The Philadelphia Women’s 100 Ride Series prepares local women to take on the challenge of the Rapha Women’s 100 ride day, a global event where the Philadelphia contingent takes a 70-ish mile ride to Tabora Farms and back.
Hills: ascending + descending spearheaded by Laser Cats’ Elisabeth Grindcore! (All photos by Laser Cat Sophia)
BIG GROUP!
Photo by Michaela! (All the rest by Sophia)
Last Year, Rapha began a global initiative to encourage more women to ride bikes. Local groups organized to ride a metric century (~64 miles) together around the world. Philly had their own group organized by Laser Cats’ own Melissa Tabas and Arrow Racing / Women Bike PHL’s Michelle Lee. Read more about the official event: Rapha | Women’s 100. Continue reading
Prologue
I cashed in big time on the host housing thing, back when I did a little charity ride called Bike and Build: a group of people who ride across America (coast to coast) to raise awareness for and build affordable housing across America. I slept in church basements, school gyms, JCC’s, occasional dorm or hotel, in host housing, and throughout the process was amazed over and over at the generosity of strangers who take in strangers, just because that’s the right thing to do, and they are in a good circumstance to be able to do so.
Pepper Palace Pro Cycling Team!
Ever since then, I’ve been looking to keep the good karma flowing, and it’s also just fun to have old friends and new friends over for cycling and other events (erm, med school interviews and mathematics conferences for example). And thus, when Elisabeth sent out an email asking if anyone would be interested in hosting some people, I responded in a heartbeat: of course! Continue reading
Number plate secured, cloudy steamy skies above
I know better.
That’s the refrain for my first foray into the world of Cat 1 XC mountain bike racing. It means a lot of different things, though. Let me explain. Continue reading
Photo by God & Famous http://godandfamo.us/blog/
A vaincre sans péril, on triomphe sans gloire.
Like the stuff of legends, Red Hook Crit polarizes opinions instantaneously. You either think it’s the most idiotic ridiculous fake race ever, or you actually know what it’s about: an event that requires courage, confidence, and extraordinary skill. Yes, it’s on brakeless track bikes on a crit course. Yes, that is unusual. Yes, I don’t recommend it for an average joe who happens to ride bikes occasionally. However, the next person who tells me that it’s a “glorified alley-cat with a bunch of untrained amateurs,” or that it is a race that is “adding risk, for the shear sake of having the risk” – if you’re brave enough to say it to my face, you will encounter a dark, dark side of me that you’d best leave alone. Yes, it is dangerous, but so is every other bike race. I have felt safer in the Red Hook Crit women’s fields than some as a result of the high caliber of women racers who participate.
OK, rant aside now: you guys, this weekend was just really fucking awesome. Continue reading
Yesterday the Laser Cats got an amazing, ebullient text message from Sophia who was SO JAZZED on endorphins after doing her morning road work. That is 100% how I felt after going to my first-ever Belmont Thursday night mountain bike race. Through a years-long perfect life storm of weird work hours, injury, and surgery/rehab, I’d never been able to attend. In a weird way, I was kinda ok with this: the Belmont can be super intimidating and it seemed like it would only be more so when shared with a bunch of fast trail wizards.
I’ll admit it has been a mission of mine for some time to make peace with the Belmont; to gain some semblance of competence and proficiency with it. Continue reading
As a roadie-turned-cyclocrosser, I never really learned how to do logs. Sure, over the years, I’d gained enough confidence on a bike to sort of haphazardly roll over the little ones that cropped up at races, but I always envied my mtb-turned-cyclocrosser friends who rolled over logs like they were so many feet of flat pavement. This needed to stop! Continue reading
At first I wasn’t excited to register and race due to a long winter of general laziness but I thought it might throw some motivation my way if I had something to work towards. Just two days before the race is scheduled, I come down with a solid sinus infection, so all expectations for the race went quickly out of the window. Continue reading
Elisabeth “Grindcore” Reinkordt, Laser Cat spotted in the wild by photog Jules Benson
After relocating from the epicenter of endurance backroad racing (Lincoln, Nebraska, home of Gravel Worlds) to the much more urban Mid-Atlantic last fall, I was excited about all sorts of new racing and riding opportunities and meeting all sorts of amazing women to ride with (hello, Team Laser Cats, Women Bike PHL Devo Squad, ladies of Arrow Racing, and so many others). However, I knew I’d miss getting up at the crack of dawn (or well before) to spend all day on the bike, pushing that odometer over the 100-mile mark. Continue reading
Team Laser Cats 