Tuesday, August 31, 2010

podium posing like the pros

two weekends ago, i got to see how the real pro men do podium poses, at the elite state track championship.

podium shots aren't just about looking good for the pictures, but they are also about making a statement.

and roman kilun had a couple of statements to make.

the last race of the day was the madison and roman had a few things he wanted to make clear.

shot #1:
the superhero stance. also known as, you might be bigger than me, but i am better than you.

sometimes roadies come to the track, and they feel a bit....uh... skinny? their upper body is puny and their quads are small. in such situations, roadies can feel a bit more beefy and secure by asserting their presence by taking up physical space. this is done best by assuming a super hero stance, with wide stance and arms on hip. roman displays this perfectly on the podium.

as you can see, everyone on steps two and three is looking off into the distance, averting eye contact, smiling awkwardly, and pretending they don't care that they got lapped.

also, by standing near the front of the podium in a wide stance, he makes it clear to the world that the only reason the lap was taken was because of him. as you can see, his partner just stands squeamishly in the background and waves his hand in the air as if saying: "hey mom, i was there too!"

shot #2:


roman also shows in this second podium shot for the madison, that he is.... well, honestly, i am not sure what to make of it. let me think...

no, i don't think that is roman's style.... really, i think it was more along the lines of this...

"It's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A. You can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal...."

seems a bit odd, but roman is getting married soon, so perhaps he was doing a little bit of practice for the reception...?

it would have been really cool if he could have snuck in a fireman's hat- but maybe he is saving that one for the national championship. he is doing the team pursuit there, so let's hope that dr. kay can get the rest of roman's teammates to show up on the podium in full-on village people garb.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

my shades are cooler than your shades: numa optics

it's true.

i pretty much purchase the cheapest sunglasses i can find: i go the $5.99 walgreens route. that is probably why i am pretty much blind as a bat without my contacts in.

a couple months ago, michael had some white shades sitting in the car that he said were too small for his big head. so i put them on. Immediately my bad-assery went up 10 points. these were cool. so i did what any wise person would do: i immediately stole them.

i wore these badass sunglasses pretty much just on special occasions on race days when i knew people would be out to take pictures. i didn't want to wear them more often, because i scratch things and stuff...

but one day, i ended up wearing them on a trip to the oaktown liquor store. now, for those of you yuppies that live in marin or the peninsula, let me tell you what a real east oakland corner store is like.
  • milk selection: whole milk only.
  • malt liquor selection: pretty much an entire refrigerator (or two) is devoted just to forties. i mean, variety is important for consumers.... you need old english, colt 45, schlitz, mickey's, country club, and let's not forget the old staple: steel reserve.
  • microbrew selection: if you are lucky, maybe 1. but i am proud to report that since we moved in a few months ago, this has slowly been increasing to now, a few different varieties! coincidence? i think not.
anyway, oaktown is a pretty solid corner store. they also stock cutie pies (the hostess fruit pie knock off), which is awesome.


anyway, one summer day a few weeks ago, michael and i walk in to stock up our fridge with a variety of malt liquors and whole milk for the week. now, i have to be honest, sometimes at the checkout of oaktown, i do feel a bit out of place. but not this day. dude in line behind us, who had a full-on grill, says to me: "sweet shades!" and my cool points went way up, almost to the point where i wanted to put my arms in the air and yell: "i got street cred, bitches!" ... but that wouldn't have been so cool. so, i played all chill and gave a chin nod, and said thanks as nonchalantly as possible.

ever since this encounter, i have been wearing these sunglasses more frequently in my neighborhood. one evening a couple of weeks ago, i decided to see who the hell made these things, as i had no clue. i saw a website on the inside of the sugnlasses: www.numaoptics.com

i went to their website thinking to see some sweet hip hop artists or something, only to be disappointed to find some lumberjack with snow on his beard on the homepage. (the dude at oak-town would not have been so impressed.)

anyway, i noticed their links to their facebook page were wrong on their homepage...so i decided to be a good citizen and fill out the "contact us" form on their website and let them know. i also thought i would tell them my story about oaktown liquor store and how much bethbikes! likes the sunglasses in general.

low-and-behold i actually got an email back! and they said they would sponsor me! boo yah! my shades came in the mail yesterday, and let me say, they are pretty sweet. i got a hot pink pair to add to my white pair. i also got some clear, and rose, & blue lenses so i can wear them on the indoor track and at night races. the optics on them are pretty damn sweet. not to mention, the badassness of them.

of note: i found out they are widely used amongst the crazy militia men, as evident here. so if anyone ever shoots a bazooka at me during a race, it is comforting to know that my sunglasses will still be in tact.

anyway, i look cool. and that is what is important. so, check out my shades at the races and check out numa optics website. i am sure lots of pictures of me in them will be showing up on my blog in the weeks and months to come (as i typically only publish pictures of myself...) but here are a few starters, so you can see the cool shades.































you know who i feel sorry for? that poor girl in the upper left side of my helmet of the above photograph.

let me zoom in.
do you see her sunglasses? ugly. straight out of 1983. get with it.


and a big thank you to pat benson for these amazing photos!

