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Last weekend I rode downtown to catch the Christmas Parade with some friends. I am not sure why I was so surprised to find out that a Christmas parade in New Orleans involves hip hop music and beads and cups being thrown, but it was a lovely surprise.

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The traffic was atrocious, so riding was just perfect. My favorite part? Riding home with tons of beads around my neck and toys and cups on my rear rack and no one blinking an eye.

Merry Christmas from New Orleans, y’all!

How do you know what to wear when you leave the house and it is 45 degrees and it quickly warms to 75? Tip #1: never put away your summer clothes. 2 nights ago the heat was on, now the AC is going. Sigh. If I didn’t love it, I would hate it!

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I wear layers. On this day, I wore a lightweight denim dress over leggings and boots. Added a warm cardigan for the ride in. When the weather warmed, I lost the cardi and the leggings and was good to go (I can never remember to take the ‘after’ photo)!

**************************************************************************************The dress is longer than it looks here, I promise! Layers are the answer to all of my current wardrobe weather issues. You?

Photo by Scott Thigpen – at the beginning of the race approaching the stairs. The terror is visible in my eyes.

Sloss Furnaces is an amazingly picturesque historic site with roots going back to the founding of Birmingham. We are very lucky to be able to race there during our cyclocross series; I think it’s my favorite venue! Although I’m not doing at all well this year, I upped my category to the Women’s 1/2/3 for this race because of our series rules. I like to tell myself that getting top 10 in 1/2/3s is something to brag about, even if it was 9th out of 9. Le sigh.

Mary Lou Davis, along with Kim Cross as the racer, created a brilliant video of the Sloss race that highlights both the beauty of the venue and the awesomeness that is cyclocross in Alabama. The race footage is from the race I was in, but I was so far behind Kim that I’m nowhere to be seen. Imagine me struggling somewhere in there if you so wish.

Erik Noren of Peacock Groove is the subject of a short documentary called Deep Custom. It will be showing this coming Monday at the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis. Here’s the trailer!

The full film will be available the following Tuesday on Vimeo so stay tuned. The production looks excellent, and based on my experience with Erik, it’s sure to entertain!

I was back in Minneapolis recently for work, and was lucky enough to hook up with Erik Noren of Peacock Groove again to ride one of his handmade bikes. On my last visit I saw a preview of a killer bike he was taking up to NHABS – the “Country Mile”. It was sparkly gold, built of some of the best components out there, and looked like a hell of a good time for any type of riding you wanted to do. According to Erik, he built the bike to go wherever the rider lead – hauling, road riding, touring, cyclocross, trails, you get the idea. Well, color me shocked when I walked in and he said I could borrow that one if I wanted. After much squeeing, I grabbed the beauty and rode away quickly before he could change his mind (but after he showed my how to use Campy).

I had so much fun riding that bike around the city. When I left his place I didn’t have much of a goal or direction other than to make it over to the Grease Rag that evening for their 2nd Tuesday night meet up. Last visit we ended up in a BLIZZARD and I bailed on most riding. This time it was chilly, but I was totally thrilled to ride on the trail and appreciate the city, the other riders, and how awesome it is to be in a bike friendly area. After stopping for a bite at a little cafe, I found the route over to Recovery Bikes, the Grease Rag host for the evening, to have a bike hang out with some chickies.

This is one of their newest meet ups, so there weren’t a lot of new visitors that needed help that evening. This allowed the regulars to do some of their own work, and it was so great to sit back and watch the ladies fix up their stuff like total pros. Low was performing some TLC on her winter bike, which had been stored up during the summer months. The other girls were doing things like truing wheels, changing to winter tires, and changing chain rings. Afterward we went out for a drink at a local bar and talked about all sorts of things while listening to the sultry sounds of karaoke singers.

Kat and I met up the next day for a ride and some lunch. We did a circuit around the city and it felt so so good. It had been a while since I just went on a ride just for the heck of it (cyclocross is taking over!). We stalked the above Peace Coffee guy for a little while so I could try and get a photo, and I think he got a little annoyed. Sorry dude! But, transporting coffee by bike? SO COOL!

I had so much fun on this trip hanging out and riding with some great women who ride in a great city. Whenever I leave bike friendly places like this, I leave knowing that the reason these cities are so great is because of the PEOPLE. People who stand up for what they want and, wonder of wonders, can actually get it! Go Minneapolis Go!