The weekend--- Palomar Mountain, Qualcomm Supercross, San Juan Trail, and missing The Tour of California Women's Crit.

How about that for Palomar Mountain ---

Good thing the Tour of California is passing through The Palomar Pass six days from now, because they're have been some big snowflakes falling and SUPER cold temps up there lately. We climbed it yesterday. It was gorgeous, and freezing, and epic, and lovely all at the same time ----and absolutely PACKED with California people at the top enjoying a little glimpse of what life would be like with "seasons"! It was so sweet and cute to see all the families with their little sleds and big gloves and cozy hats....throwing snowballs and making snowpeople, and even packing their truck beds with snow to take back down the mountain as if the darn stuff was like finding gold!
Having grown up in Ohio, I have to say I just don't have the same oooo-ahhh feeling about seeing snow, but it was nice to see that all those people were having fun romping around up there. --- Of course, our ideas of romping around fun was to make a training day of it, and we opted to ride our bikes up, didn't have any of the cozy warm fleece hats or jackets that everyone else was covered up with (and I tell you those people looked at us like we were aliens showing up at the top on bicycles with skinny little lycra outfits!). So for us it was a mini victory making it to the top in those conditions. We made a quick trip into the general store for a big 'ol hot chocolate....and then zip zip zip, down the mountain we went. After about 2000ft of descending the roads dried out so it wasn't so sketchy, and it started to actually be fun!... I'm not even sure I want to know what the temperature was, but I know for sure it was ridiculously cold....and I think it took about an hour to thaw out at the taco stand when we got to the bottom for lunch!
The IPA helped ;)

It was well worth the trek out there though.....days like that, with tough terrain and far from perfect elements that can leave much to be desired and make you wonder what in the heck kind of love of suffering on the bike this is (is it an an addiction i wonder?!), it sure can on the other hand make you appreciate your body and how it just keeps on taking on the next challenge the mind creates, and it definitely makes ya appreciate and respect mother nature and all of the gifts she gives us. One downer of the day was seeing a roadster moto guy laid out in one of the seemingly endless hairpin turns on the climb ---guess he overshot the turn then lost control and went straight into the side wall of the mountain. By the time we rolled around the bend, he was up and standing in one piece (...shaking like mad and smoking a much deserved cigarette!), but his bike looked like it was going to cost a pretty penny to fix...no bueno... but, better to see his bike all banged up rather than his body! Good thing he did that on the uphill and not while descending...that could of changed everything.

And speaking of banged up bodies, I went out and rode with some of The RADS guys on Saturday morning, my second chance to get out on The San Juan Trail and I was not missing that opportunity! My body was itching for a good mountain bike ride, so I hopped on the plan. We went up the infamous San Juan Trail, around Cocktail Rock...down some crazy root and rut descent and then back up to the rock and down San Juan again. The trails were awesome from the rain and the sun was shining, the views were epic and the company (as per usual) was unbeatable. I was definitely taking it easy, no attempts to break any records up the hill or do any daring "test the limits" descending, but hey....how about this for a surprise...I actually crashed AGAIN!

Gosh darn-it! Don't ask....but I will tell ya.
I thought I had it. It wasn't that tricky and trust me, no one was around so this wasn't an attempt to show off ;)~ It was just one of the many hairpins (San Juan has a whole set of epic hairpins), and for some stupid reason I was pretending I was a BMXer (hahaha...I may be a Lyons but i am not known to have mad BMX skills!), anyway I have been having fun dropping my seat all the way down and descending in the saddle rather than "cross-country" style. So... I had dropped my seat all the way down, approached this hairpin, threw my foot out, pulle the rear brake and made a quick and slick little attempt at 180 degree slide through the turn, but I botched it up somehow and all I did was jam myself up and take another tumble (i'm typically good for at least one crash on every mountain bike ride these days!) It should be known that I am a bit of a noise box when I ride, I make all sorts of sounds and I talk to myself often, I think I must have cussed out loud at myself for the next five minutes after I got up and continued down the trail. It just kills me when I "see" how it can be done ---the technical stuff you know, and I KNOW I have it in me to do it....yet I just keep launching myself into mid-air when I should be staying upright!

All part of the grand adventure, no complaints....just got to keep working at it and make sure I stay in one piece!

So in between these two epic rides, I made a mad dash down to go watch SuperCross at Qualcomm Saturday night. Man... Bubba Stewart walked away with it. He is really from out of this world. And Derek Costella (The All Access rider) who is quickly becoming one of my favorites to watch made the main again! Good going Derek :)
Watching the race at that venue was cool. I had never been there, the facility is really nice and personally, I LIKED the design of the track for the night....and I must add that I also liked The Monster after-party at The "W" in San Diego, that was a sweet spot for sure......

And hey.....we got lucky all weekend, no rain, nowhere at all. Wahoo.
Sorry for the Santa Rosa Criterium ladies, but I can honestly say that as much I missed racing, my weekend was far too enjoyable, still getting to pedal, still being with special friends and still living the dream ----and dang that rain just looked MISERABLE....not my cup of tea right now, for sure.

Nice job to to all the women who kicked ass out there though! --those girls in the break made the smart choice to get up the road, and with the rain, you could have pretty much called it that a break would go and not come back. And one more thing (of course congrats to the podium women), but a special congrats to Lauren Tamayo for making the podium and to Sarah Bamberger who whipped it in for a top five on the day! Way to make it happen chicas!