Specialized in sponsoring

I miss my bike.....that sounds odd like that. Well, I miss cycling, I miss tackling the hills and single tracks around Draguignan......I've celebrated Christmas in excellent style, about 4 days in a row with colleagues, my boyfriend and family, but I've had enough. I'm still in Amsterdam.

I wanna be on my bike, whether it's an hour on my Specialized just to shake-off the Christmas excesses, or whether it's a couple of hours on my road bike.....I need to ride!!

The picture is taken in Greoux-les -bains, which was my last free ride in November. Looks nice doesn't it those two Specialized bikes......Mine, the Epic, is the small silver one and the one in front is the Marathon of my boyfriend. Looks good this way we think and they're just excellent bikes for the terrain out there.

All I can do now is go to the gym and push weights. Although I take my off-season weight-training very seriously, to me it's an assignment I need to do. Progress is evident though. After the weight training sessions in spring to re-adjust the strenght in my right leg, so both legs would be balanced, these sessions are focused on pure strength. Power and explosive force is what I'm training for and the results are beginning to show.

The competitive season starts in March 2008 and my big goal is the World Championships for Masters in PraLoup in August. The one and only!

With the last days of the year to bridge, before returning to France, I'm also picking-up my search for sponsorship.

My employer finished my contract, the louzy bastard and I'm going to nominate them for worst employer of 2007 and 2008, so the funds will stop very soon, unless I decide to take legal action against him......just for kicks?

Anyway, sponsorship is what it will take to finish my Mountainbike training in France. I've been thinking of the Bever Zwerfsport chain in the Netherlands or the Icebreaker clothing company. For Icebreaker it could be perfect.....France is a big market.

Of course the KNWU partners could throw me a bone as well....It's also in their interest that the best qualified people are related to them and their activities....

It's a big world out there and my knowledge of how to attract sponsors is limited; who will help.

Enjoy the last days of 2007 while you can. Indulge, celebrate and ride wild...

Amsterdam in Winter

All of a sudden it is winter in Amsterdam, in Holland. This morning we woke up to a white world. It takes me a while to get used to winter and the cold, in fact, I don't get used to it anymore at all. No matter how hard I try, I shiffer as soon as I step into my kitchen or outside.

All this has nothing to do with mountainbiking, or BMX or other cycling activities. It's just winter and that's nice too for a change.....

Sometimes your destiny just falls on your doorstep, whether you'd asked for it or not. That's what happened last weekend, when, just back from my week in France, I wanted to get some weigth training done at the gym where I work. Cold 4 minutes after arriving and chatting with some of my colleagues, the new 'floor-manager' approached me with the kind news that this week would be my last. Now....this was news to me, but then management has never been outstanding, so I went into a not so calm discussion with the man. To my colleagues this kind of discussion was not new, and always the cherry on the cake. It livens up the work-day, doesn't it.

In the end it may not be all that bad, I was going to France in January anyway.....however the way of bringing it sucks....Big time!!

Two days later I figure that they are doing me a favour. Let them sort out their mess without me. I'll be biking my legs off. In the sun, and I'll be working with groups and kids. I'll be able to really teach again and enjoy myself. And hopefully gain some money at the same time.

Mont Ventoux - Mountainbike Paradise

What else does a person need, when a week of BMX en Mountainbike fun turns out to also be an investment in the future. What else do I need but a beautifull place to stay close the Carpentras at the foot of the Mont Ventoux, with good company and some excellent instruction to improve my skills.


Fair enough, it was cold, bitterly cold because of the wind. I think that the windchill added up to about minus 10 C. in the evening and we were not amused. Especially when the fuel heaters stopped working in the middle of the night only to wake up to a frostbitten landscape.


But heck, we were enjoying ourselves!! We had the apartment to ourselves, there was a friend to guide and teach us some of the difficult BMX-techniques and we had a trainer who joined us for a mountainbike trip.


It was only a short trip, but....the learning curve was all the bigger and all the more rewarding, because I went down a short and very steep track, thanks to some coaching. I was over the moon; never had I done a thing like this before. One simple remark (and of course two guys who were freezing their bunns off, so they just wanted me to get the heck down and trust the bike and myself) and it went smooth like a hot knife through butter. Just like that. The second one was even better, over a small bridge of sand and earth, to turn down through yellow and ocre sand and to end up under that same ocre bridge, in an old ocre and sand pit and mine. There in the south of France; one of those spots you see in bike-videos, where you want to go but can't find.......well I was there.





And it was fantastic.




Take a look, go have fun there and enjoy!
http://www.ventouxaventure.com/

Kiezen voor vrijheid!

Wat doe je als je een droom kunt waarmaken en je wordt voor de keus gesteld om een baan aan te nemen met een hoog salaris? Ga je voor de droom, voor de passie en voor het gevoel van vrijheid? De keuze tussen de vrijheid van geld, met een 40 uurs baan en de vrijheid van geest, buiten en in de zon, om de natuur te delen met andere mountainbikers. Wat doe je?

Ik heb gekozen voor de passie, voor het afmaken van mijn opleiding en voor het opzetten van mijn eigen mountainbike vakanties in het zuiden van Frankrijk. Daar ga ik voor en dus maak ik de opleiding af. Dat houdt ook in dat ik nog een tijdje heen-en-weer blijf reizen tussen Amsterdam en mijn halve baan in een sportschool en Nice en Draguignan om daar te trainen, te fietsen en les te geven.
Mountainbiken kan het mooiste zijn wat er is; opstakels op en af, rotsen, boomwortels, keien en steile paadjes op en af fietsen. Nieuwe plekjes ontdekken, een nieuw pad overwinnen en het plezier van de controle over je fiets en jezelf. Altijd in overleg met jezelf of je die helling nog wel kunt doen na 2 uur fietsen en als je dan nog omhoog kunt, in welke stijl. Hard en technisch of berekend en op reserve.
Om 04:00 gaat de wekker, want ik heb een vlucht om 06.50. Het is mooi zo leven; volgende week is de training, ook een stukje vakantie. Alleen zouden een paar dagen vrij zijn en helemaal niks doen ook goed uitkomen.