Thursday, June 24, 2010

Ponca


Ponca is a pretty tough course, if you don't believe me, ask Jed.


Ponca…another one of my favorite courses. With all of the rain that the Midwest had been receiving, it was pretty amazing that the race even happened. God was kind enough to provide all of us with near perfect trail conditions as the dirt was damp and very grippy. Lot’s of Iowa peeps made the trip across the river to experience some of the sweet singletrack that the state of Nebraska has to offer, Jed, Maria, Keely, Nate C, Jesse and Katie B to name a few. It was great to finally see a lot of folks from Iowa there. It’d be great to see more Iowa folks head to Nebraska and vice versa.
So the usual Nebraska suspects lined up for the start sans Kent and Steve, I ended up with a pretty lousy start sitting near the back of the pack. As we were approaching the singletrack, I saw MOD roll to the side of the trail with his chain dangling from his drive train. I was really looking forward to dukin’ it out with him, so I was pretty bummed for him. I ended up going into the woods in 8th on Jed’s wheel. It was actually OK with that because we were all in a pretty tight line throughout the beginning of lap 1 (of 5). Jed found some creative ways to get past a couple of dudes that had over-extended themselves at the start. I sat back and patiently waited for chances to pass in the tight, twisty singletrack. Throughout the course of lap 1, I managed to claw my way up to 2nd behind Kevin. I did pretty well in selecting the right places to pass, never pushing myself into the red zone.
As we approached the steep climb leading up to the road crossing, I passed Kevin at a location that would be difficult for anybody else to get by him. I accelerated up the climb with the intent on opening a gap. As I crossed the road at the top of the climb, I could tell that nobody else had gotten around Kevin and that I had established a pretty decent gap. I kept the pressure on throughout lap 2 and took an occasional glance back when the course doubled back on itself and saw nobody….perfect.
I backed it off a tad on laps 3 and 4, keeping one eye on the trail ahead and one eye on the trail behind. As I started lap 5, I turned up the heat again to ensure that nobody (MOD in particular) caught me. MOD has enough bike savvy that he can fix things quicker than the average joe, especially a dropped chain. Nobody ended up catching me, though I think that it would have been a different story if MOD could have kept his chain on his bike. It also would have been a different story if Kent had been there. He instead, opted to spend the weekend down in Arizona chasing forest fires on his bike. Despite dropping his chain three times, MOD managed to salvage a much deserved 2nd and Jesse P continued his good season with 3rd.
Julie had some good competition in the Cat 1 race with Keely Shannon of the PRC Divas making the trip from Des Moines. I was really looking forward to the outcome as they seem to be pretty evenly matched. As I was beginning lap 4, I saw Julie up the trail. I always find myself experiencing the same dichotomy whenever I pass Julie in a race, one hand it would be good not to see her because that would mean that she was having a better than usual race. On the other hand, I love coming up behind her and watching her get her rage on, it makes me smile. Thankfully it wasn’t during a tricky part of the course as it is always a bit of a distraction when passing her during a race….purrrrrrr. Seeing Julie before Keely could only mean one of two things, either Keely is ahead of her, or Keely had dropped out. About a half lap later, I caught and passed Keely. I thought about knocking her into the weeds to kinda help Julie out a little, however the sportsman in me took over and I opted to pass her with kindness. Keely ended up taking down Julie for the win with Julie finishing in 2nd a few minutes back. It’s going to be a lot of fun watching the two of them duke it out over the rest of the season!


Thanks for reading,

CK

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Afton


We saw the family truckster on the way up...we knew it was going to be a good weekend after that.



BS'n with Doug and Eric O.



The start of the 70+ strong elite field. Brendan's thinkin', "is that all you guys got for me?"


