Well, our trip to Rhode Island has come to a close. We missed this weekend last year and were really looking forward to racing in Goddard Park again. The weekend did not disappoint. Excellent race courses. Lots of great competition. Good organization. Lots of friendly faces and fans. All in all, a most excellent weekend in this little state.

As you probably know we awoke to the white stuff on Sunday morning. I wasn’t totally surprised to see snow on the ground. But I was hoping it wouldn’t show up. Ah well, could always be worse. At least we didn’t have that crazy New Jersey mud… Day started early again with the some early laps before the races got started. Then it was time to chill out in the van and then off to the pits for Marc’s race. Marc had a good day on the bike. A solid result and a nice way to close off the domestic cyclo-cross season. He was still a bit sore from Saturday’s crash but you wouldn’t have known it – he took risks in the technical sections and his power was looking pretty fine. Steve had a solid day as well but a few crashes set him back a bit – he recovered well from these and still had top ten result. Nice to see David D. from True North Cycles on the podium in the Masters 45+ category – congrats on the third place. Pretty quiet day in the pits – no craziness that we saw on Saturday – mostly a lot of people throwing their glasses at us.

I jumped on the course right after Marc’s race to check out the lines. Well, I sort of got on the course. I discovered that my bike – that I had placed in a safe spot leaning against the gazebo and had been knocked over. The seat was all twisted – not cool. Luckily a friendly guy was on the side of the course who happened to have a multi-tool in his pocket – after a few twists and turns I was off again. The course had definitely changed with some clear lines being worn away in the snow. Got a couple laps in. Then chilled in the gazebo and jumped on again after the women’s 3/4 race. Headed to the car after the warm-up and got suited up. Then it was race time. Amazing how quickly the last hour before the race passes. I’ve written a race report and posted it. 11th. Not stellar. Not terrible.

We took off pretty quickly after my race – we were on the road by 3:30 (my race was at 1:30). Quick stop at Sbucks. And we were on our way to Burlington, VT. We decided on this route because we wanted to avoid the lake effect snow that we drove through on Friday… Well, instead we drove through a snow storm until the Canada/U.S. border. Very unpleasant. Poor Marc – he essentially drove all the way – I just couldn’t relax in the snow storm and white out conditions. A quick stop at Moe’s for some tacos and another Sbucks stop and it was homeward bound. Luckily the drive from Montreal to Ottawa was clear. But boy it was cold – we stopped for a little break and couldn’t believe the wind.

So our trip to Rhode Island is in the books. A great weekend. Quality time spent with good friends. A great chance to re-connect with our southern racing pals. Lots of good conversation, laughs and smiles were shared. Toss in some excellent racing from everyone and it was a great weekend. Awesome to see such a big crew come down from Toronto. Perhaps one of the best parts of this weekend for me was the other elite women racers – I’ve gotten to know a few of the women over the season and it really makes me feel great to know some people well enough to chat and hang out with before and after the races. Thanks – for welcoming me – it really makes the race experience that much better. I met GeWilli on Sunday – nice! Best of luck to everyone making the trip to Kansas City – travel safe, race hard, have fun.