Whoosh! That's the end of mountain bike season flying past at warp speed.

   For all intents and purposes, 2012 DH racing is a wrap! The last 3 weekends have gone by so stinking fast I can hardly keep track of up or down (or keep my wheels on the ground for that matter)...Somebody sped up the earth's rotation without letting me know and it's really been messing with my balance lately. Racing on Boondocks--already 2 weeks ago at this point--at least I stayed on my bike, but couldn't keep it on the trail. That bobble cost me probably more than the 2 seconds I lost to first place on that run, but I pedaled madly and stayed off the brakes more than ever in the lower sections to make up a decent amount of time.  After screwing up I managed to stay focused, and definitely would have beaten my Pro GRT time if the finish had been in the same place.
   The Tahoe Fat Tire Festival at Squaw Valley the following weekend brought even more fun and excitement; I had just replaced my brake rotors that were bent and rubbing with brand new ones, which just happened to rub even worse, like riding with your brakes on. Crap! I'm not exactly a mechanical genius, in fact I'm kind of scared to mess with my bike too much because I seem to always make it worse, so I just decided to ride Kit's bike for the race instead. The course was a whopping 3 miles long with a good amount of pedaling, and the only techy rock section was at the top and not really that bad at all. That made it easy to decide on a 30 lb 7-inch travel bike without perma-brakes over my V-10. I took one practice run before the race and decided it was good enough, never mind the suspension was set up for Kit (and being air I could have easily changed it). But I didn't. Probably would have helped a bit...Midway through the rocks I put my front wheel in the wrong place and went OTB, not a hard crash but a slow topple that cost some time. I hopped back on and got going, and things were smooth until farther down in the woods I snagged a pedal on something and found myself in the dirt again. Got a little mad and pedaled harder, but not quite enough to catch Tasa, who finished about 8 seconds ahead of me. Despite my inability to stay on the bike during the race, it was a good event overall. The festival atmosphere always makes bike racing more fun, and being able to race on a new trail in the spectacular setting of Squaw's mountainous terrain is pretty neat. Hopefully the event makes a return next year, with a real DH course, and maybe a dual slalom or something!
  Finally there was the Tara Llanes Classic this past weekend. The race I was second in last season, by not a whole lot, so my goal this time was to be second again and under 2 minutes to World Cup racer and BMX Olympian Jill Kintner, who obviously was going to win unless her bike had serious mechanical failures. Oh, and I wanted a CLEAN RUN for once! Only out of three goals were met this time: in an effort to "conserve" energy, I took it way too easy on the flat, winding Flameout trail section. What the heck! That didn't do me any good. Then after greasing through the main rock waterfall and gnar section on Sticks & Stones, I make it to just above the last rock garden on the lower trail and spectacularly wad up in a dusty rut. Seriously, I have no idea what even happened, just wound up filled with dust in every orifice and shaking my head. I shook out as much dust as possible and continued on, dirt trickling out of my helmet and goggles the rest of the way to the finish. I wound up in third, just a few seconds off of second place, and barely under 2 minutes from Jill. If I had either pedaled harder (oh the irony) or not crashed it would have been a sure second place--if I had done both pedal and not crash I maybe would have been well under 2 minutes back. Oh well, that's what I get for trying to be smart and strategize--better to just pedal till my legs fall off! My friend Shanna who beat me rode hard the whole way and had spaghetti legs at the end, she definitely earned her giant check! I got one too, just a little bit smaller, but it will still help me fix my bike and get it running better for next year.
   Also a shout-out to Kali for replacing the busted visor on my helmet, probably good that I waited till after the race to do that or else I would have needed 2 of them! And my POC body armor has performed spectacularly this season, keeping me un-injured through the many times I've sampled dirt. Last but not least, Loeka Clothing for keeping me well-dressed in some snazzy gear--unfortunately I've put holes in just about everything this year with my many crashes!
   I'll wait till next time to ponder how I felt about this season as a whole; my patience for sitting here is wearing thin and I need to get outside for a bit before going to the dentist this afternoon...

