Holiday Travels

The week before Christmas Justin and I spent a good amount of time in the evenings cooking up way too much food. Justin made almond milk, and then we made some festive raw nog out of the almond milk, bananas, nutmeg, and spiced rum and Kahlua. It was delish. The Kahlua really makes it!







We also made sure to pick up provisions since we didn’t inherit our beer tastes from our parents!



We got all loaded up to head south for our first stop at Justin’s mom’s house for Christmas Eve hanging out. Justin was able to finish up the rack last week and got some lights on there also.



All green and red on the way down to the desert



Justin graciously cooked a delish Christmas Eve dinner of lobster tails and ahi while mom and I roasted up some veggies.



That was the end of eating paleo for a few days!

Grandma brought her homemade cookies for Christmas. YUM.



Yes, I ate quite a few, and no, I don’t feel guilty.

Justin and I went on a long road ride Saturday to try to burn off Christmas dinner. I didn’t have room for the camera, but we rode on some pretty wide open empty roads, and a few narrow crowded roads, and ended up climbing up Box Canyon toward Joshua Tree. We turned around midway up the canyon to head home. Long day on the road and it felt great to get back and relax!

Sunday we slept in a bit and then got ready for a few hours on some new (to us) singletrack.

Brown Santa had brought me some new grips before we left, so I was stoked to try out the Ergon team green GA1 grips. Previously I’d only used the GP1 and GX1 grips, or the GX2’s with bar ends. At first it was a little weird for me to not have the bigger platform for my palm, but as we climbed up the uber tech singletrack on Art Smith I was totally lovin’ the GA1’s. I got used to them really quick, and even with the tech riding uphill and down my hands felt great the entire ride. I can’t wait to try these out on more and different trails while training and racing this winter.

I really felt like I had a lot of control and grip ability, and full maneuverability to get the front end to do what I wanted it to do. I don’t think my previous GX1’s were holding me back, but I did feel like I was better able to control the handlebar with the GA1’s. They just loved the techy climbing.

Big thanks to Ergon USA and Jeff Kerkove. I’m more than stoked to be getting support as an Ergon Factory Rider for 2010.

Grip-eye view



The trail went on endlessly!



STIL and RTIL (Rockier Than It Looks)



Grip and Go



I was looking and looking for Dunn Road, but at this point we were only halfway there!



Bombing back down the trail



Up a small hill, through a small wash, down a small hill.



Man-reinforced structure



Rocky descending