School visit

This morning I had the opportunity to speak to a school group in Cortez. It is a mountain biking class, how cool is that?!!! Hopefully something like that will be coming to a school in MS sooner than you think!

Anyway, the kids were awesome and had some great questions! Their class gets to work on the bikes, ride the local trails and read books regarding cycling and athletics. I talked about my history of sports, getting into cycling, moving to Colorado, chasing your dreams, nutrition, sponsors, racing......we talked about everything cycling!! I swear! I could've kept talking but I think they ran out of things to ask.:) I also had a small video I put together of racing and hopefully they enjoyed that.

It is fun to do those kinds of things because I feel like it may motivate them to do something different than the 'norm'. We will see:)

And guess what, it's snowing again.....blah! See y'all soon! Time to get a ride inside.....

Gotta love sponsors

This is some good coffee.....

Nossa Familia

Nothing exciting going on here...just riding my bike, waiting for the snow to come in tomorrow...boooooo. Got a school visit tomorrow, pretty excited about that! Maybe I will have some pictures to post.

My teammates are at Tour of the Gila this weekend and I will meet up with them for Joe Martin next week. Excited about getting back to the south!

Been helping out with the new USWCDP website as well as Team Car Radio, hopefully they will be up either today or tomorrow!

Ok, off to Durango!

Did you see this?

I don't think I blogged this but it was on FB and Twitter.

My bike shop

Photo by Brian Hodes, Veloimages.com
Kokopelli's cool women's jersey
One of the guys working on my spoke tension
Just some of the bikes....
Clothing and mechanic's area...this place is huge...
Photo by Brian Hodes, Veloimages.com
Home again, home again, jiggity jig:)! After a cancelled flight on Sunday night and being one of the lucky few to catch the next flight home, I made it to my bed by midnight! Yahooooo! Miller was one happy dog!

So the circuit race on Saturday was a lot better for the team and my teammate Alison Powers won! She is one amazing chick, she wins the circuit race, then changes clothes and jumps in the short track mountain bike race with some of the best in the world. She was pretty tired and didn't make it to the finish but I know she had a good time. I had a good time as well, I love racing and I loved the expo. There was so much to see and so many people to talk to!

Sunday was a ride and travel day for me.

This week, I've officially claimed Kokopelli Bike Shop as my home town bike shop. I haven't really had the need to go since Michael always helps me with my bikes but we figured it would be good to become familiar with one of the local shops for convenience and as my dad would say, it's always good to 'press the flesh'....aka meet and greet:) So I've been going back to this shop and talking to them about events, help and just general stuff and even raced with a couple of the mechanics during cyclocross. The guys are great and the owner, Jimbo, is from Alabama!!! Small world....he knows Vicksburg and some of the hangouts in Jackson, seeing that he was in a band. He is a pretty smart guy and has one heck of a work ethic! And his shop is HUGE!

Last night is snowed about 5inches, so today is a trainer ride day.....booooooo

I have these awesome tan lines from California, only to be covered up with arm warmers and leg warmers:(

Headed to Joe Martin in Arkansas in a couple of weeks, then down home for a couple of weeks. I look forward to hanging out with you guys!

Life...

So for my best friend's birthday(Toni), she received some of the best news anyone could ever get....her husband's cancer is gone!!!!! What a blessing from God, I truly believe it! When I come home in May, I hope to see them and hang out for a bit, she is on the top of the friend list to see for sure. I missed her at Christmas because her mom had cancer and Toni was spending all her time in LA with her mom and her dad, poor Toni has had one hell of a run at it lately so happy birthday to Toni for getting some great birthday news:)

As for me....I am in Monterey, CA racing Sea Otter at the Laguna Seca Speedway and it is such a cool place!! They have mountain bike races, downhill racing and road racing, it's funny because all of us in spandex are a bit outnumbered:) But it is awesome to see all the different bikes cruzin around and enjoying the sunshine! They also have a sweet expo set up and we've had the opportunity to go and thank a couple of sponsors as well as have some guests come along for a 'ride with the pros' ride. I love meeting new people and to learn how we all have come to this one spot in the world for this weekend:)

Yesterday was the criterium (on part of the speedway) and it went ok....I learned a couple more things to racing....every race, something new is learned. As long as I'm progressing, I'm happy, I hate I couldn't have done more for the team but again next time will be better, so we move on:)

Tomorrow is the circuit race on the speedway, for 2hrs and it has a pretty steep hill before we descend on this AWESOME cork screw turn! I want to take a hot lap in one of the cars on the track!!! The cork screw is so much fun on the bike and I could only imagine the fun that could be had in a car!!! Faster, faster, faster!

