Sound of Silence- post Interbike, post-Europe, post-Season. Wow. I am done for now.

I wrote my last blog on the plane, leaving Italy- so it did not get posted until I got back to Cleveland where I got online for the first time in a while. WHEW! I am now, finally, at this exact moment (not saying that it will last beyond this cup of coffee) NOT tired! But it has been a while in the making...

I finished my little Grand Tour on Sunday and hopped on a plane on Monday morning, heading straight to Las Vegas for the big industry convention, Interbike. I got in at 10:30PM that night after 20+ hours of travel and nearly missing my connecting flight since it took me about 1.5 hours to get through customs in New York. All par for the course... I got to my hotel in Vegas at 11-11:30 only to find that they lost my reservation. Linda was not there yet and fortunately, I had a friend with an extra room at Treasure Island, so I just went there. Ended up going to bed at around 1:30 in the morning and not sleeping all that well. Wake up call at 5:30AM to head out to Boulder City to meet up with the SRAM folks for demo days. Good cure for jet lag! I ended up having a blast, leading rides with dealers and such on the new Red Group (AWESOME, by the way!) all day long. I really enjoyed it too. Tiring, but it was fun to get to meet people who were all jazzed on SRAM and tell them about my experience racing and training on it all season. I have been getting to ride some of the prototype and pre-production Red components all season, so I got to tell them how much I love it. And I do! But long day... only to get longer since from the moment the plane touches down in Vegas, it is non-stop, so once Linda got there, we met up with some of our sponsors and headed out to a late dinner. Fun, but late night #2.

The next day, the show opened and Linda and I spent the entire day running around to all our current and potential sponsors to say hi, tell them about how the team is doing and just to touch base. It was a big difference from last year: last year, the two of us went to Interbike and did not have any sponsors yet and only had three riders on the roster. Typically, by the show, teams have all their sponsors lined up already, so we were long shots. And no one knew who I was or what I could possibly do. We worked hard and were so thrilled to have gained the trust of our sponsors: LOOK, Ritchey, HED, SRAM, Champion System all saw what we were trying to build and saw our vision and backed us. It meant so much to us and enabled us to move on with what we built last year.

Well, this year, it was totally different. People knew who I was and had followed my results. “Hey Brooke! Great job over in Europe!” It was crazy! I had some people ask for autographs when they recognized me on the floor- not even in a kit. That was really flattering! It was great to get to see our sponsors and tell them how much we appreciate all that they have done for us- they really have made all this possible and I don’t forget it for a minute! We are so lucky to work with companies that make such great products (our equipment is the tops, without question), but are also staffed by some really great people. I can honestly say that the companies that we work with are far more than just bike companies. I really like all the people there too. Good people. We are fortunate.

The next two days of the show were like that: non-stop. On your feet... constantly bombarded with noise and “Vegas”. It is sensory overload, to put it mildly.

Thursday night, after spending the last few days on my feet, working the floor and still recovering from traveling- we had a crit. It was not exactly a race that we had focused on, since the show was our focus. I figured that I would either race phenomenally well or horribly! One or the other! In the end, I guess it was somewhere in between.

The race was in the parking lot of the Mandalay Bay- and it was a fun layout, but I was not a big fan of the course: there was a layer of dust and parking lot scum on the road that kept me from taking the corners as fast as I would have liked. The last corner, I had slipped a couple times without crashing, but it was a clear warning to me that I could not take it hot. The race was strung out and pretty fast the whole night. I had a lot of fun out there and although my legs did not feel great- so I could not attack and play around as much as I would have liked- I felt good enough to keep good position and have a decent race. Yukie and Liza were also there, despite their late nights in Bermuda and in Vegas- they did a great job! They got up there and helped keep the race fast, what I wanted... I guess winning the drinking stage in Bermuda and for the first few nights of Vegas is good for crit racing!

Cheerwine was there with Laura and the field was really quite strong: lots of sprinters. Teresa Cliff-Ryan was there, Nicki Wainsgard, Caravella, Carroll, Shelly Olds, humm... can’t even remember who all was there, but a lot of sprinters. Rochelle Gilmore was there and it was fun to see her on American soil.

For the final few laps (no breaks would stick since you could see the riders the whole time and it was not technical enough- meaning that it was just too easy to chase things down), Cheerwine did a fantastic job of setting up a great lead out train and Rochelle was sitting on Laura’s wheel. I was on Rochelle and actually had a lot of fun fighting off riders who were encroaching in on that wheel. (**If you are a racer and reading this... don’t try and get a wheel from me when we are heading to the line. I will warn you now- I am all nice and everything until there is a line and a sprint.... I actually enjoy being physical on the bike and am probably bigger than you... :-) best bet is to just let me do my thing and don’t fight me for a wheel...). I do have fun shoving people in sprints. It is funny since I am so jovial and nice all other times- but when it is go time... it is bike racing!

So, with the last few laps, Cheerwine did a fantastic job leading out Laura and I sat on Rochelle. I did not have a lot of confidence that I could pull out a great finish since the last corner was less than 200m from the line and I knew that I had to be conservative since my rear wheel had not been sticking on it. In the end, I could not take it fast enough and ended up 4th. Not a bad finish, but not what I would have liked either. All and all- it was a fun race.

Now, I am finally home. The first night back, I slept over 13 hours. This morning, slept about 12. I am not sure what to do with myself. It is a strange sensation to be done for a bit. I am on vacation...

As I write this- I am starting to reflect on it all. This season has been amazing. I got through it. Last year, I had such a great year that I felt that there was simply no way that it could possibly be as good this year. I was expecting to just do my best but I figured that it would just be hard to top 2006. There was a little part of me that worried that last year was a fluke- I had won the races I did because no one knew who I was. Or, that I won by luck- no one can deny that Luck is not important in cycling and I am a very lucky person. Maybe I had a run of good luck in ’06. Heading into this year, I saw it as my first real test. People knew who I was (or, with my mouth flapping, figured it out right away!) and I could not get lucky too much. I knew that I would not be given a lot of slack to sneak off into breaks up the road or to jump early on sprints and catch people off-guard. I had thought that if things went really really well... that maybe... just maybe I might be able to get a chance to do a race or two in Europe. Linda had told me that I should not race in Europe until I was ready to make an impact. She said, “You don’t want to go over there to hang on to the back of the pack. You want to go over there when you are ready to be a contender”. That really stuck with me. And here was this year- not only did I have a great team and great success on our home turf, but I DID get a chance to race in Europe. And I won a race over there. I finished 2nd in one, 3rd in another... and I ended up with 7 other top 10 UCI finishes. How did that even happen? This is one of those “pinch me” moments where it is just hard to believe it is all true.

Above it all- I am a lucky person.

Thank you to every single person who has helped to get me here. Thank you to all those, stranger and friend alike who read my blog and give me the support to get on my bike on days when I simply don’t want to. I always do. I don’t think of it as discipline... I think of it as responsibility. I am doing my job because I love it and because I can sit here and write this blog and know that out there, somewhere, you are reading it. It may sound cliche, but I don’t just ride my bike for me. I want to share it with you. I get on my bike when I am sad, tired, sore, broken down, mentally and physically fatigued... because I don’t want to let you down- not just because I won’t want to let myself down. Thank you. It really means a lot to me. It really does.