Beginning of European Trip
September 4, 1999

Racing again. Since Pan Am Games RR, I've been in Albuquerque. Three weeks at home! Unheard of! The first week I rested. The next two I trained hard for this current European and World Championship Trip. The first weekend I raced with the big boys, including Evan, in a race in Estancia, NM (about one hour away from our house) and one in Juarez, Mexico (much more than one hour away). The Estancia course was flat and windy. The attacking started from the get-go. Super fun and exciting. The next weekend I raced both the NM State Road and Criterium Championships. The RR was Saturday on a moderately hilly course. I felt great on the climbs and soloed in for the win. Sunday was the Criterium Championships and we were combined with the cat 3 and 4 men, who proved to be quite fast. The course, in a parking lot, proved to be quite hard. I won that too in a sprint against Carolyn Donnelly. All races were great speed workouts and just what I wanted leading up to these European races.

All three weeks I had fun, hung out with Evan and our New Mexican buddies, took care of a chronic leg injury and the bad digestion I've had since I can remember. Consequently, I am really ready to race well. I've also decided to conduct a personal experiment and see what losing weight does for climbing performance.

The races here are Tour of Holland, where we are now, the Holland World Cup immediately following the Tour, Tour of Switzerland, the Swiss WC immediately following the Tour, GP Nations (a TT Mari and I will do), and finally the World Championships in Verona, Italy. The trip will be great. In both Tours we have almost no transfers, the weather in Holland has been wonderful, and even better considering it poured sideways all tour last year, and after Switzerland we head directly to beautiful, wonderful, fabulous Italy.

Our team for the first trip consists of me, Dede Demet, Kim Smith (one of my Celestial teammates at Tour of Toona), Allison Dunlap, Cary (who rode for Timex in Canada), Katie Compton (who won the under 23 competition at Nationals so is racing in the World Championships). Then Henny (US National coach), Aaron Epperson (soigneur), and Chad (Timex's mechanic) are here as our staff. For the next race,the team will change some while the staff remains the same throughout.

For the past two days we've been staying in a hotel in Zwolle, 1.5 hours from Amsterdam. We rode the obligatory post travel EZ ride yesterday and again today with a few efforts. There are tons of bike paths all over. Tons. Everyone rides. There are bikes and bike racks everywhere. Today is Saturday and we saw families, and couples, and old people, and girlie groups riding with panniers filled with picnics and fishing equipment.

The countryside is flat and so will the whole race but for two days - the first being only rolling, the second being pretty much on last year's World Championship Road course (the Valkenburg).

Breakfast was typical Euro: boiled eggs, bread, yogurt, cereals and granola, fruit, and lunch meats. The bread here is wonderful: mostly brown breads with sesame, pumpkin, sunflower and poppy seeds, and or raisins and some of that really dark, grainy rye bread. The rest of the meals have been from a menu that hasn't changed. We've been eating mostly good fish, salad bar, veggies, and breads.