ooer, have to find a grassy field to practice - oh, hey, I know of one, and my dh can come touch wheels with me. He weighs less than I do so I won't get squashed too bad if we go down .

Funny story: met an ex-colleague of mine after the race. He told us that somebody had crashed/fallen over right in front of him on the final killer hill. Ex-c had a new bike and was so focused on not crashing it that he tried to ride OVER the guy who was down. Didn't make it, but did manage to crash with his body dwon and his new bike up in the air...

No other women in my team, or the level above either, actually. So I get to be a bit of mascot to all the middle-aged guys Which is fine with me, so far.

(Actually it's a little bit funny, because one or two of them have had a little trouble wrapping their heads around the fact that I can keep up with them and even outride them, even though they're 30 pounds overweight and haven't ridden a bike all winter... Being male isn't *always* enough. )