Catharine Pendrel

When you are all out of Bubble gum... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp_K8prLfso Huge congrats to my housemate Catherine Vipond on her second career Canada Cup win! Watch out for this gal! Matt hadley also kicked some but finishing 5th in the men's elite race. They are both racing next weekend at the Hardwood hills Canada Cup where

Wow. Now that was a good day! (check out more Photos video interviews and coverage by Rob Jones at Canadiancyclist.com) After two weeks at home, some gardening and fun rides with Keith I felt recharged and ready to race. I felt like I could push the pedals hard and that mentally I had more desire for racing. I carried this good energy with me to Offenburg. One day out from racing the sun came out and the course went from slick to perfect by race day. Everyone was visibly and audibly cheered by the good conditions. We also lucked out with our hotel (Edy's) having an amazing restaurant and we treated ourselves to gourmet food each evening. The town and race in Offenburg is definitely one of my favourites. The countryside is beautiful and the course fun and twisty. I went into the racing hoping to grab the lead before the first single track, but a rider veering into me right off the start altered that plan. Instead it was Georgia who took the lead and quickly established

Ahh Germany, where they sell beer in vending machines for the same price as water. Unlike the previous 2 world cups that started sunny and rained race day, Offenburg is reversing the trend with slick mud leading into the race and promises of sunny skies and dry(er) race conditions. The course is the exact same as previous years, fun and deceptively physically fatiguing. My coach Dan headed out for a lap with me and we laughed our way around the slippery course. I started on a fast rolling tire, but was sliding all over. A quick switch to Ignitors though and I was grinning ear to ear as i played in the mud. Offenburg is surrounded by vineyards and I have to admit feeling rather spoiled as I stair out of my bed up at a castle. Yes I was lying in bed taking a picture of what I see from the balcony! Race in T minus 26 hrs

Ha, ha now that I have raced well it is safe to post this!!! When I'm home I feel like i'm always getting into mischief, at least from my husband's perspective. When he comes home from work I am often surrounded by the evidence of my latest whim. Sometimes it's bike components that came apart easily enough, but don't want to go back together. Other times it is intensive -house altering work like stripping the paint from our stairs or building some piece of furniture. Often I undertake projects without quite realizing how much work will be involved and am in over my head when he gets home. It's like the Marauder's map in Harry Potter, where after devising their latest scheme, which inevitably gets them in trouble, they snap their wand and say mischief managed to make the map and it's incriminating details disappear. For me it's when I look at the time and realize Keith will be home in 10 minutes from work so I should really go clean up my spra

Seeing as I race World cup 3 tomorrow, thought I should finally post on WC 2! So what do you do with yourself for 4 days of light training and heavy recovery when you're out on a farm in Belgium with no internet, phones of english tv? Rides and yoga in the am and a pot of coffee, good books and chatting in the afternoon. We were pretty stir crazy by the end of the week so went out to the "Big city" of Bastogne for some delicous thai food. I got to practice my french a bit in Belgium which is always good and some forced recovery probably wasn't bad either. After another sunny week, like Dalby it rained race morning. This time it didn't just rain though, it poured. Luckily we now had our mechanic Zak with us and he got us changed over to some gripper maxxis tires for the super slick course. Determined to not have a repeat of Dalby I had a stellar start and entered the woods in the top group. Unfortunately a couple crashes on the first descent meant that 3 w