Hi all - I got incredibly busy with work, so had my last oval race on July 17, did my last road race around then, went to the Society for Mathematical Biology annual meeting, came back, and have been super busy with this math research stuff ever since. However, I have not been off the bike all this time! I still ride almost every day! Just not every weekend for fun.
Here is a few photo highlights of the past few months:
When I returned from the SIAM Life Sciences meeting in San Diego, I had missed most of
Bike Fest.
However, I caught the very last weekend and on Saturday I went on the "City Pool Ride", which was a ride to as many city pools or swimming areas as we could make in a day. I rode the San Mateo because I had just did her up and then hadn't been riding:
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| Bikes by this little pool fountain thing |
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| There she is. Check out the Ducky tours. |
I would like to remark that a guy on this ride took his pet snake along, which he took out at this fountain. Someone called the police!
Then, on Sunday, the final day of Bike Fest, I "competed" in a Golden Girls Alley Cat. My teammate was the fantastic Sarah R., and we spent about half the time sitting at the casino bar drinking chocolate martinis. It was fabulous. Here was a picture that we needed of a library:
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| Bike in front of the library. 3 points! |
Yeah. Awesome. Then, in September I went to the ICCAI in Ottawa, the capital of Canadia. This conference was exciting because I had done a little research before about what hotel to stay at. I found this hotel,
the Minto Suites, which boasted on their website that they had complimentary bike rental. (WHAT?!) I called, and they verified that this was true. Read their website!!
So I booked a room, and at 1 o'clock in the morning when I rolled up in a taxi cab, this sight greeted me:
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| I took a picture before I hit the bar! |
Just so you can see this hotel by daylight, here it is again:
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| Plus, you can tell this is in Canada here. |
So, the last day of the conference, Andre and I took a lovely bike ride along a trail between Ontario and Quebec:
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| That's where the Elsinore beer is brewed. |
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| Andre doesn't know I put a picture of him on my blog. |
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| In Quebec, they speak French. |
Then, in October, these Christopher Columbus replica ships came to town, and Carly and I took a bike ride out to check those out. I took the cyclocross bike, because the season was looming:
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| The Nina, the Pinta, our bikes, and Pittsburgh |
In fact, I went on one pseudo-cross training ride with Velo Femme teammate Mary, where we just went on a trail ride (I think I got in 40 miles), but at some point along the GAP trail we practiced mounting and dismounting our bikes. But, when I rolled up to the parking lot at 8:45 on a Sunday morning, what did I see but soon to be Ironman-Tony's truck parked out there:
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| Someone was out riding much earlier than me. |
Also, I got these really cool lights that makes laser bike lanes:
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| Flash |
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| No flash |
Except when I went to actually use them 3 days later I believe the batteries died and I've been too lazy to replace that, so this is a toy to play with in the future.
And that was my fall. By mid-October I took the fenders and stuff off the cross bike to get it ready for cyclocross racing!!!
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| Ready for cyclocross!!! |
Which has started. I feel my experiences in cyclocross racing merits another blog post (or two or three...), but here is a teaser:
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| Cyclocross!! |
And my teammate Mary raced hard and hit the podium in a field of 13 women this past week, which WAS SO AWESOME. I will repeat myself about that in my future cyclocross post.
