A little trick I stole from Tom, diaper rash ointment to sooth and heal road rash. I took it one step further and started using it in place of chamois cream in a pinch. Seems to work pretty well!

And there you have it.

Bikes Merckx and Museeuw.

Clothing by Hincapie.

Hair by Pozzato???

All zipped up.

VeloNews Manhattan Beach

Just thought I’d point that out. And you can hardly see my face so the guy who calls me “butterface” has nothing to fear.

Manhattan Beach was fun, we worked really well together as a team and Mel ended up 4th. Family reunions are fun too because you can drink beer while doing nothing important other than some good old fashioned family bonding. I’m pretty burnt on the bike right now so I’ll take the next week to relax, get a bit lazy in Sanibel, Fl and catch up with the people that love me for all my faults. My poor family! After that I’m off to Belgium for a bit to get in some good miles with my Bunny and race a bit. And maybe a little more beer…

Leilei and Jen- Kick ass in PA, I’ll be thinking about ya’ll. And don’t get lost again, you know what I mean. Ey ey ey!

Lizzer

Of all the races on our schedule this year I’ve been most looking forward to the AT&T crit in my hometown of Austin, Tx, probably even more so than Philly, for sentimental reasons. I grew up in the small Austin area town of Leander and even though I have not resided in Texas since I was 20 I still have a deep seated love for the Lone Star state. Don’t get me wrong, Philly was overwhelmingly cool and really drove home in my mind how much I’ve grown (with still a loooong way to go), in the two years I’ve been doing this. If I turn my mind’s eye to analyze the landscape behind me it’s still a vision that leaves me excited and amazed. In the two years prior to this one I think I raced a total of 4 or 5 NRC races and the grand total of races in those years probably barely surpasses the total amount of races I’ve lined up in this year. Plus I’ve got teammates for the first time ever!

OK, back on track- Austin. This was the 4th stop in the USA Crit series in which Vanderkitten after the first 3 stops was in 1st place team standing and my crazy tough teammate, Jen “Wheels” Wilson was in second place overall behind Kelly Benjamin. There would only be 3 of us participating, myself, Leigh Hopkins (used to be Valletti) and Jen, as injuries and other circumstances have depleted our roster somewhat. My confidant/mental therapist, Mark Zefeldt who also happens to be our team owner/manager/Mr. Do It All was also in attendance and along with my parents who flew in from FL. Mark and I arrived Friday around noon and hightailed it straight to Chuy’s for some proper Tex-Mex and margarita(s). OK, trip is starting off on the good foot!

The ceiling of Chuy’s is covered in hubcaps!

After lunch we headed to the hotel and I went for a quick spin followed by dinner with 2 of my best friends from childhood, Angie & Brett and his pack of pretty boys, Witlo and Patrick. Hilarity ensued, time went way too fast, but we had to leave around 9 to pick up Wheels from the airport. See you tomorrow night boys!

The next morning we got up around 9 and got ready to ride. We had to pick our race reg up at the Mellow Johnny bike shop where we met up with Brad Huff and a few of his mates for a quick spin in which we got lost, had fun, talked a bit (a lot) of shit, got lost again, almost boiled to death in the heat and then finally made it home 2 hrs later… Ok, a little longer than we would have liked but fun all the same.

Lunch time. Three words. The Salt Lick. Look it up if you are in town, best BBQ EVER! Just for the record, none of this trip is typical race behavior for the team but in Austin you make exceptions. There are just too many wonderful things to ingest and imbibe to stay on the “straight and narrow.”

Meat!

Race time. 4 corner crit which on paper seems pretty straightforward but as my dad pointed out, these roads have probably not been repaved in over 20 years. There were GIANT holes and deep grooves which can really only be described as asphalt waves. I wish I had a surf board rather than a bike! EY EY EY!

I’m not really one to complain about the course, in my opinion bike racing is hard, it is dangerous and it should remain so. But there is a line that needs to be drawn and I feel like this course possibly crossed it in some areas… I don’t want to discourage the promoters to hold the race again as there were TONS of spectators and everyone was having a great time but perhaps a little TLC can be shown to the the course prior to next year?

The week and half since Philly had been a little bit of a holiday for the most part so I was curious to see how the legs would be. Happily they were fresh and ready to go after the first lap, we all looked pretty good in fact. Nice! About 30 min in there was a crash coming into the last turn that took around 8 girls out. Jen had been 2 people ahead of me and ended up on the ground along with myself on top of eventual winner Kelly Benjamin. My shoe was totally ripped off, had some good road rash on the thighs and other areas but managed to get back up and into the race. Sadly one of the Metro girls was not so lucky and was out with the collarbone done in.

I ended up running on adrenaline for most of the rest of the race but 4 laps to go the thigh started to cramp pretty nicely so all I ended up managing was 15th. Not what I was hoping for. Wheels was in about the same position and ran 13th and Leigh by a crappy ruling was placed in last even though she finished 17th. She had a great race and worked hard for us but the officials, in all our opinions, made a bad call when she had to come into the pit for a mechanical issue that they deemed not worthy of a freelap… What can you do?

All in all I had a wonderful time being back home and can’t wait for next year, new course or not!

Lizzer!

Is this thing on???

Uhhh, I’m Liz Hatch, otherwise known as “Lizzer”, “Slizzard”, “Lizzie”, or as one guy calls me, “Fat Camp” (LOVE that one!) (seriously, it makes me laugh.)

