Catharine Pendrel

My greeting party Now that's a Garden! All I have wanted to do this past week is dive into home life. With new windows being installed, crazy cats demanding my attention, a garden bursting with veggies and Keith always ready to share a cup of coffee this wasn’t too hard. As great as it was to be home (and thanks to Tanya our house sitter who has been fantastic!) it was hot, really hot. My “recovery ride” on Thursday was done in 39 degrees. Keith and I cut it short questioning the ability to recover while riding in an oven. I like temperatures below my core temp thanks. So after some good play time with the cats we headed off to visit Keith’s parents in the mountains. I haven’t seen Keith’s parents in forever and haven’t been to Revelstoke to ride yet this year. Riding in Revelstoke always helps me feel good on my bike. After feeling completely off in Kamloops dry and loose trail conditions the loamy & rooty forest trails of Revelstoke were a welcome relief. Riding in Revel

Domestic racing has drawn to a close with the US cup finals this weekend in Windham, NY. I have to admit I am more than a little excited to be getting home after being away since June 26th! Yes, I had Keith with me for most of the time, but there is nothing quite like being home. Chloe, Zeph and I passed a pretty quiet week in West Dover Vermont, getting together with the Fisher team a couple times to keep life interesting. The road riding in Vermont and upstate New York is beautiful and I fully enjoyed getting to do a few long rides. Bringing road bikes this trip was great. As much as I love Mtn. biking, it’s nice to get away from the mud and really feel like you’re covering some distance. Racing went fairly well. I felt pretty good on Saturday for the xc, Willow was just climbing really strongly and descending equally well. Georgia too was never more than a few seconds back and got ahead of me in the final 200 meters as we chicaned through a paved loop to the finish. The Wi

Photos courtesy of Dave Kraus dbkraus at earthlink.net Looks like Chloe and I could be doing a lot of this next week! The week leading into this race was mellow. We went to see Harry Potter at the small local theatre, hit up the local dinners and Keith and I got out for some superb road rides. Oh yeah and we went to Kingdom trails on our way down from Bromont. The trails were amazing and are the hub of the little town of East Burke. It’s been 3 years since I’ve been able to race in Mt. Snow. The last two years it has held US Nationals. It was here in 2005 that I kinda had my break through ride. I raced up to 2nd position behind Shinny Vanlandingham with about 20 minutes of racing to go when I blew spectacularly and finished 9th. This year went much better for me… well at least the xc. I decided to race my Orbea Oiz, our carbon full suspension bike, to give me a bit of a mental break from the intense racing I had done over the last month. It did the trick as I had a l

I’ve come off a couple of fantastic weekends of racing. Races where i just seem to be able to get to the front when I need to and stay there. Yesterday’s World cup in Bromont Canada was a little different. I got off to a good start and was at the front of the race by the top of the climb. I knew I wanted to be ahead of fullana into the woods but didn’t pull it off and was stuck behind her hearing all the girls we had just climbed away from riding back onto our wheels. The day started off dry, but the woods were still slick. It seemed that every time I earned myself a little advantage I would loose it by slipping off a slick root, rock or climb. It went like this for 2 laps and seemed to be a battle for the lead between Irina and myself until on the climb 3rd lap Lene Byberg of Norway bridged up and moved to the front. Having made my moves to gain the lead in the first 2 laps I was having trouble staying with the girls in the 3rd lap. I lost my head a bit and started riding i