My Women's Cycling Tumblr

“Mountain bike is more freestyle, it’s more relaxed, and more individual. If you’re good and have no technical problems you finish in front. On the road, you play tactics and you’re in a team. With these tactics it’s not always the best who wins, and then you have this tension around the races all the time that you don’t have in mountain bike.

“In mountain biking it’s just racing, you get in your rhythm and you’re good. It’s a nice world. Especially here in America, it’s a good atmosphere. I wanted to come here for the Sea Otter Classic - it didn’t matter it was right after Flèche Wallonne and that I have a race next week. It might not be the perfect preparation and I might mess up one of these races, but I don’t care. Of course, I want to do good, but if I don’t feel well in one of these races then there’s the next race.”

Five days in, a lingering knee injury had come back to haunt Collyn meaning she had to make a tough decision, could she let herself quit, meaning Rachel would have to carry on alone? Collyn shares her agonising experience.

It’s really easy to write about an event in retrospect. You’ve done it. Accomplished something massive. You forget the pain and punishment. You forget the feelings of despair. But I want to tell you about what happens, 5 days into an 8-day mountain bike stage race, when you give up.

Weeee!Playtime @lunaproteam camp twitter.com/cpendrel/statu…

March 16, 2013

Vos put nearly four minutes into the winner of the opening time trial, Slovenia’s Blaza Klemencic, to take the overall lead in the race. She won the stage by 3:31 over Adelheid Morath and now leads the German in the standings by 3:43.

Formerly a Dutch champion in the discipline as a junior, Vos has put her focus into cycling’s other disciplines since she joined the elite ranks in 2006, yet the win still came as a surprise.

“It’s pretty cool to win here. I didn’t expect to be so good,” Vos said. Yesterday already was a surprise. “Of course, the big climbs suits me better than the downhill. I am really happy, that it worked out, incredible.”

Olympic, road and ‘cross world champion Marianne Vos will race round 2 of the Cyprus Sunshine Cup, the SHC-categorized Afxentia mountain bike stage race, on March 1 to 3. The Dutch woman will participate in the race while doing a training camp on the island of Cyprus.

“This is a really big honor to have Marianne Vos at the Cyprus Sunshine Cup,” said Mike Hadjioannou head of the race organizing group Bikin’ Cyprus.

This is what I’ve been doing this week; not only up, but also some MTB downhill: youtu.be/4nP4Gv71pnQ via @shimanomtb #Cyprus #SunshineCup

February 28, 2013

MTB technique training camp Barca so far: 2 days, 11h, 2 flats & 1 crash. Most important: learned a lot & got more comfortable on the bike:)

February 13, 2013

This mtb-thing is great but tiring. Thank you teacher Oscar Saiz for your patience. Small steps & with sore muscles in bed now. #keeptrying

February 14, 2013

Coach Leo van Zeeland even got me on the picture. #GiantXCteam @rabolivgiant - moby.to/stmotj

February 14, 2013