Afton…one of my favorite race courses. You’re either going up or down at Afton, and when you’re going down, it’s usually fast and can be pretty technical at times, so there’s not much opportunity for recovery. No less than 73 elite men toed the line at the start. I had, by my standards, a great start sitting 4th wheel after the initial climb and ended up 5th wheel going into the woods. It was at about that time that I realized I was going to have an average day. During the first few miles, whenever the trail opened up I got passed by one or two others. This continued for a short while until I finally recovered a little and was able to settle into a somewhat comfortable rhythm. At that point I was riding somewhere at the bottom end of the top ten.
During the 2nd and 3rd laps, I could see Eric Oftedahl and Garrett Kuzzy duking it out behind me on some of the portions of the course that doubled back on itself. I think at this point I was sitting around 8th or 9th maybe. So my goal at the time was to keep both of them behind me. As we progressed through laps 2 and 3, I was beginning to suffer on a couple of the steeper climbs, especially Shady Lane. In the past it had always been pretty easy to middle ring the climb, but for whatever reason, it was a struggle this time around. I persisted with the middle ring, turning a slower than normal cadence. In hindsight, probably not the best thing as pushing a lower cadence tends to sap the strength out of my legs.
During lap 3, I began to succumb to my suffering, Eric and Garrett were closing in on me. Garrett eventually caught up to me and settled in on my wheel. At the time, I had no idea who he was, I had never seen nor heard of him. So I had no knowledge of any potential weaknesses to exploit. As we rode along, Eric looked like he was beginning to fade, and Garrett was showing no signs of tiring. About halfway through lap 3, Garrett went around me and left me for the buzzards. I had no response for him and all that I could do was watch him ride away from me like I was standing still.
For the rest of lap 3, I was pretty much in survival mode. The heat was starting to get to me a little and my legs felt like crap when the trail turned skyward. At the beginning of lap 4, I noticed some heavy clouds starting to roll in and the temperature had dropped about 10° over the course of about 5 minutes. I felt this sudden burst of energy, it felt like all of the fatigue in my legs had been flushed…sweet! I increased the effort with the hope of catching and passing somebody, which I did. Unfortunately it was Sam O, standing on the side of the trail fixing a flat. It’s too bad as he was having a pretty stellar race. I think that he was sitting in a pretty solid 2nd place at the time that he flatted. I felt pretty bad for him, but that’s an unfortunate part of racing sometimes. His flat provided even more motivation for me, I didn’t want to get caught and re-passed by him.


Cresting one of the many climbs on the course with an angry pair of legs.


During the latter part of lap 4, the lapped traffic from the Comp race was getting pretty thick and it was staring to sprinkle a little. I ended up in 7th overall, about 90 seconds behind Garrett and about 40 seconds ahead of Sam O. After realizing the quality of the field, I was pretty content with the result. There were a lot of fast guys, Brendan as always, Doug, Jesse, McBurney had a great race. Tad Elliott, I think he is a U23 national cross and mountain bike champion. I talked to Eric O after the race and he told me that Garrett was on the 2008 Olympic Nordic Ski team. So yeah, there were a lot of big engines in the field.


Julie cresting one of the many climbs on the course…she had very angry legs too. She really did have a good time, she just didn’t know it at the time.


Julie’s race….another story. This was her first big race as a Cat 1 and I can only imagine the intimidation as she lined up with the other elite women, which included national caliber pro Jenna Rinehart. Afton is one of the most difficult race courses in the Midwest. The severity of the climbs and the sometimes technical nature of the trails can be challenging for just about all of us. The Minnesota series implemented a new rule this year, that all lapped riders would be pulled from the race. During the latter part of her race, she got lapped by Jenna and as Jenna passed, Julie told Jenna that she had never been happier about being lapped. Jenna had a big enough lead that she slowed and introduced herself to Julie and chatted it up for a few seconds. It’s things like that and racing mostly in the local scene, that makes Jenna a great ambassador for the women’s side of mountain bike racing in the Midwest. Jenna has the potential to make a career out of mountain bike racing, but instead chooses to keep it local and primarily race the Minnesota series. Good stuff.


Thanks for reading,

CK

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Snake Alley


Far and above my favorite race on pavement.


Snake Alley was pretty much a same race different year type of deal. For the 3rd year in a row, I won the 40+ race and finished 2nd in the 30+ race. The start list for both races get tougher and tougher each year. The 40+ race had over 30 competitors and contained several with a proven track record, Paul Deninger, Jeff Barnes, Dan Casper, Babe the Blue Ox (formerly known as Shrek), Jim Cochran and Dale Sedgwick to name a few.
The race started and I was able to quickly find my way to the front group, which had whittled itself down to about 15 racers with 6 laps to go. This seemed like a little more than usual, and for whatever reason, I felt the need to amp it up a little. So I punched it going up the Snake with 6 laps to go and found myself with a pretty good gap at the top. A lapse in judgment encouraged me to keep the pressure on with the idea of going solo to the end.
As I was making my way up the Snake on the last lap, I looked down the switchbacks when I hit the top and noticed Cochran was quickly closing down the gap. One of the keys to making a gap stick on the Snake is to continue the hard effort beyond the top of the Snake when most others are cooked. So as I rolled over the top, I dropped it into the big ring and hammered it down to the first corner. I coasted through the three 90’s and drilled it on the flats. As I approached the finish line, I took a quick look back and just barely held off a quick charging Cochran for my 3rd 40+ win in three years. I made it really hard on myself by attacking so soon, and it almost cost me the race.


