Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Post Mountain States Cup happenings






In the last few weeks I have done the fallowing: Explored a bit of my local area, climbed around a local waterfall, nothing, slept in and did nothing but watched college football, that was awesome!
Been watching a lot of football, Broncos are 2-0...somehow, unfortunately the Buffs could not fallow suit, they are currently stinking it up at 1-2.
Been playing a bit of Frisbee golf, B Bailey has gotten me into that, plans to possibly create a course on the property are in place.
I guess I have been working a lot, which has been unusual as we have been away usually every weekend.
Did a photo shoot with Devon Balet and got some cool shots of us riding on the property, would like to do that more.
After work, we all have been doing a lot of nothing, just hangin out, I definitely felt this at the last race, should do a bit more to keep in shape!

This past weekend however, there was a collegiate race that happened at Sol Vista. It was put on by the School of Mines, part of the collegiate series I so frequented as a scholar, this year however I just raced the open category. It was a good race, but before the race, I forgot to mention me and Michael rode winter park for a bit of fun...which it was. Back to the collegiate race. The course was Cheez it which I really don't enjoy too much as a race course, it is slow, and technical, lots of small bumps and flat washed out turns, makes you feel like crap on the bike, fun trail, just can't go as fast as you really want to. There were some fun festivities that took place over the weekend, including the Collegiate Pump Track World Championships. I participated in Crocs and my board shorts, and won using Dieder's bike. That night some CU hooligans created a 20 foot tall tepee and then proceeded to light it on fire, it then grew to about 30 feet tall, perfect conditions for it made for a successful bond fire. The next day was the race. Joey took the Men A by a huge margin, he also took the speed trap victory as he was fastest through the rocks at 22 mph. The speed gun died and the open classes could not be recorded, which was a bummer as the payout was a cool $100 bucks. Joey repeated and won the Open improving his already fast time by a second and beat me by a solid 7 seconds, as I felt like I had a good run, but not a fast one my any means, still happy with 2nd and the nice little payday that came of it! After the race, as the fire still simmered from the night before we did a bit of free riding in the rain, watched the Broncos defeat the brownies from the bar and then cruised over to Todd and Julie Olsen's house for some BBQ and pump track action. A sleepy food coma induced drive home and a late night brought the weekend to a close.

Currently, its cold out and I feel the ski season creeping ever more closely, already looking at ski stuff on the web, doing a little research!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

End of the season review






Started the month of August off right by winning the Colorado Crankworx Dual Slalom and a thousand dollar novelty check, stoked on that! The race was a mud fest and I think my all mountain riding skills and ability to adapt to conditions won it for me as I never dropped a race.

Only video I could find: http://broadbandsports.com/node/28443&loc=mostpop

The next weekend Snowmass held the Colorado State Championships. I had been looking forward to this race ever since last year when I got cought in a freak lightning storm at Sol Vista. Team Geronimo and the Juniors had a great showing with a few state champions being crowned. Unfortunately I couldn't hold it together to capture a jersey. After qualifying 4th in 4X I was knocked out of the final by Jon Watt and into the final where I law darted into the back of a roller...8th for me, 6th for Michael. The DH was a great course and was holding together on race day. I qualified 10th on decent yet mistake riddled run, I tried to clean it up for the final but I had a mechanical and had to play it safe all the way down. I was saved possibly and flagged down near the bottom and was rewarded a re-run. Using Michael's bike I had a grea trun going until I lost it, got off line and slid on my head for the second time in 24 hours. A crash and a 14th place result left a bad taste in my mouth as I knew I had a top 5 in me.

Snowmass video
http://www.superhumanmag.com/content/view/1553/1/

We took a bit of a business trip to Tahoe instead of racing out east for a three week planned trip. It was a very productive time as we coached with Gene Hamilton and World Champion Greg Minnaar at Northstar, CA. After the camp we stayed with our friend and fellow racer Graeme Pitts for a week. It was a great time and very vacation like as we slept in everyday and ate very well thanks to Leslie and Gary Pitts. We rode XC, swam in lakes, built trails and did a bit of sight seeing. I would recommend riding 'toads wild ride' as it was really fun, technical and flowy.

The last race of the season went down last week at Sol Vista and it was fittingly called the Sol Survivor. I was in first place for the overall heading into the race and had to do well to retain my lead. Michael was also in the hunt in 5th. First race of the weekend was the 4X, the same course that was used for the national champs. I had an interesting qualifying run and ended up seeding in 1st, just ahead of Ross Milan, Chris Boice, Dave Zeigmond and Michael. I cruised through my first two heats and then met Milan, Zeigmond and Petr Hanek in the finals. There was a big pile up right after the first straight that involved Petr, Ross and me. I had a bad gate and ended up fallowing in on the wheels of Ross and Petr until Ross slid out into Petr causing a road block for me. I tried to jump the pile but got caught and crashed. Everyone scrambled to get back up and onto their bikes, Ross was first to the next turn, Dave who crashed all by himself above the pile up got up and passed me while I was running to keep in the hunt. I could not reel them back in and ended up in 3rd, earning some good points for the overall. The DH was held on the classic course 'Cougar' I had a good practice and seeding run landing in 2nd place .01 behind Chris Heath for 1st, Chris Boice qualifies 3rd. In my race run I made mistakes all the way down the track and was a second and a half slower than my seeding and ended up with a disappointing 7th and a 2nd Overall in the series. I'm happy with my season, made progress and found myself in position to win, thats all I could ask for. Michael moved into 4th place for the overall.

Sol Survivor, 2009 Mountain States Cup Final - More Mountain Bike Videos



Next up are some collegiate races, and the Red Bull 12 hour races to finish up the season. In the mean time, I'm gonna have some fun exploring and relaxing in the valley as I'll be moving back to Boulder soon.