Allright... here I am creating my own blog... CRAZY, I never thought I would be doing this... As many of you know... I grew up in the tobacco growing... i mean... mullet growing state of Kentucky... Louisville to be exact. Yehaw! It's a great state and there is some fantastic riding... and no I haven't ever had a mullet... except for maybe the time my twin sister and I played barber shop... you will have to ask my mom about that one!
sometime later in my life I earned my BFA from Kansas City Art Institute in painting. It was during these fabulous four years that many aspects of my life were defined.
In some sort of chronological order...
1:: my older sister, ToughGirlLisa, was a pro MTNbiker on the Sobe/Cannondale team. She called me out of the blue one day and said our team mechanic Adrian is going to be in KC next week... you should let him stay with you... and unbeknownst to me my cycling career began. Adrian had a truck full of Jeckyls and we went for an urban assault ride around downtown KC. What fun.
2:: well... as you will later see... it all stems around Adrian somehow... who is this guy anyways? During one of Adrian's several visits to KC while he was driving back and forth across the country... he invited me to a bar-b-que at the "brown house". Oh the Brown House. The Brown house consisted if three guys... Doug the Cannondale rep, Doug a racer, and Kasey who worked for Oakley. At this Bar-b-que... I met 10 or so people I thought I would never see again in my life... but the funny thing is... these 10 or so people would soon become some of my closest friends in KC.
3:: A few months later I called up Adrian to buy that very exact bike off the truck for $2000... full XTR of course... what else does a beginner mountain biker need? I had saved some money from life guarding and coaching diving the summer before and now I had unknowingly invested it in a lifetime of enjoyment. And so my love for cycling began. Adrian shipped my bike off to me. He recommended taking it to Bikesource way down south in Overland Park, Kansas to have it built... it was forever away... but Adrian had assured me that it was a great shop and in fact Doug the racer from the Brown House was a mechanic there. So I ventured out of the immediate surrounding of downtown KC for the first time. I was a bit nervous... especially driving on I -35... but I made it. I drug my bike box in the shop and was approached by a tall slender guy who asked me for help. A few days later I came back to pick up my bike and the same guy helped me. I kept bugging him about finding people to go ride with and he ended up inviting me to go ride that Friday evening. My first ride on my Jeckyl was on the bike path at night with a stranger. Hmm. It was quite fun actually and we went to IHOP afterwards. This was the beginning of a long relationship with the Boyfriend Bryce.
4:: a year or so later after many miles of riding and SEVERAL Sport class mountain bike races under my belt... a new store was going to open in downtown KC, Sun and Ski Sports. It was so close to my apartment and I needed a new job. It turned out that Boyfriend Bryce knew the store manager from back in the day at Bikesource and he put in a good word for me. I went in for one interview with the assistant manager... I think I was asked 5 times if I knew how to build a bike. I thought for sure I didn't get the job because I didn't know how to build a bike at that time... but my phone rang later and It was the store manager, Chris Bush, and he wanted me to come in for a second interview. Yipee.
5:: working away at the Sun and Ski or "Run and jump in the Lake" as Doug the Cannondale Rep liked to call it... was quite fun. The store manager, Chris Bush, another employee Mike Heenan, and their friend Daron were looking for a female to do an adventure race with... They asked me and I was in. It sounded like quite fun... and it was. I was hooked. We became a pretty regular team for several months competing is 4 or 5 races. Bryce the Boyfriend wasn't too keen about me going off and spending the weekend with these guys... I think he was jealous. I told him that he had nothing to worry about that two of the guys were already married and that the other guy Chris... he was a dork.
6:: Well I guess Bryce the Boyfriend was right. Chris, Mike, me and Daron had travelled in two cars to an adventure race in Arkansas. The race was called about 5 hours in because the weather had turned for the worse. The snowflakes were the size of quarters. We were out on the mountain bike leg and my hands and feet kept going painfully numb in the freezing temperatures. IT SUCKED! But thank goodness Chris was there. We stopped several times and he helped me warm my hands and feet back up and eventually he loaned me his winter gloves. What a nice guy! After the race was called we packed up and headed home. Chris and I rode in the car together and talked for hours... both slowly growing fond of one another... but thinking that there was no way the other could like me. I dropped him off at his car... no hug and I was bummed.
7:: a few weeks later there was a store meeting at Sun and Ski and everyone was going out afterwards. Here was my chance! After I made Chris take a shot of jaggermeister we headed to the dance floor and we danced a little too close and a little too long. I broke up with Bryce the next day and Chris and I have been together since.
8:: Chris and I were married in July of 2004. Three weeks later we packed our bags and off to Colorado we were. I was going to graduate school to study sculpture at CU in Boulder and earn an MFA. How exciting art and cycling in Colorado!
9:: I have to say the caliber of fitness in Colorado was a big change. I had been successfully racing mtb in the Expert class in KC. I tried my hand at a sport class race in CO and was handed my ass on a platter. These girls were crazy fast! It took me a couple years to catch up and here I am racing in the Expert class hoping to someday upgrade to pro.
10:: oh yeah... you are probably wondering how that Adrian guy fits in at this point... well funny you should ask... As I have developed my own cycling team, Tough Girl, with some of my closest friends, Janis and Nat, I have learned the art of the sponsorship proposal. We were looking to pick up a new bike sponsor for 2007 and I approached Scott. One day I just sent off the proposal to their marketing email and a few weeks later a familiar name had responded. It was Adrian. He was now the marketing Director at Scott usa. How funny. But he didn't quite know it was me. I had used my married name and he knew me from my maiden name. After I explained who I was... we had a good laugh. He was the one who had started me in this mess... that simple urban assault on the Jeckyl... back in the day. And here I am anxiously waiting the arrival of my new Scott Contessa Spark frame... should be any day now. Thanks Adrian!
