Three Things Thursday - Random Edition

1. In less than 12 hours, I will be leaving this:

For this:

And this:

And this:

And my favorite ladies.

2. My mom scanned some of her wedding pictures and sent me one.

Adorable, isn't it? I totally want to get married in the 70's.

3. Earlier today I walked in on a man peeing. Ew. No pictures of that.

An open letter

Dear Tahoe,

Maybe you should think about postponing Bike to Work Week until July.

Sincerely,

Lynn

Also:

Dear Weather.com,

You said that the snow was not supposed to start until 7 pm. This was not true. Please try to be more accurate in the future.

Sincerely,

Lynn

Powerline Trail

After working all day Saturday (urgh, board meetings) and being scared off by a possible thunderstorm on Sunday, yesterday I was ready for a ride!

I headed up (and up and up and up) Ski Run boulevard to the trail head. After a quick push up a short sandy hill, I was greeted by the gorgeous views of Desolation Wilderness and Lake Tahoe.

The first part of the trail is mostly loose rocks and deepish sand- not my favorite material to ride on. I miss the hero dirt of the PNW. The trail pretty quickly turns into dirt single track, barely rooty or rocky in just a few places.

The very beginning area has some more technical rock features off of the main trail. These features are definitely above my skill level, but there were a few I'm planning on trying out.

I only had my hard tail this time, but when I finally get pedals for my new bike, I plan on bringing it (and my full face helmet - safety first!) and working on my technical skills.

This area would also be a great place to run. I haven't really run all month, because I am so excited that I can finally bike, but I need to get going on that again. At least I am keeping up on my weightlifting!

New haaaaaair.

So I decided to be impulsive this weekend. I was bored with my hair, so obviously the obvious thing to do was to impulsively dye and cut my hair myself.

Before:

Soaking my scalp with chemicals.

Ah! I'm a red head.

I've never actually cut my own hair before, but I've cut other peoples'. Plus my hair is thin, fine and straight. I just grabbed a section in the front and started cutting.

In process shot. I thought about leaving it like that and having a side-rattail.

I cut about 3.5 - 4 inches off.

The final product! I really like it. It's not perfect, and I had to make a few small snips on longer pieces this morning, but I think that it's pretty awesome for my first self-administered hair cut.

Plus, now I look more like Ginny Weasley for the magical bachelorette party adventure.

Tuesday's Bulleted List

Oh, hey! I thought it was Wednesday, but it's Tuesday. So I made a bulleted list.

• I have trouble keeping my plants alive. If they need to be watered more than twice a month, SOL. Currently, I have one live plant, one dead plant on my desk. Guess which one is the succulent.

KJW and my failed herb garden.

• Yesterday I bench pressed with 25 pound dumbbells. I felt impressive.
• I also kicked ass in spin class.
• It's snowing right now.
• I'm a subtle fake ginger right now. Inspired by my former roommate and all around kick ass person, Jennifer, and her awesome new hair, I'm thinking of kicking it up a notch. Maybe this:

• Tomorrow at our work retreat, we are having a Rock gift exchange. It's like a White Elephant gift exchange, but only featuring rocks. Too bad my most awesome rocks are in Washington.
• I need to go to yoga tonight. Blog world, yell at me if I do not go to yoga.
• It is snowing here today, it is 91 degrees in Orlando. 11 days. I am so excited!

Ready...Set...Cancelled! Or my attempt to spectate the 1st leg of the Amgen Tour of California

Snow in May? Tahoe, this is why we can't have nice things. South Lake Tahoe was the host of the overall start for the 2011 Amgen Tour of California. We were all so excited!

There were tons of local bike-related activities in the week leading up to the race.

Like community bike parades in the beautiful sunshine. The sunshine was not to last, though. Katie and I woke up, bright and early to a blanket of snow. The race was delayed and shortened, but we looked on the brightside - more time to sleep!

We woke up again and rode our bikes to Sprouts, which, in addition to coffee, magazines, and delicious food, was on the race route.

The snow was still falling on and off, and the wind whipped around the already fallen snow, and roads were clear and wet. Pretty soon volunteers started showing up to close down the roads, and my excitement was growing.