I ride for Vanderkitten Racing out of NorCal…

Some of you know me, some of you don’t… Visa Versa.

Hmmm, what else…

I love beer (see previous post in my archives), pugs, Steve Earle, paintball guns, and not taking long walks on the beach. I hate the beach.

Other things I hate- earwax. Dirty ears make me really angry. That’s about it I guess…

I’ve never seen any of the following movies- E.T., Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, anything to do with Harry Potter… oh and Rocky, Rambo or any of those other Sly Stallone movies.

I have however seen Layer Cake 15 to 20 times… also Life of Brian. And Casino. I’ll stop there.

Guess that’s it for now.

See ya!

Try this!

It was 1000 effing degrees today and my coach was wearing arm warmers (coolers he says). Then again this is a guy that wore full zip thermal leg warmers better suited for a nuclear winter than a sunny 65 degree northern California “winter” day. Ok maybe it was 60.

Anyway, he banned me from taking his picture for the blog but he’s getting a mention on here anyway because I appreciate all the hours he’s spent with me nursing my brain and morale back to healthy levels since my accident. It’s an odd thing how the body will do what it’s going to do; you can’t force it to heal any quicker than it chooses to but the mind… that’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax. Your mind will hold on to things like self-doubt and fear for a lifetime if you let it.

So, RZ, you rock man. In the immortal words of Steven Tyler- “I’m back in the saddle again!”

Oh, and by the way, about those “arm coolers”… I Googled them and this is the first link that came up- Arm Coolers by DeSoto Sport at Team Estrogen.com.

I’m jus’ sayin’.

So goes the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, Champion by Kanye West.

I got this anon comment from someone -“My girlfriend was/still is ultra hot looking, but it took her winning national championships before she was on the cover of magazines. How times have changed…all you gotta do is be a hottie and win a few local crits.” – in response to my Bicycling Magazine post. Did it get under my skin initially? Abso-fucking-lutely! Did it make me feel small and unaccomplished? Maybe a little… I can be a thin skinned titty baby sometimes. I’m working on it, what can I say? But then I got to thinking…

When I first started riding, what was the one final thing that pushed me “over the edge” and onto a bike? What was my tipping point? And then it hit me how my life has come full circle, in a way, considering the Bicycling Magazine article.

Dotsie Bausch. She was my tipping point. And who was responsible for making me aware of her? Bicycling Magazine. I read a short article on her in which she talked about her struggles in life with drugs and eating disorders. Her candid admissions allowed me to see through the hot mess that was my life; it gave me some small seedling of hope that I could have a different and better existence, like she seemed to have. I reached out to her and I was hugely surprised when she responded to my emails with a phone call and spent a bit of time talking to me. Here was this beautiful, accomplished, bad ass woman taking some time out of her busy life to chat to a total stranger. She ended up coaching me online for a few months, we lost touch after a while, as I was still sorting out my life but I never forgot her kindness.

When I finally left the mentally and physically abusive relationship I had been in since the age of 20, the first thing I did was throw myself at the bike. It was and still is my deliverance from a life empty of love, happiness, and real meaning. The joy I feel just hearing my cleats clip into the pedals everyday is immeasurable. The fact that even though I am not a thoroughbred race machine, in the sense that I didn’t grow up racing or really do anything all that athletic in my younger years, yet am still progressing and finding my way in this sport is all the more cause for celebration in my eyes. Cycling is an interesting sport; it is not for the weak willed or weak minded, having some exceptional physical capabilities of course helps, but is not the final determining factor in how well you will do. It’s not always the strongest who wins; sometimes it’s the most crafty, the most patient, the most bloody stubborn one who gets the top spot. Cycling, when you break it down, is a game of probability and it always keeps you hoping through the worst odds that you will prevail. Everyone’s victories are different but taste just as sweet.

So to you Mr. Anon, thank you. Thank you for pointing out how times have changed. That can only be a good thing concerning this sport. Like I was inspired by Dotsie, maybe some girl out there will look at me and say “I can do that!” Everyone has to start somewhere, ya know? And huge respect to your girlfriend, Mr. Anon, for blazing the trail for the rest of us.

Singing my song,
Lizzer

p.s. To Dotsie, if she happens to see this- Thank you. I’ve never had the nerve to introduce myself when we’ve raced together but I owe you big time.

We got some bad news yesterday that one of our sponsors, Ryan Barnett, who works with Blue Bicycles along with Akona Biospeed and Areus had been seriously injured on his bike. He was hit by a landscape company’s truck while warming up for the Roswell Crit in Georgia last Saturday.

Ryan was one of the first people to show his support for Vanderkitten last year at InterBike by giving us a ton of free equipment that allows us all to race our bikes and live our dreams. He spent several hours during InterBike chatting with us about our goals for the team, what we needed to get there and how he could help us. Anyone who’s been to InterBike knows how hard it is to devote 10 or 15 mins to a single person let alone hours. My heart and prayers along with those from the whole Vanderkitten team go out to Ryan and his family during this time.

Here is a link to the story on Ryan and updates on his condition. SlowTwitch.com

GET WELL RYAN! We are thinking about you.

Thanks to Bicycling Magazine for including me in their June issue.

I hardly consider myself an authority on training and racing as I still have so much to learn and so far to go. However, I am fortunate to be surrounded by people capable of providing me with the “Best Advice”; I happily pass a bit of that along in the “Best Advice” column of the June issue.

Soon,
Lizzer