Thursday, August 12, 2010

alpenrose velodrome challenge

so i know i am very behind on my blog posting. it is a bit late to report on alpenrose, it seems. you can read my team blog post here -- where i talk a little bit about the racing.

other than that, i think i will just post some pictures and write some text in between....

this is me and m driving up. he was making try to use his telephone to look at the internet, but i find phones with internet very annoying, so thus my scowling face.

we get to the track on thursday and go for a little spin. we are so lucky to be staying with awesome folks, marcia and eric who cook us spaghetti! then we pick up brian from the airport.

friday morning i have the pursuit.

here is a picture of me all pursuit dorkage. but i am not wearing a funny hat. (but i do have one now, it just came in the mail!) i was very happy with my pursuit, except my awful start, where it pretty much looks like i did a standing start for the first time ever. 3, 2, 1. me sit back down wobble to the right, left, and then finally gain balance to stand up and move forward. it was pretty embarrassing. the video michael took of it is pretty laughable, especially his commentary: "c'mon, c'mon" willing me forward. later that night was the 500m. my start wasn't much better.

friday started the mass start events. thank god! look at all these LADIES! whoooo! this was the start of the scratch race!

here is me riding at some point during the race.



this is with 2 to go in the scratch race. someone has a good wheel! hehehe

and this is me on the podium! i guess i need to learn how to do the sexy leg shot! oops.

later that day, i had the honor of doing the team sprint with none other than mary glen carassco. ooooooo.

i made her go lap 2 because i didn't want her to drop me at the start!

my nieces came to do the kiddie kilo and rocked it!

my mom was also in town to watch! hi mom! (look i didn't even say a swear word that time!)

that was it for saturday -- short day! sunday started with some keirins.

here is me in the rep round.

this is the finish of the rep round. i won it believe it or not! it was the best keirin i had ever ridden!

then was the miss 'n out. my favorite race!

i spent a lot of time here.

and here. oh wait, that looks like the same spot, doesn't it? but that was all okay, because it landed me here for the final lap.

2nd, not so shabby!

it landed me on the podium again.

but this is a better podium shot. yeah, quads!

then i did a lot of this. it was getting hot.

but i have the best boyfriend ever who made me shade! mwah!

then i had the keirin final. this was me waiting with all the sprinter girls before they crushed me. my quads might be big, but their quads are definitely bigger.

that is okay: next up, points race. this wasn't a very good race for me. my head wasn't in it the first couple of sprints. i got in a few breaks that didn't go anywhere. then i got in the winning break, but we didn't lap quick enough for it to matter for me, as i needed more points from sprint laps, in addition to lapping point. oh well. still go 5th.

here is me off the front with kira for awhile

and this is the final breakaway of 5 in the race.

whew. then i was done. i ended up 4th in the overall omnium for the weekend! that got me some extra cash! and i got the "top hellyer" award, which got me more cash! who knew! it was an awesome race. oh wait, not done yet!

still had to watch the flying lap with my nieces and yell at all my friends!

and take a cute picture with them before i left.


and to the real MVP of the weekend: BRIAN PETERSON! for being the best teammate, mechanic, coach, friend, cheerer ever. we love you brian!

Monday, August 09, 2010

someone tell me this is a typo!

in my spare time of perusing cycling news, i thought i would check out the NRC calendar. i saw that this race-- US10k-- is listed as the last women's NRC race.

someone please tell me-- is this US10k really a women's NRC race?! because i am hoping it is a typo and actually a men's NRC race.

why?

i looked at the race flyer...

and it says the women's NRC race is:
-category 1/2/3/4
-10km long...
-$2000 payout.

while the men's non-NRC race is:
-category p/1/2
-100km
-$10,000 payout

that's gotta be a typo, right?

they wouldn't make a women's NRC race 6 miles long with category 4 riders.... i mean, the discrepency between the men and women's race is glaring enough, but considering it is a women's NRC race (and not a men's NRC race...)-- that is just insulting and outrageous.

i am hoping it is a typo. if anyone knows more, please comment! that is ridiculous!

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

far west championship

so i heard a rumor from alfred nash that the current world champion of the international omnium and points race, tara whitten, was going to be coming to the far west championship.

i was a bit skeptical.