Only the raddest Labor Day weekend. EVER!

Finally getting back on my butt to finish this post--it's been a crazy couple of weeks!

Where else but Tahoe can one mountain bike downhill and xc, surf, climb rocks, AND have the spectacular backdrop of a massive, clear alpine lake? Ok, so I haven't really researched it, but I can't come up with anything offhand. Tahoe wins!
   After a groggy 5AM start to make an early work meeting in Roseville, I was cut loose by noon to enjoy the rest of my day and get a head start on the 3 day weekend. I chowed some leftovers and made a fresh glass of kale-cucumber-carrot-apple-ginger juice in my new juicer. Yum! (here are some recipes I use for juicing inspiration)
   First up was Northstar for some practice, since I wanted to get a few runs on Dogbone before the Vista chair closed at 5, and maybe check out Livewire and make sure nothing major has changed. I made an interesting observation on Dogbone: riding rocks clipped in still terrifies me. Figuring I didn't need to swap out pedals to practice since I planned to race Livewire clipped in on Sunday, I had no idea how much it would mess with me not being able to dab a foot or detach from my bike in case I topple over...lesson learned. Add that to riding rocks in general; I've spent such little time at Northstar this summer that I probably should have ridden the rocky trails more. I only took 2 runs through and by the end of the second lap my arms were getting tired and stomach grumbly; the bottom section was quite out of control as I sketchily bounced off boulders and tried not to crash. Yikes! Time to call it.
   I headed home and decided to jump in the lake, but as I stood there waves rolled in and crashed on the shore, and my friend Aimee was coming over to surf before watching music on the beach. Wetsuit recently acquired, I bummed a stand up paddle board from Tahoe Eco Sports where I used to work. I forgot how much fun it is to play in the water, taking some spills and catching a few waves; it probably helped that I was on a giant, wide standup paddle board because it seemed easier to stand up than I remembered. The wind gradually died down, waves got smaller, we got cold, and the music started so we got warm and settled in for the last outdoor concert in Kings Beach for the summer.
   Saturday was a good day to hang out with Kit since I planned on racing the following 2 days. We decided to climb at Eagle Lake Cliffs, a rad crack climbing area up above Eagle Lake by Emerald Bay. We only did 2 climbs, a couple of times each; the first one was deceivingly sustained, often awkward, and ended with a terrifying off-width that needed a giant #5 cam to protect. Needless to say I didn't lead that one. The second was as fun as the first was awful, though I didn't lead that one either, with a beautiful steep headwall split by a widening hand crack that still was fist jam-able at the top. 2 or 3 laps on that and I'm spent!
   Race day for Livewire brought me some crappy-feeling legs, thanks to the 45 minute rock hopping stairstep approach to and from Eagle Lake, whoops. One practice run in and I hung out and snacked till time to warm up, then did an easy lap on Vista Chair and went to the top. Livewire is honestly kind of scary to race because the jumps really aren't built for high speeds (the boys must have it really rough), and you go flying off at funny angles from the steep takeoff lips. I was pedaling my brains out any time my wheels were on the ground, so I must be getting in better shape, because my legs seemed to have enough in them for a good race run. I wasn't sure I could pull it off again, but I won the race for the second year in a row! Off to drink a beer or 2 and celebrate.
   At the last minute I decided not to race Dogbone, feeling disgruntled about spending another whole day up at the mountain instead of doing something fun with Kit (who has no interest in watching those smaller races and I don't blame him at all). We hadn't done a big cross country ride in such a long time that it sounded like about time for one of those. Bikes loaded up, we took both cars over to Incline and set up a shuttle at the bottom of Chimney Beach, heading out from the Incline Flume trail on Mt. Rose Highway. Neither of us felt much like climbing thousands of feet so the shuttle seemed like a great idea, and the short section of climbing on Tunnel Creek road to the Flume, and another climb up to the start of Chimney Beach trail, proved to be quite enough. Beautiful weather, not too many people on the trail for Labor Day, and great company put such a big smile on my face! I even cleaned the hard part of the small technical climb on the Flume just below Marlette Lake, only to topple over in surprise just after. Chimney Beach trail was a blast, some parts a bit challenging on a little hardtail, and widened my stupidly big grin at every turn. Stoke-o-meter was high all the way back to the car and down to the beach just down the road where we capped the day with a swim in the lake to wash off all the dust. I needed that so badly!! I brought the camera along for the spectacular Flume Trail but only nabbed one shot of Kit as we were having too much fun to stop. I wore my colorful and comfy Loeka XC kit; we'll have to re-ride that soon and get some more photos!

