Richard gets richer.

I've decided that I want to be in Nelson while I'm in New Zealand for the winter.  It looks like a stunning city on the northern coast of the South Island. And it hosts one of four New Zealand Mountain Bike Cup races on Feb. 13th.  The hostels look pretty great (and cheap too!) and almost all have bicycle parking included in the night's fee.

Here's the first picture that comes up if you google image Nelson, NZ. Pièce de résistance!

On a less exciting note, I got scammed on pinkbike last week! I've been searching for a used bike travel case to bring to NZ and posted a wanted add on the website. I will never do that again. I figure that mean people go through wanted adds and tell you they have exactly what you want and for the price you want it and they get you all excited about how lucky you are to find such a sweet deal. Then they steal your money.

So "Richard from Quebec" e-mails me saying "Hey Erica I have exactly what you want at the price you want it for. Here's a picture. Free shipping." Sweet! I asked him if I could pay on delivery and he said he never ships things out without some sort of payment upfront, so he would accept half of the payment now and half upon delivery. Seems fair, thanks Richard, you're nice. I sent him the first half of the money. I will never do that again. That was the last time I heard from Richard. Richard you're mean.

I know you really shouldn't ever send money to anybody ever ever ever but I guess I was blinded by this sweet deal and decided to trust Rich just this once. $100 poorer, I'm still looking for a way to bring my bike overseas. (please no comments about my poor judgement, unless you really must)



This is a bad news sandwich, with good news as the bun. I finally start training for the 2011 season on December 1st!  I'm looking forward to not feeling out of breath when I climb the stairs. I have a new HR monitor (Garmin 305) and I've ordered a new bike from the Trek Store in Toronto. It's a Trek 8000, and with my xtr wheels I think it'll look and be super keen.