...errr, intimidated.

i guess she was really jealous that I was the reigning 'far west champion,' and she wanted to add that title her laurels. i mean, who wouldn't? it was definitely the highlight of my 2009!

when michael and i show up, we see peter bohl get out of his van. man, we can't get rid of that guy! him and lala had apparently gotten up at 3am to drive down, and were driving back that night. crazy guy! it was a big hellyer contingent, which was awesome. nash loves us and gave us lots of nice shoutouts on the microphone. thanks nash!

nash was running one helluva race: full national qualifier plus new olympic style omnium. i think this was the first-ever olympic style omnium to be held... apparently the old-olympic omnium wasn't hard enough for the UCI, so they decided to add a 6th event and make all the distances longer. except they split the program into 2 days... but not al nash. we did the whole shabang in one day. it went like this...
  • flying250- i got a personal best..... [cause it was the first time i've ever done one of these!] it got me 2nd place.
  • 80 lap-points race- i was doing really well...well, until i wasn't doing well any longer. i was a dip shit and missed the break that lapped the field, then pretty much did a 3k pursuit in no man's land. i got 4th here... baller.
  • elimination- i did another 3k pursuit here, setting pace at the front for about that long. on the 4th place elimination the person questioned if her or i was out (it was her), so i got distracted and then the pace picked up and i didn't have enough muster to come over, so i got 3rd....baller.
  • pursuit- i guess this was my third pursuit of the day, but this time i got to use aero bars and borrowed a funny hat. my splits were super even, so that was good, but i got 3rd by a half second or so...baller again.
  • scratch race- my ability to accelerate was waning fast and it would take me 2 laps to catch onto any attack. missed tara whitten lapping, and ended 3rd place again... i won't say it again (but, yeah, baller).
  • 500m- i pulled off a good 500m for me, so that made me glad, but still got me 3rd.
.....bummed i was riding kinda poopy, but so it goes. but on the good news, all these 3rd places landed me 2nd place overall! so that was pretty rad~ it is kinda fun saying you got 2nd to the world champion, but, in reality, we know it was something like this:
the real problem of my racing was that i did not follow my teammate ted burns' advice regarding racing canadians...
1. Throw some donuts down at the start of the race, Canadians can't help themselves.
2. If that doesn't work just grab some beer an do the same thing.
3. They aren't too bright...tell her it's an extra long track, and tell her every thing in Feet or miles...they only know metric.
4. Tell her that the queen just died. That will make her cry
5. Tell her that Neil Young renounced his canadian citizenship years ago.
i knew i sucked. how could i forget such valuable race material on race day?!

anyway, here are some super sweet pictures of me thanks to pat benson. there are even some cool ones of me by the world champion. xmas card material for sure.

me checking out tara whitten's awesome quads

bethbikes! attempting to pursuit

miss 'n out

so that whole extravaganza resulted in approximately a 13 hour day in the chamois! i had found a sweet all-you-can-eat buffet for us to eat at, called hokkaido seafood buffet. yeah, check out that floor plan-- there are sweet pictures and even a you-tube video if you click on the individual parts of the floor plan. dinner was $16.99 and we definitely ate our monies worth. it was awesome. in addition to all-you-can-eat sushi, they also had a chocolate fountain.

apparently gio took a picture of us. i was too busy stuffing my face to notice.

so that was the far west championship. we drove back that night and got into oaktown around 4am. my boyfriend was crazy enough to want to do a criterium the next day. i went to cheer, but instead of cheer, i got distracted and talked to tim montagne. i did see him chit-chatting at the back a few times. when we were leaving we saw the women's race going on, and we heard some chick in the peleton say "is that beth?" as michael was attempting to ride me back to the car on his bicycle. let me say: it is much cooler riding on the back of your boyfriend's bike than doing a race yourself.

well, that is about it for the far west championship. no wait, oh yeah, la la beat the reigning national champion in a match sprint! that was cool to watch. okay, i'm done for real this time-- thanks alfred nash for another fun socal racing experience!

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

michael ball - he's back baby.

so i was pretty excited when i saw michael ball's name back on cycling news:
"ball could hold link to armstrong probe"
how cool is that?

the drama around michael ball continues. this time it is linked to his recruitment of tyler hamilton, tyler getting busted again for doping, and tyler's previous affiliation with lance armstrong.

where's my popcorn when i need it?

it is times like these that i really shake my head disparagingly at michael ball.

not only has the guy's team folded...
and his company struggling in the designer jean market...
but now he is also wrapped up in some fraud investigation...

all of these things could have been avoided if he had just followed my advice and made the keirin cut jeans!

if he shifted directions for R&R and started production on keirin cut jeans, all of the above would have been avoided:

...he would have avoided the market fallout for skinny jeans from all these people whose quads grew because their cocaine habits to keep their quads small got too costly in this economy. profits and continued cycling team.

and,

...as a marketer of keirin cut, he never in a million years would have recruited 38cm quads tyler hamilton to his team, thus avoiding this federal investigation all together!

but stupid michael ball.

why was i never taken seriously?

