After weaving in and out of traffic down the coast of Italy we (being Katharine, Brooke, Allison, Katheryn, and me) are back in Lucca where Lauren, Kristin and newly arrived Mara are. So far we have just been swatting each other out on the front porch… But I have to say… Thank goodness we got paddles in Holland at the Ladies Tour because my hand is starting to get sore…
Oh yes, why are we swatting at each other… the mosquitoes have decide to come hang out. Now I like most people and things, but I can’t say I like anything that bits.

But way more exciting news is the fact that Katharine Carroll was off the front for pretty much the whole race yesterday and won!!!! It was awesome!! And our other Katheryn Curi moved into 3rd place overall…. super awesome!!!

Next up Brooke and I will begin the Grand Tour of 3 tours, which means 3 weeks of stage races here over the salty seas of the Atlantic. Also racing Toscona is Mara, Lauren, Katheryn, Amber, and Allison. We begin with a 5km or so TTT, oh yes a team time trial, which means with these girls we will be traveling at mock speeds. So today I am going to look for some rope so I can attach myself to one of these girls…

This was now two days or so ago and it is almost time to start the TTT of 5km and the sun has come out so I am super excited because I really didn’t want to at mock speeds slipping and sliding around my teammates…

I just found out we have sweet helmet numbers… I love those things because when they start flapping it sounds like I am flying… and they just look so cool.

Alright, I was going to put up pictures but my ( I mean everyones that I am using) computer wouldn’t let me load anything right now…

So hopefully I will be able to update again, but for now I have to get ready and actually the mosquitoes are eating me alive!!

:)Chrissy

Thank goodness Kat is letting me use our computer, which is really hers… I do computer jump, but find myself jumping on this one most. Not literally because she would kill me if I broke it.

Anyways, we (being the computer and I) have so much other things to talk about like the fact that Brooke won a stage here in France not yesterday, but the day before, Katharine is killing the sprint competition everyday, and Katheryn had a fantastic race yesterday and is in 4th place overall.

You may be wondering what I am doing, and even if not, well the views are awsome… no just kidding. But the most of the wheels and uniforms are sweet… And after the races we get to see the amazing views. This is mainly because Tom Tom usually leads us home the shortest way, which is usually through the winding mountains which are amazing…

And home are these campers which sound like they may in fact blow over if it were to get any windier or more windy, which ever it is. It (being here) is like we are camping, but without the smores and mosquitoes.

Next up is either home or Toscona depending on if I feel better and then off to Vegas to wine and dine in between the five cent machine winning my millions a bit by bit…

Brooke and Kat, who are my roommates, really thought I should take a picture of myself this morning… sure I would get a modeling contract. So I decided to go a head and go for it.

Alright time for me to drink my bowl of coffee. The cups are way to small for the amount of coffee one needs after spending all morning fixing my hair…

Let see if I can find a picture of Kat on her computer in her sweet jersey…

No, no, no we are bike racing… not horse back riding. Although that does sound kinda fun…

K, time to go

:)Chrissy

The frog is jumping a little extra high today… why? Well well well, because Kristin Armstrong won the Tour of Holland!! Yep, yep it was awesome. She smoked the TT yesterday after a week of weaving in and out of road funiture, squeezing onto narrow roads, getting rained on, rounding round-abouts, and pedaling faster then anyone else.

It was an exciting race that never had a dull moment… right when you think you may be able to grab your water bottle for a sip of water the race was off off and away. Now I am not talking about a true gulp, I really mean a sip… there was just no time for even a goo squeeze. In fact most days when I tried to take a goo squeeze it just ended up on my hands and then my bars.

So we (being Kristin, Katharine, Meredith, Lauren, Brooke, and myself) left the land of Holland and now are either in France for Ardeche (Brooke, Katharine, and me being joined by Katheryn and Alison) or in Italy (Lauren and Kristin) or going home (Meredith). Geeze we are just all over the map, literally.

I am happy to announce that we have left what seems to be a bit of cold weather for a bit of warmer weather. But, now I have just jinked the week, but today was nice.

I guess I better go let my roommate Kat back into the room. I had to lock her out of it so I could use her computer and she keeps banging on it. I just keep telling her I am in the bathroom and come back in a bit. No just kidding, really though lucky for me most days everyone gets a message so when we have internet I rotate from computer to computer as messages are given.

For real though, I am off to find some more sweet one piece safari outfits…

Cheers,

:)Chrissy

Geeze La-weeze…. it has been a long long time since I have written this or that… one would think I was gobbled up in Spain from the wild running bulls while I was there. BUT in fact I wasn’t… thank goodness I was on my bike most days in Spain or in fact all days, cause those guys and probably girls (being the bulls) look grumpier then grumpy and can probably trample anyone who may trip while running, in fact impossible to do on a bike and why I stayed on mine, trip that is…

I have to say I kinda understand, if I had a ring though my nose I wouldn’t be super happy either. I mean really with a runny nose (like bulls always seem to have) how are you suppose to keep it from running… Anyways, talking about Spain I should mention I was a bit bummed with the feed zone liquid… I thought being in Spain I was going to get Margaritas or something like tequilla with a lime…

So that was days and days, even weeks ago… since then I have gotten stuck on water slides, got a hole in 8 while playing miniture golf, played some tough wii tennis matches on the TV and went to a slip and slide party at crit nationals without my swimsuit on… which brings me to the point or actually thought more like it…. Why so many girls decide to slip and slide without a swim suit on??

