The Tokyo Joe’s Junior Development Team is hosting a fundraiser this next Monday, July 13th to help their racers go to the World Championships in Canberra, Australia. The event is from 4:30pm until closing at the Tokyo Joe’s location in Boulder, CO. The restaurant will donate 50% of gross sales to the team. So bring your friends and eat up!

I raced for the Tokyo Joe’s Team as a junior in ‘05 and my first year racing Pro in ‘06. I received some wonderful support from the team and my teammates. Now, one of my favorite cyclists and long time mentor, Ann Trombly, is coaching and directing their Junior Program.

Here’s a picture from my first race in the pro ranks. It was the Sea Otter Classic in 2006. Do you remember the mud from that year? I think for every hour I spent racing, was another 3 hours of bike maintenance. It took me over 2 hours to finish a single lap of the course, and that was it for me that year!

If you’re in Boulder, consider a night out on Monday and support junior cycling!

In the same spirit of my last blog post, I’d like you all to check out UtilityCycling.org. My friend, Mel, is writing for the website and spreading some articulate bike propaganda. It seems the premise of the site is to function as a sounding board for utility cycling–explain it, encourage it, and talk about it.

The launch of this website, coupled by the fact that I’ve ‘discovered’ a bike-junkie’s paradise in the Black Forrest of Germany has me very optimistic about the prospects of all-things-cycling in this world. In another exciting discovery, I found out that Joey (the USA Cycling Mountain Bike Team Mechanic) runs a non-profit program called Wheels of Change based out of Colorado Springs, CO. The program fixes up used bikes and gives them to people in need of a form of transportation. The greater purpose of the organization seems to be to empower people to change the world–by taking small steps, or soft pedal strokes.

A quick Germany update: I rode 95 km on my mountain bike yesterday and found my way into France. It was supposed to be an 80 km ride but I dodged some t-storms on the return to Kirchzarten which extended my ride a bit. I don’t like lighting. I took some pictures along the way, and rode through about 15 German villages. I stopped at the German/French border and bought some water to refill the bottles. It was bubbly water, I didn’t know. So I burped the whole way home. Alison had me doing some ‘microburst’ intervals which are 10 second sprints, and for some reason I enjoy torturous workouts like these. Good thing I finished my intervals before the bubbly water.

Tschüss!

Bike beauty

Bike stairs

Bike Showers

Look out! Bikes!

Bike closets

Bike parking garage

Bikeways

Covered bike parking

Kinder bikes

Bike fashion

Bike vending machine

Bikeable buildings

Bike gridlock

In Europe the podium only includes room for 3, as it does back home but 4th and 5th are at least given ‘honorable mention’ status and are allowed to stand beside the podium. Anyway, I have yet to stand on the podium at a national-level elite mountain bike race in the U.S. (and haven’t even been close this year). But yesterday, I managed to pull off 5th place at the Racer Bikes Cup in Engelberg, Switzerland (results). No podium though.

There were only 16 starters…
It seems most of the World Cup ladies took the weekend off…
The time gaps were significant…

But I still feel I hit a milestone with 5th place. The most amazing thing is that my last lap was faster than Nathalie Schneitter’s (2004 Junior World Champ, Top-10 World Cup Racer…). Maybe she was not having the best of days but anyone who’s chasing me on the last lap of a race typically has a good chance of catching me. I’m usually slow at the end of a race because I’m good at burning my matches too soon… So I accomplished some good pacing.

Thanks again to Jimmy and the guys for taking some pictures during the race. I don’t have them yet but will post a few soon. Lydia and Jill also pulled off some good results. Lydia came in 7th and Jill finished 8th in the Junior Women’s race.

Engelberg is in the heart of the Swiss Alps. Pictures (especially mine) can’t really capture how beautiful it was but here’s a few anyway:

Thanks to Will and Jimmy for the pictures. I believe Will took the race pictures on Jimmy’s camera.

Jill Behlen racing in the Junior Women’s race. Around 20 junior women started just two minutes behind the elite women, which is almost unheard of in the U.S. In 2003, I lined up with over 20 Junior X women at the start of the Durango NORBA in my first and only junior race of that size (also my first NORBA, and first race as a Junior X, and my first experience getting my ass kicked which I didn’t like). The following year, I raced 3 NORBA’s (Schweitzer, Snowmass, and Durango) and I don’t think we had over eight junior x women start any single event that year.

Now, where’s all the U23 ladies back in the U.S.? I finished 10th of the U23 women in Winterthur, although they made up over half the elite starting field! What a relief Switzerland can only send a few women to World’s…

Here’s Lydia, one of three U23 elite women racers in the U.S:

She’s fearless on the downhills and a good wheel to follow. My plan for riding the downhills fast is to pretend Lydia’s breathing down my neck. Trying to chase a former downhill skier turned mountain bike racer is a good way to eat some some dust. Anyway, she’s been a great training partner in Kirchzarten, except when she drops me over every overpass in town…

I also had to throw in these pictures for good measure.

Jill

Lydia

Me

Apparently at the last camp, Jimmy had some video footage and pictures of almost the entire junior women’s field riding a particularly gnarly section of trail, a section which all the guys chose to run through. So don’t underestimate the junior women.