Then I fly back to Colorado on Sunday

The host house is so cool, they have dogs, cats, chickens and horses. It is nice to go to a host house that has animals because it makes me feel more at home and most of the animals are so loving and that sure does help a lot sometimes during racing when the day didn't go according to plan:) Animals always seem so happy to see you...whoever we are:)

Hope Miller doesn't get jealous reading this post:).......

Having fun

My teammate Alison Testroete
A couple of sponsors:) Amy - Specialized, Alsion, Lisa, Kevin-Betwixt chamois cream and myself
I got second! Whooo hooo!

So over the last 2 months I've had my first ever pro team podium and my first ever pro individual podium!!!! Holy cow, what a feeling! To be standing beside some of the best riders in the world and I'm up there with them!

The first pro podium ever was with my team(Team VBF) at Redlands Bicycle Classic, our team won general classification! This means that our team had the most riders finish with the best results from each day compared to the other teams. There are some funny pictures on the team facebook page, check them out when you get a chance! So after Redlands I flew back to Colorado and went from 60-70 degree weather to 40's and snow! Whoa! I was spoiled in California thats for sure! After riding in the cold for a week and a half, my team director flew me back out to California for a team PR event-Cinderella Classic. I've never seen so many tutus, tiaras, pink boas and bike tassels in my life, it was amazing! 66miles of riding with hundreds of women along the way, for fun and sheer enjoyment of exercise and commraderie with other women. There were stops along the way with an assortment of foods and at the end was an expo full of cycling goodies! The expo had cycling clothes, exercise clothing, food, beverages, photo opportunities and Specialized and Trek were set up outside loaded with bikes for women. What a site!

After the Cinderella Classic on Saturday I was a bit tired from all the riding and socializing but there was more planned for the weekend. On Sunday my host - Kelly, my teammate - Alison and I drove to Menlo Park for a wet criterium. It rained all day on Sunday but we had some racing to do so, better just get to it. I knew in my mind I wanted to stay towards the front to stay safe and hopefully make a break and that is just what happened. About 4 laps into the 60min race, a break of 5 were gone. It was Shelly Evans(one of the worlds best track racers), Rebecca Much, Alison Starnes, Mary from Touchstone racing and myself. We stayed away the entire race and I got second overall to Shelly, it really was an amazing day.

It's kind of funny because when I talked to dad after the podium at Redlands, he said, "Ok, now you are on the podium, you can't get off!" I'm just trying to do what my parents told me to do:)

Schedule for a couple of weeks

So here is my schedule for the next couple of weeks and then past that, I'm not sure so I won't post my full summer schedule because things change a good bit....

Fly back out to San Fransisco on Friday, April 9th and participate in the Cinderella Classic. I will stay with my team director, Lisa, until time for Sea Otter(the following weekend). Then I fly back home(Colorado) on the 18th and stay until it is time for Joe Martin Stage Race, May 6-9th. From there I think I'm going to stay in MS for a week or so and hang out with the family! YAY! They are planning on making the Joe Martin race, which will be their first race ever:) and I get to see my favorite nephew:) I'm excited about that.....

Other than that, today-Easter, was wonderful! The weather has been a bit chilly since I've been home and it snowed 2 days ago, so when today warmed up to the 50's I was excited:) All the snow has melted and the trees are about to bust open with blooms. I know there will probably be more snow to come but I'm thankful for the warm weather in between:)

Time for some fish tacos......:)

Bike building 101

Doug, starting out, not so sure which comes first...the allen wrench or the grease:)
Placing the new levers close to where the old ones were to get a reference of hand placement and comfort.
Doug, tightening down the left lever.
Michael getting the proper length of cable housing.
Michael using the special cutting tool from Park Tools so the housing doesn't crimp.
Measuring the rear derailleur cable housing.
Doug, feeding the cable through the housing.
Doug is getting the brake cable prepped.
Michael is showing Doug which part of the tool to use for crimping the cable caps for a finished product.
Time to feed the chain! Michael started with the rear pulleys.
Michael is describing how to get the proper chain length.

Doug putting the finishing touches on the front derailleur cable...
The finishing touches are the most important:) Doug is figuring out how his taping job is different than Michael's....everyone does it different...

Doug with his finished product and looking forward to a ride....

So last night, Doug and I got a lesson in bike building from Michael. It was fun, I've seen them done before but never really paid attention to be honest. So Doug needed his bike rebuilt with Shimano 7800 and I tagged along for the adventure.

Doug brought over some homemade turkey lasagna, wine and beer around 5:30 and at 10:30, we had finished the lesson.

My apologies because I didn't start taking pictures until after the bottom bracket, crank and rear derailleur had been done....