom. Five star. Just like Kona’s duck-eating-champagne-drinking Matt Madeson.
The XC crew had fun pre-riding the twisty course on Friday although the thin air was noticeable to us that live a few blocks from the beach. We cursed our mountain goat teammates Noel and Kristin who complained that “there wasn’t much climbing on this course”. I would continue to curse them every lap of the race on Saturday. After our pre-ride we watched Allie rip down the hill to 9th in the Super D on the Velo Bella Kona Dawg that had just been built up that day.XC: Warming up in the hot midday sun is never great but its even worse when the start of your race gets delayed, three times. Its even crappier when you have timed your food intake to perfection and your empty stomach is suddenly starving. At times like these, you just have to abandon your “script” and deal with it. Everyone is in the same boat.
The start of the XC race was a bit of a gong show – a few hundred meters before 68 girls had to funnel into single file. I had a solid start but a lot of the other girls got caught behind a crash (or two…). I settled into climbing up the BIG opening hill at my own pace, worrying that the altitude might blow me up if I went out too hard. A blur of pink and blue passed me as Kristin rocketed ahead when the climb opened up. And then she was gone. 
I should have made a push at the top to get ahead into the single track but I didn’t and got caught behind a couple of slower riders who obviously didn’t race BMX when they were kids. The downhill was really fun twisty singletrack but almost impossible to pass. Eventually I caught up to Kristin only to be passed by her again on the switchback climb. This time I was prepared and had enough time (and breath) to cheer her on. Lap two played out the same way but Kristin was still flying up the hills and picking up speed on the downhill so by the third lap I couldn’t catch up to her! We ended up 11th and 12th. Yeah Kristin! Both Kristin and Noel later admitted (a bit sheepishly) that there was in fact a fair amount of climbing on that course. No shit!
Kids race: The entire Velo Bella- Kona team was helping out with the kids race as they ripped around the course. There were crashes, laughter, tears, big smiles, totally chaos and a medal for everyone.
Short track: The short track course wasn’t much to write home about. Not very many features and really short so the bottlenecks at the start were pretty damaging. I got squeezed into the boards early on, and then tried to go wide but got my bar end caught in the tape. I know, I know, serves me right for running a flat bar with bar ends, geeky XC racer…..I played catch up for most of the race, picking people off but then dropped my chain on the bumpy descent and had to stop so I was pulled at 17th position. I was a bit pissed off at first because I was feeling pretty good but when I saw that Kristin was still going strong I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started cheering her on. She looked focused and strong pulling in for 11th place.
The coolest part of the short track race was that the team got to unveil the new Hincapie skinsuits! We all looked and felt fast in the super “toit” one piece (as Jen Tilley would say).
Thanks to Alex, Jed, Judy and Jessie for taking such great care of us this weekend. It was a lot of fun and the blueberry pancakes rocked! Thanks to Arleen for getting us hooked up with such a sweet condo on the hill. And thanks to our sponsors for providing us with such great rides and gear: Kona, SRAM, Easton, Schwalbe, Fox, San Marco, ZEAL, Vanderkitten, SIDI, Hincapie. Last but not least thanks to my long time sponsors Helly Hansen and Frontrunners
Whats up for the Velo Bella -Kona Road team for July?
July 11, 2006
Report from Bend Oregon.
This week starting Thursday the Bella gals will be racing the Cascade Classic stage race (the same one Lance used to springboard back after cancer!).
The weather is beautiful and the ladies are all excited about this race as this is one of the final races of the year for the team to travel to.
We will post more to the Velo Bella email aliases as the week progresses.
Right after Cascade is over we head straight to wonderful British Columbia Canada where the gals partake in the BC Superweek series. This is the first year for Velo Bella to attend so everyone is super excited as we hear that this race series is one of the best on the west coast. Be sure to check out the BC Superweek site!
First on the list is “Tour De White Rock” where the gals fresh off cascade will only be able to make the Criterium however flamingo flocker Sarah Kerlin might be sneaking up for an early bid at taking home some money on the Kona Queen Zing! Sarah might also be going to the newest edition to bcsuper week called “Giro di Burnaby“. Looks like a blast! Go Sarah!
After that we head on over for “Tour De Gastown” the gals are worried about me having too much fun at this race because the smell coming from the back seat can be terrible when on the road! Just kidding. Gas Town is another Super Classic for the Canadian road scene that the ladies are bound to have a blast at.
Then we cruise over to “Tour De Delta“.. man if you haven’t had enough in 2 weeks straight of racing this is supposed to be the epic way to wrap it all up!
The gals will also be meeting up with another local group of ladies called the Dizzy Chicks for group ride and then a local event with the Mayor oh my!
Send out those Bella Beams to the chicas of the road.
