Adventures

I’m getting behind on writing these race reports. I realize that as I sit here typing on my flight to the Norba National in Brian Head, UT. I guess I’m losing my enthusiasm. I haven’t been to Europe at all this year and I think I miss the excitement of the long days of travel with no sleep, the sparse accommodations, marginal food, scary courses, and miserable weather. Haha! No not really. I have to admit all of that does make for some great stories though.

Anyways, we made the trip up to Schweitzer Mountain for the third year in a row. I missed the first year because of my shoulder surgery in 2003. Schweitzer is a tiny ski area that sits above the town of Sand Point, Idaho. Sand Point is way up north, almost to Canada. We flew into Spokane and then drove 1 1/2hrs to the ski area. Our whole team stayed in one condo this time. Katerina and I elected to share the master suite upstairs. It was a huge room with its own bathroom. Gorgeous views. We figured that since I’m married and she’s engaged, we could share the king size bed because we were both used to sleeping with someone. I figured if we ended up spooning it wouldn’t be a big deal.

I needed to do a recovery ride the day we arrived so I elected to sit on the trainer for an hour. Sounds silly but the ski area is on the side of the mountain. There isn’t any thing flat except for the parking lot. Can’t ride in circles in the parking lot for an hour, so I chose the trainer. I set up outside our condo next to the cab of the Luna truck. I put my book on the hood of the truck and was able to read while riding my bike. A little mental stimulation never hurts.

On Friday I rode one lap of the course. It was very similar to last year, except that some of the best singletrack sections were now muddy logging roads through areas that had been clear cut. Kind of depressing. The course climbed up a dirt road for ten minutes before narrowing into a small double track logging road. It was muddy in places and full of debris; twigs, sticks, limbs, bark etc. The first singletrack descent was fairly short and then you were climbing again. The rest of the course was a mix of short climbs, short descents. Nothing was super technical, but at high speed the trail was challenging. Lots of turns, ditches, switchbacks, rock gardens, and high speed descents. And the worst part was that the race finished part way up a climb. Mentally it’s always harder to finish on a climb than after a descent. It took over an hour to ride one loop. Pretty long. Afterwards I grabbed my recovery drink and headed back to the condo.

Our race on Saturday wasn’t until 3:15pm. (I’m distracted as I type this because we are flying over the Grand Canyon right now!) It’s a huge annoyance to race late in the afternoon. Other than getting to sleep in, there’s no good reason for racing late in the day. You can’t really go and do anything; might make the legs tired. You can’t walk around the venue watching other races; definitely will make the legs tired. You basically hang out in the condo either watching TV, sleeping, reading, eating, or stretching. It’s pretty boring. It’s not really all that relaxing because you know what’s coming and that makes you nervous.

Around 12:30 there was an enormous storm that blew through and pummeled the area with hail, huge amounts of rain, and a lot of wind. Definitely wasn’t going to be a dusty course anymore.

Before

After

From our porch

In twenty minutes the excitement was over. We heard later that our mechanics had a snowball fight with the Maxxis guys using the large amounts of hail covering the tech area.

When we finally got to race the clouds were threatening again and I knew we were in for a wet day. The race started as always; a fast and furious dash up the first climb, trying to be the first one in the singletrack. The legs weren’t good and I went into the first descent in 6 th place I think. I didn’t feel that bad, I just couldn’t seem to get going. Felt like my legs were still asleep in bed. I rode alone the rest of the race. I could see riders in front of me but could never close the gap. I held my own in 7 th place the entire day. It rained pretty hard on us the second lap and things got slippery and muddy. I lost some of my confidence and rode cautiously. At this point I was doing damage control. The podium was out of reach and I was merely racing for some semblance of pride. I finished in the same place I started: 7 th. Not good at all. Not what I expected after such a good race the week before in Angel Fire. All I could do now was slurp down a chocolate recovery drink, spin out the legs, and head back to the condo for a big dinner.

Sunday’s short track was at 2:15pm. A little better than yesterday, but still too late for my liking. The course was a big disappointment. It was a shorter version of last year’s course. Each lap only took a minute. When courses are this short it is difficult to move up. And when the field is racing single file it can take up almost half of the lap. If you get dropped from the front group you can get lapped by the leaders within minutes and to avoid causing chaos, lapped riders always get pulled. It costs $50 to race a short track event. I personally wonder why any non-sponsored rider would shell out that kind of money to ride maybe ten minutes if they are lucky. Doesn’t seem fair. A longer course, maybe a three minute lap, gives more riders a chance to finish. More exciting to watch and better for our sport.

Anyways, I had a great start and was sitting in second and third for the first four laps. Sue Haywood set a blistering pace and I was doing all I could to sit on. Coming through the start/finish after the 4 th lap the pace slowed down and five riders flew right past me. And just after that Sue Haywood attacked again. Everyone chased and the field was strung out single file. The course was such that there were very few opportunities to pass the rider in front of you. I was stuck in 7 th place for the rest of the race. It was incredibly frustrating because I was going just as hard as the first rider in our group, yet I couldn’t move up. It truly was twenty minutes of misery. Sue Haywood won and my teammate Katerina was 4 th. It was a rough day for our team.

After the race we showered, ate lunch, packed up all our stuff, and drove down the mountain to Sand Point. We watched Waldek play in the lake, waited for our mechanics to come down in the truck, and then went out for a yummy dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. Then it was back to Spokane. We had a 6am flight back home. Another race weekend in the bag. Now it’s back home for a race in Snowmass. Looking forward to being back in Colorado. The whole family is going to come. Can’t wait! Until then...