Happy New Year everybody!! I hope everybody got what they wished for this Christmas! I had a wonderful Holiday Season this year and I'm so excited for 2008!

Gravitesse has a few surprises lined up for you and we're in the process of finalizing some details...I can't divulge any secrets right now but stay tuned for some exciting news!!!

Thought you all would like to know about the Sombrio Christmas promotion! Get your on-line shopping done by December 12th and Canada Post can most likely get it to you on time!!!

Loads of nice gift ideas... www.sombriogirl.com  &  www.sombriocartel.com

It all began by a long night flight which meant that I was up for a very long time because it's absolutely possible to sleep in a plane. But even if I was tired, I was really excited when we landed in Glasgow, Scotland! We then had another 2 hours by car  to get to where we were staying, in Glencoe, which is about a 25 minute drive from Fort William. The drive was super fun! There was magnificent scenery all the way. It was pretty funny driving on the wrong side of the road, especially in those super narrow roads.

Nothing was planned for Monday so we decide to go for a hike on a mountain and explore the forest where we found a waterfall. It was cool to see how many trails there is to hike up there. Hiking seems to be very popular in the Highlands.

Tuesday was registration day. We went to Fort William for the first time and walked the race course, looked for all our lines, took the entire course in picture and had to wait for the next day to ride it. The trail looked so fun, we couldn't wait to ride!

Wednesday, Yahoo! First day of riding!!

First run, taking it easy to learn it a bit before going into it super fast. Nothing was really hard. The top section was all open, super fast and a lot of rocks. Then there was a wood section, probably the hardest part of the course even if it wasn't that much harder in that area. There weren't really any rocks, mostly roots and dirt. It was slippery by sections and it became more and more so every day. After that area was the end section, where we had to sprint all the way down to be able to clear all the big jumps.

That night was the opening ceremony which was fun but we couldn’t stay for long because we had to get our jerseys  fixed. We went to a woman’s house to have them resized because when we received our jerseys, they were EXTRA EXTRA large! This nice lady adjusted them for us and they were ready for our seeding runs. It’s a good thing she was there or we would have raced in big parachute jerseys.

Thursday was seeding run day. My seeding run went well. I took it easy, did one or two little mistakes and didn't pedal too much to save my energy for the rest of the week. I ended up 6th just behind Miranda Miller, the other Canadian.

Friday was practices again, always as much fun as at the beginning of the week. It was hard to stop doing runs because the trail was just too fun, but I had to be careful not to burn up all my energy for the race day.

Saturday, another practice day...

SUNDAY, race day! We had to get up at 6 o'clock as the practices were starting really early. I did one run of practice, and realized that I was super tired and sore all over, no more energy from all those days of riding, or almost...Anyways, I wanted to have fun and have a nice, clean race run so I was thinking positive. Fortunately, we had a super nice masseuse who massaged my arms when I was doing my spinning warm-up just before

my race run. It gave me a bit more juice in my arms :)

10:33, racing time! I start, everything's good, I'm not stressed, everything's gonna be good, oops no I talked too fast. I hear a weird noise coming from my bike! Now I'm stressed and I can't find what it is. Sounds like my derailleur but it still works...?? A bit later, I find that it's just a spoke that snapped in my front wheel. At least it's nothing bad! But it made me lose my concentration for a part of my run. Other than that everything went well, except for the fact that I didn't have any energy left. So it made it really hard to hold my bike in all those rocky sections and also really hard to pedal at the big sprint and jumps section at the end of the trail. I ended 6th again but didn't reach my goals which were to do a top 5 and to do better than my seeding run time. Oh well, I hope that's gonna be for next year!

During the week, I think that we were pretty lucky with the weather. We had 2 or 3 sunny days where it was around 20 degrees, for the rest it was really misty all day and around 15 degrees, but with a windproof jacket it was perfect! The worst day was race day, especially by the time the Elite men raced.  Then it started to rain harder.

All in all, that experience was amazing. Scotland is a magnificent country (except maybe for the weather), lots of sheep and rolling hills. The track was one of the best I have ridden, if not the best.

Race season is now over and already I can’t wait for the next one to begin!

I would also like to thanks all the mountain biking community, Joe Mamma and all the Gravitesse girls for all the help they gave me to go to the Worlds! Thank you!!