So my next wild adventure will take me accross the salty see of the Atlantic where I will be traveling at mock speeds with my head down in the wild wind of Holland then to France to desend some of the premier desents… then to Vegas where I plan to make my millions upon millions while playing the 5 cent machines, sipping all the fine drinks they serve there…
Hopefully the frog will jump more often and I will update my site…

Right now, I am back in a hotel, my home away from one of my homes… the main one this summer being Bromont, Canada with Phil, lizard Lewis and since passed away lizzard Veno…

Which brings me to the fact… Why I was actually able to update…
well after hand cuffing Phil to the bed (no I just had to do that to get the computer, please) and having internet that doesn’t require sitting out in front of a house I was able to write about this and that…

Time to pedal around and figure out if I brought the keys to the hand cuffs…

:)Chrissy

ps… just kidding about the hand cuffs, I just used duck tape

We, being Katharine, Dotsie, Tina, Kristen, Andrea, Jim, Frank, Chris, and I, are in Spain right now where we have been racing the last couple days mostly up hills. Well not all of us just the six of us, being everyone but the boys. Yesterday was the beginning of our late racing Stage Race here in and around Bilbao, not pronounced Bill_bay_0 like I thought. We started off with an up hill team TT, which was kinda interesting because there is not much drafting involved… and the best part about a team TT is the drafting…
And then today was a road race where we were flying down auto routes along these awesome mountains at fast speeds to get to the downhills just in time for it to start raining… Now I like slip and slides but not on hard grounds so I was a bit scared to slip and slide. And I haven’t been on one this summer so I knew I hadn’t perfected the manuever…

So today, Katharine got the most aggressive rider (called something else, but close to that name) because she put in a super super super strong attack, not once but twice pretty much back to back. Since she was my buddy I moved up to the front to counter her and after Andrea countered, I jumped and found myself off the front with some buddies. We came to the bigger climb with about 20 seconds and then headed up to come down the screaming fast slip and slide downhill into town where Dotsie got second in the field sprint and 3rd for the day!!! Wahooo… she is speedy!!

So tomorrow we have another climbing day, but the good news is I think it is suppose to be nice out so I can start working on my biking tan line again.

We are on a tight schedule for internet time so I may or may not be able to update here in Spain where the bulls run wild, but for sure in Italy.

Katharine got a super cool award so pictures will be up for sure in Italy!! and maybe videos we have been working on if we can figure out how to get them up…
Have a good night,

:)Chrissy

ps… we did actually see bulls on the road the other day

Now that I have been in Montreal the last couple days riding around and racing I have finally figured out how to prepare for these races next year.

Most of the roads don’t have pot holes they have crater holes and if those are missing there are endless rumble strips, but get this, they didn’t have to put any in. Here in Montreal the roads create their own rumple strips which only means one of two things…

I either need my mountain bike next year or a water bed!!

Yep, that is right. I was thinking today after the race that you know they say (someone says) that visualization is a great thing to help improve what ever you want to do better, better. Well, I would think dreaming is part of this visualization thing so…

if I have a water bed then I will be ready for next year. This is true because as I am dreaming I will be bouncing all over the place, just like I do here in Montreal as I am racing. I should really improve my skills for next year and be ready for whatever crater hole or rumple strip there are. Heck sometimes I even dream of racing so look out or get yourself a water bed.

So in other news we had the WC here in Montreal which went around in loops for about 3 to 4 hours with a hill in it. It wasn’t just an every day hill… it was hard hard hard. I am sure you already know what happened since this was a couple days ago, but if not…. geeze you are worse then me on keeping up.  

Today was a 3 hour crit… really there were 23 corners in about oh let see between 11km and 15 km. No it didn’t take us 3 hours to do 11 to 15km, we did 8 laps of it. I am pretty sure we average 76mph, or 128kph. Yeah really, can you imagine… wawee

So now it is getting late and I have to go let some air out of my mattress to simulate a water bed so I can be ready for the next couple days!!

And here is us after the 87mph, 145kph race…

Sweet Dreams of whatever you like to dream about,

Or good morning if you are not about to go to sleep…

:)Chrissy

ps… I am next off to Philly and then Europe so hopefully I can steal (and by steal I mean use… don’t worry if you are my roommate, I won’t take your computer) someones computer over there

pss… or maybe I will update it sooner since it is one of my new years resolutions

psss…. here are some pictures

 of us eating dinner (no eating is not cheating…)

or just one more

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

Thank goodness we didn’t need in any night vision goggles… mainly because I don’t know about you, but I don’t own any. However the guys started a lot later then we did and maybe next year they should think about these items or item… just one goggle, well for both eyes… or maybe just the guy who ran into the barrier and took the field out…
Anyways in the girls race we were moving mainly by leaning to the right as fast as possible for about 40K.
The were a lot of attacks here and there and later in the race a group of five of us got off the front… out of the five of us up there, there were 3 who had raced on Ford-Basis which was cool. So the break consisted of and in this finishing order…
1 Katharine Carrol (Aaron’s Pro Cycling)
2 Iona Wynter (Colavita-Sutter Home)
3 Chrissy Ruiter (Cheerwine)
4 Ally Brandt (HealthCoach)
5 Kele Murdin (Ultralink)
I just copied and pasted that from cyclingnews because I didn’t want to spell anyones name wrong… including mine.

This was the first of 8 crits all around the southern eastern boarders of the US and the Atlantic Ocean. Today we travel upward and onward to the next one where hopefully we will have internet and I can use someones computer…

Now reporting from chrissyruiter.com since there wasn’t one up any where in my eyes was it was fast with a lot of attacks with the final one getting away with just about 15 laps give or take a few to go. We had about 28sec. gap at one time and almost got caught at the end by the closing field. I attacked with about 1/2 lap to go and even though I told my legs to go fast they just didn’t do that… Kat passed me and Iona. (now I wear contacts and without sunglasses they tend to get a little fuzzy so it might have gone a bit different, but something like that)

Congrads Kat!

Time to do a couple spinning exercises to get ready for the circular racing tonight,

:)Chrissy