We figured that worst case it would be great to watch pro's racing and as the 4X and DH were national qualifiers for Worlds in August there should be some big names. It turns out that most of the big names for DH were at another race on the east coast but there was still an incrediable amount of people there racing (over 600 people registered for the downhill alone)
It was also our first road trip since we got our new dog Bishop.
The dogs were super excited to get going.
But quickly decided driving was boring and sleeping was good.
We have no photos of us riding as racing doesn't really lend itself to that. We arrived Thursday night and set up a tent in the parking lot with everyone else. Amber and I both registered for Super-D and I also registered for Downhill. The weather was pretty funky on the first day and it got really crappy as the day proceeded. Friday was a practice day and we (in hindsight wrongly) opted to start with Super-D track thinking it would be a good way to get some riding in.
Looking back what we should have done was started immediately on the Downhill practice even though the weather was dubious, that would have gotten us over the intimidation factor that haunted us all weekend.
The practice on the Super-D was excellent fun though as the course really was a perfect Super-D track. It had a couple of climbs that meant big bikes were not going to be an option and then a number of technical sections linked by high speed single track.
We practiced in some really wet conditions and decided to do one last run for the afternoon since Saturday was Race Day. The weather came in hard core as we were riding the lift up and we made the bad decision to try and ride down rather than stay on the lift and ride it back down. Conditions were full white out snow and Amber and I both got really, really cold - particularly our fingers.
Saturday was Super-D race day and both Amber and I entered and had a great time. The weather cleared up and it was beautiful and sunny, however the track was muddy and slippery which in race conditions I found to be really fun riding. I definitely had my lazy boots on and took it very easy on the climbs even taking the opportunity to watch the open Women go by me. I ended up in the rear of my classification while Amber ended up 6th in hers. She did a better time than me!
Our first race tags!
Later on Saturday was the 4X mountain cross UCI event where the winner (if they were a USA citizen) was automatically qualified to worlds. We had never seen a mountain cross event live before and it was a lot of fun!
Qualifying saw the riders race individually for seeding.
And the race proper had waves of 4 riders scrambling to get to the bottom first. This is Mike Kreger putting on a show. Mike works at The Fix Bike shop and has helped us out many a time so it was fun to see him at play - the guy can ride and is also a phenomenal announcer.
Cornering with other riders trying to take it as well seems like would be a whole different game than cornering out on the trails!
The winner was Petr Hanak, he lives and works in Sol Vista, CO but was not a USA citizen so the locals would have to wait until the 4X nationals event on Sunday.
We wimped out for the rest of the weekend having lots of good reasons but no valid ones to head home early instead of racing the Downhill. Amber had her last week of school and had a boatload of work to do, she worked all day Monday so it was a good thing we came back early. We were also exhausted from the riding we had done, but the real reason we came back is that the downhill race was simply intimidating! Looking back at the weekend I can only be reminded of times I wimped out from doing a big rock climb, it was really easy to find very valid reasons to do something else.
It was a great first race weekend, the scene was incredible and friendly, the race we did hard and challenging and we got our feet wet at racing!
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