Kit single speeding the Flume

   That's all for now, back to having fun!

Mid-season musings

   Last weekend's race at Northstar went well--for once, I didn't really have an excuse to do horribly, so I won instead. The course was super easy with lots of pedaling; almost a relaxing experience aside from cranking till your legs explode! I probably could have pedaled more and gone faster, but with the way my season has been so far, I'll take what I can get.

A good shot from last weekend by Chris Demere

   At this point, it's getting dangerously close to the end of another bike season, and I'm already thinking ahead to next year and what to do differently. Case in point: Northstar. While I credit the place for getting me a good start in riding DH, it's feeling smaller and smaller every time I ride there. And with 8 races in the series, being there almost every weekend is starting to get old. I love to ride my bike and don't usually mind where, but growing up racing in Washington spoiled me in getting to travel around the state for races, experiencing a wide variety of venues. So with that in mind, I'm tentatively thinking about a pass to Mammoth next year instead of the 'star again, and definitely focusing on fewer races with more importance, like the Pro GRT series and/or Grand Prix, whichever I can make it to most easily. That would give me more time to train, ride for fun in other cool places, kick back on the beach, and even do some overnight backcountry rock climbs like I used to in the good old days...
   Despite its drawbacks, it has still been a good season to stay local and save money; I've been so far unsuccessful at ridding myself of the same tenacious sinus infection that's persisted for months through several courses of antibiotics, a candida cleanse, and lots of sleep. Next stop is the dentist, who may perhaps find a tooth infection (apparently a common cause of mysterious sickness). Yuck. I HATE going to the dentist, and haven't been to one in several years, go figure. If that clears things up, great, but i'll sure feel like an idiot for not going in sooner!
   More racing this weekend: Live Wire and Dogbone back to back, we'll see if I can defend my victory from last year on Live Wire, and redeem myself from a terrible race at Dogbone when my fork quit working so well.

