Going Home

Thank you.

I was truly surprised by the support I have received from everyone. Especially from people I have never met. I am humbled by your generosity. I have enough to go home. I won't be driving my Focus though. After talking to my dad about what was wrong with it, I decided that it was not safe, and in reality until I get it looked at and fixed I shouldn't even be driving it at all. Thankful my amazing friends have stepped up and made sure that I have a reliable car to get me home.

Craft Star Bazaar was a huge success and a nice break from the sadness of loosing my Grandmother and the anxiety of trying to get home.

I'm sure I will have much more to say on both of these things next week. Right now I am busy packing up. I want to leave as early as possible tomorrow morning.

Help Get SurlyGirl Home

First of all this is not an easy post to write. If you know me you know I am stubborn and independent and unless I am immediately related to you I will not ask for your help. I'm serious, I'll go hungry, rather than ask for financial help, and I'll walk five miles rather than ask for a ride. Over the course of my life I've done both.

Second, I am not destitute. I've just hit a rough spot. I took a de facto pay cut when I moved. I did not adjust to my living to my new income and burned through my savings. My fault, and I paid the consequences for it by sitting out Fool's Gold, and Shenandoah. I was just starting to get things back on track when the car broke down and it took everything I had to fix it.

I had hoped to have a little more time to build my savings back up before this day came, but unfortunately I didn't. As you know from my previous post my Grandmother has passed away. The funeral is Monday. I am leaving either Saturday night or Sunday to head back to Michigan. I have enough money to get to Ohio.

I need help. There are a couple of ways you can help me. First, if you live in Roanoke come to the Craft Star Bazaar tonight and tomorrow. Buy my stuff so I can have some gas money. Second if you can't come or don't live in Roanoke you can donate to my Get SurlyGirl Home Fund. I've added a donate button to the sidebar. It connects to my Paypal account, which I have a debit card to so I will have instant access to the funds. I get another installment of my sign-on bonus in December. That money was originally earmarked for wheels, but instead I will use it to pay back anyone who donates to my cause. I'll have your emails, and I'll send the money back through Paypal right after the first of the year. If you can't do either of the first two, you can definitely do this one, say a prayer for me and send me positive thoughts. I'm a little nervous about taking the car on this long of a trip, but I feel that this is what I'm suppose to do so I'm going to do it and hope for the best.

And to all my Michigan racing friends, if I get enough money from you to make it home I'll promise to race the final Kisscross Race in my SurlyGirl Shirt and tutu. Wouldn't you like to see that?

Dog Day Friday

Taking care of Momma

If you want to know how I'm really doing watch my dog. Izzy can read me better than anyone. If she's not eating, it's typically because I'm not eating. Which means there's something wrong. If I'm upset or depressed, she's glued to me. And when I cry she's on top of me.

This is where she spent most of yesterday.


Yesterday my Grandma passed away. It was a rough day. At times I would be fine, and then I'd just burst into tears. It's hard being away from my family, but my dogs and my friends are taking care of me.

I will be going back to Michigan. All the details haven't been worked out, but I am confidient that it will fall together and I will be headed home shortly.

I'll Be Back

Slightly overwelmed with this.
I'll be back to blogging next week. Until then if you're desperate for something to read, you can reread this seasons race reports. See them over there on the sidebar. I'm sure next week I'll have a lot to say about the season, and plans for next year.

Kikapu's Big Accomplishment

After living in this house for almost a year and a half Kikapu finally worked up the courage to walk across the air intake grate. There's a small strip of flooring on the one side that she uses, but sometimes it gets blocked and she doesn't know what to do. She'll cry and cry until I come and carry her across. I intentionally blocked it and then encouraged her to walk across and she finally did it.

Notice Izzy showing off how easy it is.

Star City Crashes the Blue Ridge Cyclocross Cup

Last night Roanoke Cyclists came together under the banner of Star City Vicious and led by Capt. Insane-O travelled to Harrisonburg to take on Foofville (Charlottesville), Rocktown (Harrisonburg) and Queen City (Staunton) in the Blue Ridge Cyclocross Cup.


Our planned invasion was several weeks in the making, but due to poor weather and illness many weren't able to make it. A brave few of us headed up to Harrisonburg to participate in the underground cyclocross race. It gave me an opportunity to finally wear my SurlyGirl Shirt, along with my tutu.


We had been lead to believe that the park would be lit. There were some lights, but not really sufficient to be riding around in the dark. I'm very surprised there weren't more injuries. Especially in the death spiral.


