Wintertime blues

Pretty picture, huh?

If you live someplace that requires layering up like a Taco Bell burrito before heading outside—or worse yet, you’re forced to ride inside—well, um, sorry. Here in Southern California, we’re already a couple races into the 2010 season.

Oh, don’t worry. Months from now, when your creeks are flowing and flowers blooming, our stressed out Smokey Bear signs will be pointed right to the red zone. We’ll deal with that when the time comes. For now, however, we’re hitting the trails.

That's Nick Ducharme of the Felt engineering team tearing it up at Round 2 of the Southridge Winter Series. Nick doubled it up over the weekend, racing the XC and Super D events at the five-race series in Fontana.

Nick rode pretty fast, too: He won the Expert Class Super D on his Felt Virtue (that's the photo above) and also finished third in the Expert XC race on a Felt FRD 100. Our friend Chris Wood took the bitchin’ photo. If you happened to be racing at Southridge and are interested in checking out your rad self in a photo, visit Chris's site.

Let the season begin!

New co-sponsor, new team kits, new Felt bikes, and Phil Liggett on the microphone. It can only mean one thing: The 2010 race season has arrived! Some of the Garmin-Transitions boys are in Oz for the Tour Down Under, here's a snippet from the team intro. Check out the Felt website for updates throughout the week.

Completing the Sweep

You’ve probably already heard about the first big win of the year for Felt and the Garmin-Slipstream squad. But Cam Meyer wasn’t the only one laying down a sizzling time at the Aussie Time Trial Nationals on a Felt DA.

The biggest surprise of the day belonged to Amber Halliday, a woman who never raced a bike until last year. Amber stormed to victory in the 28-kilometer elite women’s race, beating the 2008 champion, Bridie O’Donnell, by 4 seconds.

While Amber may be a cycling newbie, she’s no stranger to top-level sport. The 30-year-old from Adelaide is a former Olympic rower with a handful of sculling world championships to her name. After the 2008 Olympics, she traded the oars for wheels.

“I was pretty much always going to retire after Beijing and I’ve always enjoyed riding my bike,” Amber told CyclingNews.com after her win. “It’s a big part of cross training for rowing, and I started to enjoy it a little bit too much towards the end of my rowing career.”

Here’s a shot of Amber, moments before rolling out of the start gate on her Felt DA. Good on ya, Amber!