Playing catch-up

   I guess it's been a few weeks since I wrote anything, so here we go.  2 weekends ago was the Northstar series race on Karpiel, a trail I hadn't actually ridden top to bottom yet, ever.  Practice with my friend Tasa on Friday night had all sorts of fun in store, winding up at one point doing splits over a rock with my bike on top of me, bringing at least a couple minutes of hilarity at being violated by Fabio (that rock section's name was Fabio Falls, it's a long story).  No injuries, just a lot of laughing and some puzzling at how to get out of such an awkward position.  Sunday morning pre-race practice packed a harder punch when I decided to try jumping over some roots in a more familiar part of the trail and found myself forcefully digging in the dirt with my full face helmet.  Helmet totaled, but my brain was ok; sometimes things that seem like a good idea at the time should be considered a little more carefully, luckily the rental shop had a decent lid for me to borrow the rest of the day!
  Race run went well aside from a pretty major bobble at the top of Fabio Falls, not a crash so much as another one of those awkward positions that required some thought to undo. I cleaned Vietnam (the second rock section) without any trouble and wound up in third place, not too bad for the few practice runs I as able to get.  Notice a pattern here yet? Being too darn out of shape to ride all day still, it appears as though adequate practice time is my biggest weakness, but at least it's something I can fix for next season by staying healthy enough to train all winter and into spring.
   I topped my record for practice runs this season on Boondocks, the Pro GRT course for this past weekend, coming in at around 8 or 9 total (hahaha).  My boss was cool enough to let me take time off both Thursday and Friday afternoon to get those much-needed runs before qualifying on Friday evening.  After a few moments of panic at the lift suddenly being stuck at 2 mph for half an hour, we arrived at the top of the course to find that qualifying had been pushed back by 20 minutes to accommodate this.  Phew! I qualified in 4th with a clean but safe and slow run, knowing there was plenty of room for more speed.  My goal for the race was originally not to finish dead last like at Sea Otter--yep, gotta aim high!  Going up against some pretty fast girls, all but one having gone to World Cup races this season, and one the current national champ, this seemed like a tall order with an enormous field of 5.  Even Tasa can pull off a lightning quick run seemingly out of nowhere, whereas I feel like I'm still horribly inconsistent (uhh, practice?).
   I came off the start feeling great, up until only the third corner, a loose and sandy flat turn wherein a stump jumped in front of me and caused an emergency dismount.  Crap! Untangle bike from stump, remount and attempt to clip in (darn pedals, it's never been that hard before!).  The rest of the run was an attempt to not get my butt kicked by too much, sprinting anywhere possible and actually even nailing all of my lines, not to mention successfully staying clipped in around all those duffy loose corners! Coming in at 5:13, 3 seconds slower than my clean qualifying run, I'm a little disappointed in making a mistake like that--but on the other hand, without the crash I would have been right up there with 2nd/3rd place, who were both just under 5 minutes.  So the speed is definitely there, even without that much time on the bike this summer.  It was a bittersweet day for sure, but also a great learning experience on the amount and speed of practice I need.  Yeah, I need to start going faster in practice too, because the reason I blew up in the corner was probably coming in a lot faster than usual!
   So Tasa saved me from coming in last by taking a nice Sunday stroll down the course, haha, thanks lady!  And I wound up with a little $$ for 4th place, took care of my entry fee and still some left over for food and bike parts.  Cool beans.  Got some things to work on before next season but I'm feeling positive that it's nothing too big.  Maybe if I can scrape myself together before the Tara Llanes Classic this year, I can pull off another good result in that race, but in the meantime it's time to finish out the series at Northstar, hoping one of these times I can pull it together (and not break bike parts) for a win.

Sticks & Stones...

didn't break any of MY bones, or my bike for that matter.  But it was a huge bummer to hear after the race that one of the ladies I met checking out lines in the rock waterfall section got injured in that same part of the course.  Hope she recovers soon and gets back on the bike before the season ends!

  I had a clean run, hit all of my lines well, but just ran out of gas at pretty regular intervals while trying to pedal through flat sections.  Being stuck with practicing on Saturday this week, my out-of-shape-ness  became evident while trying to pedal my bike up the short climb to the gondola...only 5 runs the day before, but the rough course took its toll on my body and made it hard to stay on the bike at full speed.  Hence, I probably slowed down more than necessary for some sections.  I came in second place, which was not too bad out of 7 girls, but felt like my fitness was the biggest limiting factor which has definitely not been the case in previous seasons!  

   Struggling to rid myself of a stubborn sinus infection for  over 2 months, and multiple doses of antibiotics do not help a training program at all--even if I had one, that is.  Worried that any physically intense activity might suppress my immune system more, I haven't ridden my XC or road bike much in the last couple of months after coming home from work feeling like crud just about every other day.  But it seems to be finally moving on out, maybe the last round of antibiotics actually did the trick, or perhaps religiously using a neti pot multiple times a day has helped.  Either way I can't wait to get back to pedaling hard (after taking today off to recover)!! There's no race this weekend, but might be a good time to get some runs in on Karpiel and be able to conserve energy a bit more for the weekend after. Then, the Pro GRT, where I'll be pretty happy to be somewhere other than dead last at this point!

Rad photo!

Here's a good shot from last weekend's race, before my caliper came loose and mangled the rotor:

http://www.wmsmithphoto.com/Professional-Photography/Bicycle-Races/2012-Northstar-Race-1-Gypsy/24071548_jF6cQk#!i=1955085529&k=JSKjSxZ&lb=1&s=A

Thanks to Wil Smith at WMSmithphoto.com!

Northstar says...

...Welcome back, sucker!

Needless to say, I didn't win the race yesterday.