It was a mass start and they were only handing out points to the top five. I knew I would be nowhere near the top and the course scared me in the dark. I was also way over geared. So I basically sat up and just enjoyed riding around in my SurlyGirl Shirt and tutu.


Oh and the pink panties made another appearance.


I attempted to use my frillies to distract the competition for my team mates. I did have a couple of guys refuse to pass because they were "enjoying the view." I also attempted to do some blocking for Ron when he lapped me. But my efforts were wasted as he later flatted and had to run out the remainder of the race.


I think Harrisonburg won the race, but Roanoke put in a good showing. I do think we were the best dressed, and for having come the furthest I also think we had the most participants and spectators.

Race Fail

This weekend was really about two races. Iceman and Tech Cross.

This weekend was Iceman. And of course I was not there. I had a much harder time dealing with it than I thought I would. Friday night was particularly hard. The entire afternoon and evening I kept doing this - If I were at Iceman I would be... I basically went through everything I would be doing, preriding, eating, picking up my packet, prepping the bike. If I closed my eyes I could almost see, hear and smell the Expo. Really wanted to be there. Very upset about not being there.

While I was throwing myself a little pity party, crying about what I was missing I got a call from Paula. She and Moe had something for me for Tech Cross. The Surly has sort of gotten a second life as a crossbike. And to keep it fun, I've adapted my blog moniker and am officially SurlyGirl. They made me this great shirt for my race.


Don't I have such great friends?

My plan was to do both of the Tech Races, Saturday I would be a good girl and wear my Team Kit and Sunday I would wear my SurlyGirl outfit with the pink ruffled panties.

Saturday started out alright. My race wasn't until 7 pm so I had the entire day. I thought I would have a hard time thinking about Iceman going on. And believe me all day I was conscious of exactly what was going on up North, especially at the time I would have been racing. I tried really hard to focus on being positive and getting ready for Tech Cross. I spent most of the morning in the garage working on the Surly. I was listening to my Iceman playlist and having a pretty good morning. But I was forgetting a major racing rule. DON'T MESS WITH THE BIKE RIGHT BEFORE A RACE!

A group of us had planned to go down, race Saturday, stay the night in Blacksburg and then race again Sunday. The leader of our little group injured himself on Friday and wasn't going to make it down to the races. Somehow some of the Cruise Director responsibilities fell to me. It was something I wasn't prepared for and a responsibility I didn't want. I am ashamed with how I handled myself. In addition to getting myself ready for the race I was also helping a first time racer work her way through the process. I want to encourage more women to get involved in racing, so I wanted it to be a positive experience for her. I felt like I was failing her, and I knew I wasn't doing what I needed to do to be ready for the start. As my anxiety and frustration grew I got pissy with the people at registration and then lashed out at the person I felt put me in this position. When he called to see if I was okay, I said mean things and then hung up on him. Yep, this is the frame of mind you want on the start line.

For how pissy and angry I was at the start, it actually went really well. The start that is. I didn't get a chance to do much of a preride, so I really didn't get a chance to test the changes I had made. I was right up in the front and was feeling really good. Until my bike broke. I hadn't tightened down the rear hub sufficiently. The rear wheel slipped, came forward and that was about it. I didn't have any tools, and even if I had I was so angry and frustrated that I couldn't wrap my head around what I needed to do to fix it. I hadn't even done a lap. I walked off, reported in as DNF and went to my car to cry about it. I cried about not being at Iceman, about being let down, about letting other people down, and just being disappointed in general. Not my finest hour. Eventually Mary Lou came and found me, I got cleaned up and headed back to the race. Both Skip and Ron had races. We got Ron to take PBR hand ups. No one was in the mood to race Sunday, so we headed back to Roanoke, and I spent Sunday doing what I maybe should have done all weekend. I spent the day by myself, and let myself be disappointed and sad about not going to Iceman instead of trying to find something to replace it or make up for it.

In the spirit of always trying to learn from my mistakes and taking something away from every experience I did get something out of this. In addition to learning that I'm a selfish bitch, I also realized just how much I actually love racing and while I keep entertaining the idea of "retiring" I walked away from this weekend with a new zeal for racing the NUE series next season. I'll talk about that a little more tomorrow, or Wednesday or later in the week. I know this blog is lacking a little lately. Blame it on facebook, and it's ability for drive by blogging. But there really hasn't been anything of biking significance going on lately.