Monday, August 02, 2010

sleep 1 & lean 1-- nutrtion53

so i know i have a lot to update on this blog.... highlights include:
  1. far west championship: beth bikes! races the world champion...and loses. but i definitely win at the hokkaido all-you-can-eat seafood buffet.
  2. FSA grand prix: jennie reed knows beth bikes! by name, evident by her saying: "good job, beth". also, some pretty awesome quad measuring occurs...
  3. alpenrose velodrome challenge: beth bikes! nieces take to the kiddie kilo and i demonstrate how *not* to do a standing start.
  4. testarosa veldrome challenge: really, am i that far behind???? shit.....
anyway, that is a lot of races to catch up and it all kind of overwhelms me at the moment. good thing i have a rest week, so i should have lots of time and energy to blog.

but, before all that, i want to write a small shout out and thank you to my sponsor nutrition53 for the products that helped me through this three crazy weekends of racing up and down the west coast. (portland to seattle to LA... oy vay!)

nutrition53 has a few products and if you have heard me talk about it, it has probably been about the really awesome recovery drink, lean1. (if you have seen me at some track races, i may have given you a sample packet to try....if i haven't, ask me and i might have one on me.)

i really like this recovery drink, primarily for two reasons: 1) it tastes good, 2) it mixes well. of course, a logical third reason would be: it works, as in it has 20 grams of protein and all that other recovery mumbo jumbo stuff... but really, those two things above are the reason i use it. lots of recovery drinks work... but most of them taste like crap so it is impossible to drink them. this one actually takes super super yummy! and it is really easily mixable, so it is great to transport.

just so you know this isn't a shameless plug....

yummy recovery drink

i started using the lean1 before i got sponsored by them. it was actually a cool coincidence i got sponsored. i was chatting on a ride to my friend about how i really like this recovery drink lean1 and she says: "i work there!" and low-and-behold she got me the hook-up. anyway, if you are looking for a recovery drink, i suggest you try it because, like i said, it tastes really yummy and it mixes well. you can just shake it in a normal water bottle and it all dissolves -- no chunks left at the top and no chunks at the bottom. it tastes super good, and i am not just saying that. if you got a sample from you, you can attest. my favorite flavor is cookies and cream, cause i like chocolate. second favorite is chocolate. and third favorite is the strawberry. the strawberry is really good and mild tasting if chocolate is too much for you. (they also have vanilla raspberry which is nice and mild and vanilla. vanilla is the only flavor i haven't tried, so i can't comment on it, but given the other flavors, i'm guessing it is good if you are a plain jane type of person and like vanilla ice cream best...). anyway if you want to try it-- you can get 40% off my using my code... that comes to $35.00 for a tub that is pretty big and lasts a long time. Here is the coupon-- the discount is taken after you go to the checkout...be sure bethbikes is in the coupon code. if you use that link, it should be there automatically....

sleep sleep sleep!

anyway, enough about lean1. the real reason i wanted to write this post was because of the other product they make called sleep1. like its name, it is a sleeping pill, duh! i have a pretty hard time falling asleep after night time bicycle races.... track racing at night is so much fun, and i get so excited... (...and i take too many caffeinated GUs....), that i have hard time falling asleep. or, when i do fall asleep, i wake up a few hours later and can't fall back asleep.

i tried sleep1 a few times after hellyer races, and found it put me to sleep pretty good. but the past few weekends, it was pretty invaluable... especially when we were racing late and then getting up very early for more racing... sometimes i fall asleep easily, then wake up and can't fall asleep for a few hours, and then feel like crap in the morning. but this sleeping pill helps me stay asleep-- but mostly, it doesn't make me feel groggy in the morning. i had tried using Tylenol PM once, and felt like crap the next morning... so definitely not ideal when you have to race in the morning! sleep1 is good because it doesn't have that morning-after affect on me. Anyway, i am not a dietician, so not really sure what the active ingredients are in there, except a small amount of melatonin-- but i put the backside label on the right so you can see, if you are more scientifically inclined than me. all i know, is it works.

anyway, if you are interested in trying it, again the 40% discount applies again, so that comes to $24, for 60 capsules. (discount comes after you go through the checkout). they say 2 capsules is recommended...but i usually just use 1 unless i am super hyper.

alright, that is all for now. but i just wanted to thank nutrition53 for the products this year! they have really helped me this season and i greatly appreciate the kind support they have extended to me. having the lean1 has definitely helped in my training and my recovery after races. i never used to take a regular recovery drink, but now i am, and think it is helping. well, i am faster and leaner, so maybe some of that is because of that. and sleep1 has helped me get some rest-- especially the past few weekends, when that was really important in multi-day races. thanks so much again for the kind support. please thank them for me by trying out their product!

thanks again nutrition53!