-Brent
VB-Kona Road Team Manager
Kiersten’s North Carolina Adventures
July 8, 2006
Kiersten headed out to the North Carolina NORBA National in full flair style. Photos added here
July 6-17
July 7, 2006
USA Cycling National Festival, PA
National Championships
Day 1–Time Trial
2oth, Kele Murdin, Women
Day 2–Road Race
25th, Jane Ziegler, Women
Day 7–Time Trial
2nd, Monica Neilson, Women 45-49
8th, Elizabeth Benishin, Women 45-49
6th, Barbara Grabowski, Women 50-54
Day 9–Criterium
2nd, Monica Neilson, Women 45-49
??Elizabeth Benishin, Women 45-49
9th, Barbara Grabowski, Women 50-54
Coyote Creek Criterium, CA
13th, Luciana Vecchi, Women 1/2/3
Mount Diablo Hillclimb Time Trial, CA
5th, Jen Joynt, Women 1/2/3
20th, Angela Aldrich, Women 4
International Cycling Classic, WI
Point Beer Tour of Alpine Valley Road Race
30th, Margot Herman, Women Pro 1/2/3
Proving Grounds Road Race
28th, Margot Herman, Women Pro 1/2/3
Whitnall Park Road Race
28th, Margot Herman, Women Pro 1/2/3
Brewers Hill Criterium
33rd, Margot Herman, Women Pro 1/2/3
Lafayette Criterium, CA
15th, Luciana Vecchi, Women 1/2/3
8th, Angela Aldrich, Women 4
13th, Soni Andreini Poulsen, Women 4
Dark Mountain, Wilkesboro, North Carolina
3rd, Chelley Richards, Beginner Women XC 30-39
Cascade Cycling Classic, OR (Women 1/2/3)
Stage 1–McKenzie Pass Road
12th, Jane Ziegler
17th, Hiroko Shimada
29th, Lieselot Decroix
49th, Jen Joynt
51st, Jen Chapman
52nd, Ryan Hostetter
59th, Kele Murdin
Stage 2–Cascade Lakes Road Race
14th, Lieselot Decroix
17th, Jane Ziegler
34th, Hiroko Shimada
45th, Jen Chapman
54th, Jen Joynt
56th, Kele Murdin
57th, Ryan Hostetter
Stage 3–Arnold Market Time Trial
19th, Kele Murdin
27th, Jane Ziegler
28th, Lieselot Decroix
32nd, Hiroko Shimada
40th, Jen Chapman
57th, Ryan Hostetter
59th, Jen Joynt
Stage 4–Downtown Criterium
2nd, Kele Murdin
15th, Jane Ziegler
16th, Jen Joynt
24th, Lieselot Decroix
33rd, Hiroko Shimada
39th, Jen Chapman
49th, Ryan Hostetter
Stage 5–Awbrey Butte Circuit Race
3rd, Kele Murdin
8th, Lieselot Decroix
16th, Jane Ziegler
28th, Hiroko Shimada
50th, Jen Joynt
??, Ryan Hostetter
Overall General Classification
13th, Jane Ziegler
21st, Hiroko Shimada
22nd, Lieselot Decroix
45th, Kele Murdin
48th, Jen Joynt
??, Ryan Hostetter
Team Overall General Classification
4th, Velo Bella-Kona
Cougar Mountain Classic, CA
Criterium
6th, Luciana Vecchi, Women
USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Championships
Cross Country
22nd, Shannon Holden, Pro Women
3oth, Kim Passafiume, Pro Women
2nd, Erika Krumpelman, Expert Women 35-39
10th, Julie Porter, Expert Women 35-39
9th, Yvetter Crockell, Beginner Women 40+
4th, Kiersten Inserni, Women 12 and under
Downhill
3rd, Judi Mumm, Sport Women 40+
2nd, Kiersten Inserni, Junior Women 12 and under
Short Track
16th, Kristin Danielson, Pro Women
26th, Kim Passafiume, Pro Women
27th, Shannon Holden, Pro Women
32nd, Rebecca Gross, Pro Women
33rd, Jennifer Tilley, Pro Women
23rd, Julie Porter, Open Women
Super-D
6th, Kim Passafiume, Pro/Open Women
12th, Shannon Holden, Pro/Open Women
13th, Shannon Holden, Pro/Open Women
1st, Alexandria Fabbro, Open Women 40+
Giro di Burnaby, Canada
16th, Sarah Kerlin, Women
Tour de White Rock, Canada (Women)
Road Race
15th, Sarah Kerlin
Hill Climb
23rd, Sarah Kerlin
Criterium
5th, Lieselot Decroix
13th, Kele Murdin
Omnium Overall
19th, Sarah Kerlin
NORBA Nationals #4, Deer Park
11th, Kristen Danielson, Pro Women XC
12th, Wendy Simms, Pro Women XC
39th, Noel Weddle, Pro Women XC
47th, Shannon Holden, Pro Women XC
52nd, Kim Passafiume, Pro Women XC
55th, Jennifer Tilley, Pro Women XC
11th, Kristen Danielson, Pro Women STX
17th, Wendy Simms, Pro Women STX
37th, Shannon Holden, Pro Women STX
43rd, Noel Weddle, Pro Women STX
47th, Jennifer Tilley, Pro Women STX
48th, Kim Passafiume, Pro Women STX
1st, Alex Fabbro, Expert Women 40+ XC
Breckenridge 100, CO
1st, Cat Morrison, Women 19-34 (3rd, Solo Women)
More and more race reports
July 6, 2006
Read about Tina’s revenge, Lula’s flipflops, and Angela’s salsa in our just updated race reports.
And congratulations to Tina for coming back to a race and showing it who’s boss with a win!
