Ellie had four races this weekend so that is how we spent most of our time. Friday's race was a time trial (her favorite kind of racing) at Bear Creek Lake Park. She was simply not in the groove that day. She was doing okay until three giant diesel truck pulled onto the road. I think they did not have much experience with driving new cyclists and so they slowed way down, stopping often. Racers piled up behind them, changing how they finished. Many were mad. It was a bummer, but that is life. If you tango with a truck, the truck will win. Saturday morning we roused ourselves early and were at Look Out Mountain for a hill climb only to find it had been canceled. I was a little bummed, but Ellie was fine with it. I wished that we could have gotten to sleep in instead of getting up so early. That afternoon we had a crit. at the same place we practice. Ellie was hot off the line for three laps but suffered a chain and derailer problem which eventually caused her to drop out of the race. Brett from Sports Optical tried to help and Corky, the owner of Green Mountain Sports, fixed it a bit more. We will need to replace the chain soon, but it had to be good enough for the weekend. Sunday we were up bright and early again. This time we were off to the frost Koppenberg race in Louiseville. It is a very short but technical race with lots of dirt roads and a steep dirt, sometimes rutty, hill. That race was exciting. She was off in a flash, doing well and staying with the front peloton until a boy crashed in front of her. By the time she got around him she had to scramble to catch up. She got them on the next hill. Ellie was neck to neck with Kate, picked up some speed on a down hill and then she dropped her chain. It took what must have felt like forever to get it back on. She was pedaling like a madwoman until she realized it was doing no good. She fixed the problem, clipped back in and looked back. That is when she saw that Kate was fast on her heels. This caused her to sprint hard, winning the race by a big gap. We celebrated by having a casual lunch with team mates at Pannera Bread.
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