The nice employees at Sprouts even gave us pots and wooden spoons to bang as noise-makers.

I'm so stoked! And squinting.

The motorcade arrived! The race must be starting soon. Eager locals lined the streets, waiting to cheer on the racers.

But, alas. The race was cancelled at the start line. We had pots, but no reason to bang them.

So Katie and I headed towards the start line (at Stateline!) to see if there was any action happening.

We saw some SWAG First Responders, people whose job it was to pick up the things thrown down by the riders. I don't know what the TMDL for squeeze bottles is.

This guy was my favorite. At this point we heard about the after party/lifestyle festival happening at Northstar (the intended finish). We decided to head to where the party was. The appearance of team cars on our way cemented that decision.

Team Rabobank.

Team HTC -Highroad. Someone in that car waved to us. I like to imagine it was Mark Cavendish.

Men in spandex! Just what we were looking for. I think that this was Team Sky.

The sad, empty starting line. As I drove up towards Northstar, we spotted something exciting in the distance! A team of total bad asses, who said, "Screw the snow storm. We're biking to North Lake anyway."

We did the only reasonable thing. We pulled over to cheer them on.

Now I am totally rooting for Team Kelly Benefit Strategies - OptumHealth.

Not only did they ride through the snow storm, they called us awesome!

Team Jelly Belly/Kenda was pulled over on the side of the road. Probably eating Jelly Bellies. As we approached Northstar, we got excited for the glitzy and glamorous after party. This is what we actually found:

Maybe next year, Amgen. On the bright side, the Girls Gone Wild bus was in town.

A Belated Three Things Thursday - Bike Edition

What was the deal with blogger yesterday?!?

1.) Amgen Tour of California starts in Tahoe this weekend. This means the town is filling up with sexy European men in tight, bright spandex.

I know that this is a little fangirl/stalkerish, but someone from Liquigas-Cannondale once stayed in my apartment. I'm considering stalking him on Twitter until I find him and force him to introduce me to his sexy Italian teammates. On a scale of 1 to this dog, how creepy is that?

2.) I've taken my trusty Cannodale on two rides in the last two days. Six months was too long to go without riding. Never again.

These were taken from the Powerline Trail yesterday. I'm trying to get in as much biking as I can since it's going to snow this weekend. Urgh.

3.) I took my new bike (!!!!!!!) to Sierra Ski & Cycleworks today so it can get built.

Just like this, but purple!

Everyone and their brother are bringing their bikes out of hibernation, so it's pretty busy. The bro at the bike shop told me that it should be done by Saturday afternoon. In Tahoe time, that's probably really Sunday morning, but whatevs, it's snowing this weekend any way. And I will be busy watching men in spandex ride around Lake Tahoe.

Any fun plans for the weekend?

First Mountain Bike Ride of the Season...

And I only had to drive to Santa Barbara to do it!

After a lovely day of enjoying the (mostly) foggy beach in Isla Vista while Dan was building lasers, we headed to Knapps for my first ride of the season.

I did a little riding in Feburary, but I hadn't really been on a mountain bike since October. It was definitely time for that to change! I decided to start my season out big, and try a trail I'd never ridden before - Knapps in Santa Barbara.

Safety first! Notice that my thighs aren't covered. That will be important later.

As I was bikeless, I ended up borrowing Dan's Spitfire. He's only 6'7" - approx. 8 inches taller than me.

Dan looks normal sized from this far away.

Giant bike + rusty skills + new trail = disaster, right?

Actually, it wasn't too bad. I had to walk some of the more technical rocky sections and go really slowly around some tight, narrow switchbacks, but I did better than I expected. Dan even told me how impressed he was with my form. Weightlifting works, y'all!

I did have a couple of crashes, including the very first feature on the trail. I nailed the steep-ish technical section, but missed the turn immediately after. Ooops.

My other big crash happened on the easy fire road section of the trail. I'm still not sure what happened. I was riding along, then bam! I was between the trail and my bike. I ended up with some nice ass/upper thigh bruises and an oozing elbow scab. I think I need better thigh protection than running shorts.

All in all it was a great start to the new season. All I need now is for the snow to melt in Tahoe!