Catharine Pendrel

Classically Sea Otter 26km/hr, thanks to our new sponsor Garmin I have the details to back up how hard and fast Emily Batty and I rode this weekend in the cross country portion of the 2nd Us Cup of the season. That also tells you a little something about the terrain, fast, smooth, some pavement, some smooth dirt roads and some bumpy grassy sections and unfortunately for me only 600m of climbing in 45 Km. Both the short track and the cross country were very tactical races, favoring not only fitness, but a rider with good jump. In the short track my team mate Georgia got off the front pretty much from the gun and never looked back before sailing into victory after 26 minutes of full out racing. Lea Davison was trailing her in 2nd for a couple laps, but between myself, Emily, Katerina and Katie we were able to bring her in. She went down in a corner losing critical seconds reducing the field to four chasers. Near the end, lapped traffic started to get intermingled with us while I

Racing in 2011 got off to a great start with a win at the first US xc cup.  Going into your first race you’re never sure quite what to expect.  You can feel good in training, but if you train solo most of the time it’s hard to know just what feeling good in training will me when you have a number plate on. The short track the following day wasn’t quite as great.  I felt good, had good legs, but just not the ability to change pace yet that you need for that kind of event.  Former Luna teammate Chloe Forsman took a well deserved sprint win over the group of 5 of us that got away from the bunch early into the race. At 5:45 that night we were in our sweet new sprinter van and headed for team camp in the San Francisco area.  We pulled in at 1 am, got some sleep and then were up early to head to Napa to visit Gary and Kit Erickson (ClifBar owners) at their latest inspiration Velo Vino.  Combining their passion for cycling with their developing winery the offer wine tasting and Cycling t