Catharine Pendrel

Hey Guys, Go check out the latest Velonews. On page 128-129 (Planet Dirt) you'll find a story on me and Sydor.

September 2nd Swiss Power Cup: Zurich, Switzerland September 8th World Championships: Fort William, Scotland September 15th World Cup Finals: Maribor, Slovenia September 22nd Good luck Beijing Invitation Race: Laoshan, China As you can see I’ve got an exciting and busy fall planned. It all kicks off this Wednesday with an ungodly 4:00am wakeup to get to the airport in time to start my Around the World Adventure. I decided to kick start the next set of races with the Swiss Power cup to get my mind and body focused for Worlds the following weekend. I am psyched to get back to Switzerland and visit Sandra and her family –my favorite Swiss – Sepp and Sonya. Ricky Federau and I will be traveling together and teaming up with our Swiss counterparts. It should be awesome. I hear there is even a Minnie golf tournament in the works. The following Tuesday Ricky and I head to Scotland to meet up with the rest of team Canada to prepare for Worlds. Canada has decided not to enter a relay d

Having time at home to ride has been awesome. Keith and I have been able to get out on some good exploration rides and enjoy an atypically cooler august in Kamloops. After many a good training rides you inevitably need that recovery ride. So as I head down Columbia on my road bike having just been invited to the Good luck Beijing Invitation race I am in good spirits and ready for a mellow ride. About 5 blocks from my house however the drivers side door of a parked car swings open just as I am about to pass the car. Boom! The right side of my body collides with the door and I am sent sideways to land on the center line a couple feet away. I pick my self up and get off the road leaving my bike, but luckily no cars are dangerously close. My head is spinning, “I can’t believe that just happened”. I’m okay, but a little freaked. My bike on the other hand and the car door are in need of replacement. Keith was able to get there within 15 minutes with ice and so bruising was minim

So I am one of the lucky athletes selected to be a Tobacco Free Sport Ambassador. With the program we will travel around our region of BC sharing our sport stories and encouraging a tobacco free lifestyle. To do that we needed some public speaking training, or a tleast I do, so after a fun weekend in Squamish and Whistler Keith and I headed to Vancouver. We’re now crashing with friends Jenny and Chris as I go to my tobacco free sport ambassador training for Two days and Keith gets to do lots of visiting with our Vancouverite friends.

After an only partially successful attempt at comfortably numb in July Keith and I were determined to ride the rest of the trail. What we got to ride before was so much fun we wanted to check it all out. We headed to Pemberton Friday night and camped out at a great park called Nairn Falls. After a two year abstinence from camping, Keith and I were tenting again and cooking with a camp stove. It was great! Saturday morning we got up early and after a quick Oatmeal breakfast were driving to Squamish for TT provincials. Well I raced and Keith went for an mtb ride. The race was about 38km and a fun foray back into road racing and a good way to get in a wicked flat land power interval. The race took me just under 57minutes and then I got to kickback at a BBQ with the other racers and some friends. My but was incredibly sore…there’s something about that TT position that makes sitting down within the next hour very uncomfortable. We headed back to the campsite that night and after some

Keith and i hiking Helmcken Canyon Helmcken Falls (4th highest falls in Canada) I got back to Vancouver Monday night and Keith was at the airport to pick me up and take me home to Kamloops. After a lazy day of hanging out at home on Tuesday my Dad arrived in town. We got in some fun summery stuf like having a BBQ on the back deck and checking out some local sites. Keith, Dad and I did our first trip out to Wells Gray Park where we did a little hike around Helmcken Falls. The falls are 3x higher than Niagra. It was a beautiful park and Keith and I are thinking about going back with the road bikes for some camping and exploring. The next day we headed through Salmon Arm to Revelstoke to show Dad some of the local area and the places we love to ride and spend time . That's my Dad!

Still reeling from my first Norba podium the day before in the xc I headed out for an AM coffee spin with Mical and Joele. Legs didn’t feel soo bad, but could definitely feel them whenever the grade turned upwards. In my warm up my legs started to come around. The last week they just didn’t feel like they were clearing. Seems I just needed 90 minutes of race pace climbing to flush them out! Tired definitely, but I thought my legs might pull through for me on the day. One lap of the short track course in North Carolina took about 3 minutes of which probably close to 1min was climbing…good for me. The rest of the course was a series of tight corners with some max power bursts between. I had an okay start and was able to use the climb to gain positions. On second lap the leaders were still close, but I knew to do well I still had a lot of moving up to do. At the top of the climb there was a tight corner. I buried myself to get to the corner with the group ahead of me and the

Wednesday night Mical, myself and Kris Sneddon arrived in Charlotte North Carolina for round 5 of the NMBS series. Luckily I had already reserved a car as only 1 agency still had vehicles left. We had to try out three different SUV’s however before we found one that could fit three people with bike boxes and luggage. It was a little sketchy with one box jutting into the front seats so that when I had to brake hard catching a restaurant entrance last minute the box came forward shifting the car out of drive. It was a bit of an epic trip through the twisty, hilly roads out to Banner elk. The directions we had were limited and the signage even worse. But eventually we pulled off the foggy wet road and were given beds at the Kona team house. After a wicked 10.5 hr sleep Mical and I set out for a pre ride. Starting at the base of Sugar mountain the course headed up….way up to the top. I’m not sure how many km we climbed nor what the elevation change was, but I was the first racer to the top