The day after racing here in Arkansas we, (being Brooke, Leigh, Beth and I), headed out to explore the wild world of Springdale were we are staying with Darby until tomorrow… We headed out yesterday at a screaming 3-8 k/hr pace into the wild where our bikes went bush diving in some poison ivy  so we, being Brooke and I (only because our bikes were the two bush diving) had to take our bikes for a swim over

 this bridge where my bike, big red and black, jumped in first…

 (the initial plung… it was his first swim so wheels in first)

(me trying not to loose it)

and then Brooke’s bike (not sure its name) jumped right in too…

Then there was the frog hiding…

  and

 a turtle who has the right idea… sun tanning in the lake with his legs in the water. And you know if he gets to hot he can just hide in his shell for some shade. What a deal…

AND this was all after…  The Joe Martin Stage Race where Brooke was 4th overall and Leigh was 5th!! And Laura won stage 2 and Kelly was second there too. Also, Congradulations to everyone who had great races and even if you didn’t!!

Our next adventure is Tri-Peaks where there are a lot of peaks involved and early mornings. I think before the birds even get up…

So until then or later…

I hope you have fun swimming, sleeping, singing, humming, skipping, sitting, or jumping

:)Chrissy

ps… bikes do float

psss…. the pictures and phrase should be matched, they may or may not match up. Only because my blog has a mind of its own

Wawee Zawiee, did I do some amazing off roading today, on my road bike. Now I can’t say I wanted to go down some gravel road into a field at mock speeds all while yelling at these charging barking dogs who looked like they were going to tackle me and then crew on me. I, along with my fellow teammates Catherine, Sarah, and Laura, were just minding our own business when all of a sudden we came upon a dog sitting in the road. One bark later and his buddies were out with him in the street waiting to scare the sheeze out of me…

I seemed to be the only one who didn’t make it through the gang of charging barking dogs and didn’t really see the road as an opition so headed for someones gravel driveway (I only mention the gravel because it was pretty slippery stuff) and then when that ended bounced down a grass field (which had grass up to my shins for sure) until I hit a ditch…

Thank goodness by the time I hit the grass I quite yelling “bad dog, no, no… aahhhh, aahhh, Guys help me”, because this meant the dogs lost interest in me and went back to their house… Now the only reason I stopped yelling was because I was concentrating on not bouncing off or over my bike crashing to the ground and being gobbled up, but I am lucky I stopped…

Now up the road watching me hike through the ditch, (there was no way I was going back up the way I came, thats for sure… ) to the gravel road, to the main road where my teammates… who got a good laugh at the whole thing.

Wawiee… we were back on our way.

Then… well after my extreme off roading my rear wheel went flat… So the first tube change was almost complete when all of sudden the valve broke. No problem we have three more tubes… oh yes the next two had flats and the last and final tube didn’t have a long enough stem So we called Thad…

While I stayed the girls road home… so sun tanning in my bike uniform I waited and waited.

Thad brought me a new wheel, then handed me a tube and on my way home I went… a few U-turns later I got a front flat… Only problem… I didn’t have levers, pump, or a cell phone which meant I was sure I was in for a long walk home…

Lucky for me a couple was leaving there gigantic house in a truck and I thought “hum, maybe they can give me a ride into town since I don’t know anyones number or have anything else I may actually need in case I get a flat except the tube”…

Lucky for me not only were they super super nice they let me come back to their house to use their pump. Now as I was riding to their house (it was a long driveway) I was a bit worried because I didn’t have levers to take the tire off, but lucky for me they were bikers so they had tire levers. Few… about 20 minutes later I left with an extra tube, CO2, and levers… I have to say that made my day… so nice!!! And I didn’t have to walk home!!!

So four hours after I started my ride I rolled into the house a little muddy and glad to have all my body parts without any dog bights…
Now I really like dogs, I just don’t like it when they look hungry while chasing me…

So that was the adventure of today, what tomorrow will bring I am not sure…

You should look at Catherine’s blog (http://www.cathanddayle.blogspot.com) for cool pictures of our adventure the last week while rounding corners…

I am off to practice squirting my water bottle so I can scare the dogs off next time so I won’t have to off road ride…

:)Chrissy

 Yep, that is right we, being Kelly, Sarah U, Laura Van Gilder, Catherine, and myself plus a lot of other girls, are still making the rounds rounding corners in a variety of downtowns, sometimes in the light and mostly in the dusk to dark. And while all this is going on the Gila Monster race is occuring in New Mexico where a bunch of our teammates, Sarah B, Brooke, Leigh, Rachel, and Beth are tearing it up along with others too.

Just in case you don’t get cyclingnews, or velonews or pezcycling on your computer the racing has been going great. Kelly won the other day, and yesterday it was Tina, Kelly, Laura on the podium (yeah)… It has also been some hot hot days of racing, but actually today it seems to be getting colder by the minute..

Time to go eat… just kidding eating is cheating

I am pretty sure I didn’t write about much of anything… but as soon as I get a computer I will put cool pictures up of stuff… That is way more fun then writing stuff…

so until then

I was just kidding about the cheating thing

:)Chrissy