My husband and I decided to take a short break from riding last week and headed down to the Adirondacks for a camping/hiking trip.  We stayed at the Adirondack Loj about 5 miles outside of Lake Placid on the shore of Heart Lake.  The Loj is owned and operated by the Adirondack Mountian Club and is filled with people who really love the area.  We were not staying in the lodge itself, but decided to camp on their grounds. 

As we drove in, we were stunned by the gorgeous scenary.  The highest peaks of the Adirondacks are all in this area and the range looms in front of you as drive the last few miles in.  We were really excited when we arrived.  We checked in and right away noticed the excessive amount of bear talk and warnings that surrounded us.  Hmmmm...ok...I know there are bears around.  In fact, I've seen several at our local riding hill...but this was a little crazy!  You would get kicked out of the campground for leaving food unattended and they were going as far as suggesting you remove all clothes used for cooking before entering your tent.   Ummmm....scary!

We set up camp and looked at the map, to plan our hike for the next day.  We wanted to hike on the trail up to Mount Marcy.  Mount Marcy is the highest peak in the Adirondacks and was about 10 miles away from our camp site.  We talked with a local and were told that it would take about 10 hours, round trip, to make it to summit.  A lot ambitious...but we were going to go as far as we could :)

We went to bed and tried to get some sleep.  Things were dead silent ...and I really mean dead silent...until about 2:00 in the morning.  I woke up to a dog barking madly and some people getting up to go pee.  No big deal, try to go back to sleep.  Then the weird noises started.  There was LOTS of stuff moving around our camp site.  I have no idea what it was, but after all the bear talk...I was terrified.  I felt like such a wimp...haha!

Needless to say, I was happy to see the sun come up the next morning.  We loaded up our day packs and headed out on the trail.  The trail was mostly in the woods with not too much of a view.  There was one beautiful patch of tall trees that were gorgeous.  We continued on till we came to a clearing, on a lake with a nice view.  It was drizzling that day, so we couldn't get a full view of the mountains, but it was still nice.  We didn't get that far on the hike.  My husband has just recovered from a badly sprained ankle and about 4 hours of hiking was his max.  We were still tired when we got back, especially after our awful sleep the night before.

I do enjoy camping and hiking adventures, so I hope that one bad night's sleep doesn't deter me at all.  We definately hope to go back and complete that full hike at some point. 

A beautiful place to go, in this part of the world for sure!

Now, back to riding :)

Anne has recently brought to our attention a park in Manoir des Trembles that has evolved into a trail network and dirt jump park. http://www.asilvertouch.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4509

I was contacted nearly two weeks ago by a representative of the Ottawa Mountain Bike Association (OMBA) regarding user conflict in the same neighbourhood, which is located on the Quebec side of the National Capital Region (NCR). Young cyclists in the residential area are sharing the trail network with pedestrians and other user groups, (ie roller bladers, commuters, dog walking). From what I understand the residents feel that it is dangerous to share the network and would like this type of biking to stop.

A local teacher has taken on the cause, http://manoirdestrembles-velo.blogspot.com/ and has had immediate response from the cycling community. In the relatively short time that she began organizing this campaign and set up her blog she has met with, International and local cycling associations and  representatives from the City of Gatineau and the National Capital Commission (NCC). Land suggestions have already been proposed by City Officials.

Anne has volunteered and has been a voice for the riders. Her suggestions and vision for the land is to develop it into a BMX track. I do not believe a proposal for how the park will be managed has been completed or otherwise submitted however I believe it is not too far off. 

I feel strongly about this project because I see local athletes, such as Anne, not only developing into international level competitors but also into local advocates for the sport they love. They are learning in these environments and to take that away is to remove the basics for progression. This project is also a great example of how the resources for mountain biking in the NCR have established strong communication channels with Officials in order to protect and expand our trail access. The response time for this project is very promising.

Congratulations to all those involved and I look forward to helping out in any way that I can.

Related Links:

http://www.asilvertouch.com 

http://manoirdestrembles-velo.blogspot.com/ 

http://ottawamba.org/OMBA2/index.html 

http://www.imba.com/canada/index.html 

http://www.canadascapital.gc.ca/bins/index.asp