The look on my face says it all...it hurts really bad when you try to solo the last six laps of the race.


The 30+ field was probably the most stacked that I had ever seen, with Dewey Dickey as the clear favorite, former Tilfordette Shadd Smith, Ian Stanford, Barnes, Cochran, Casper and professional triathlete TJ Tollakson. I got off to a pretty crappy start and was in last place rolling up the Snake on lap 1. I kept my cool and gradually picked my way through the field and had noticed that a lead group had formed after a couple of laps, and I wasn’t a part of it.
Over the next few laps, I hit it pretty hard up the Snake, coasted on the downhill and maintained a decent tempo on the flats. By lap 6 I had the lead group within my reach and finally completed the bridge going up the Snake. I settled in near the back of the group, with the intent on sitting in for a couple of laps to recover, observe and determine who the contenders were going to be. With four laps to go, Dan Casper took a flyer off the front as we passed the start/finish line. Nobody seemed interested in responding, myself included. It was pretty hot out, and I thought that it was a little too early…a little lesson that I thought that I had learned earlier in the day. There were a lot of cats in the field with a lot of top level experience, enough that I figured the group would eventually bring Casper back.
With two laps to go, Casper had a pretty big lead and nobody seemed at all interested in working to bring him back. So as we hit the Snake, I knocked the rear end down a few cogs and accelerated to the top. I had a pretty good gap at the top and continued the effort down the backside with the intent of trying to reel in Casper and also nail down 2nd place at the very least. I was closing down the gap to Casper over the duration of the last two laps and increasing the gap between myself and the chasers. I came up a little short and had a front row seat to Caspers victory celebration, but managed to hold off the chase group for my 3rd 30+ runner up finish in as many years. As I was congratulating Casper on his much deserved victory, he told me that he took a page out of my book from the 40+ race and thanked me for the lesson. I thought that was a pretty cool compliment.
Julie is steadily improving on the road side of things and finished a very respectable 13th out of a field of over 30 in the Cat 4 race. She’s acquired my unfortunate habit of lousy starts and was pretty much DFL going up the Snake on lap one. She made steady progress throughout and would most likely have finished further up the order if the race would have been longer. She’ll get there…


Thanks for reading,

CK

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Banner Pits


Despite riding like a rookie, I still enjoyed the day.

I was really looking forward to racing at Banner again this year. The folks of CITA built a sweet little network of very technical trails that make for some pretty tough racing conditions. And to make things even more difficult, the temperature soared into the upper 80’s!
The race started and my goal was to take the hole shot into the woods, however Ryan Nenninger also appeared to have the same idea. I didn’t have any interest in blowin’ my wad at the start of the race, so I let him have it. At the first point where the course split of for beginners, the race organizers forgot to remove the tape blocking off the Cat 1 course. Confusion ensued, and Ryan slowed to roll through the tape. The wire holding the tape in place looked like it had wrapped itself around his drive train and he had to stop. I went by and took over the lead with Nate on my wheel.
Shortly after I took the lead, I heard the sounds of a bike/tree altercation behind me. It sounded like Nate had gotten bested in his clash with a tree. It was way too early to go solo, but for whatever reason, I took off hoping to create a gap and keep it for the duration. I was able to maintain a small gap on Kevin McConnell over the first two laps, despite having one of those days where I was riding with two left hands. I had a really hard time getting my head into the game…not a good course if you’re lacking focus. I took a lot of bad lines, I felt like my front tire was washing out in a lot of the corners, etc.
On lap three, my haphazard handling got the best of me. As I approached a plank bridge that went over a log, my front tire missed the plank and T-boned the log. I went sailing over the bars, quickly picked myself back up and was able to continue on…until I realized that my shifting at the rear end was all over the place. I tried the barrel adjuster with no success, and shortly after that, my chain wedged itself between the cassette and the spokes. I stopped and it took an eternity to pull the chain out. When I finally got the chain rerouted, I hopped back on the bike and the shifting was still screwed up. Rather than risk screwing my drive train up further, I decided to pull the plug. When I got back to the car, a short examination of the rear end revealed that I had a bent rear der hanger. Definitely game over and a rare DNF for the day. Julie had suffered almost the same fate, no crash, however she had gotten her chain so wadded up behind the cassette, that I had to break the chain and pull the cassette off the get it out. So what did we do to commemorate the day? We drank some beer, of the New Glarus Belgian Red variety, with my brother and his wife, who were in town from Florida that night.


Julie on one of the many bikes that she got to demo after wadding up her chain in the rear end of her bike.


The race wasn’t a total loss however. As I was doing a course recon before the race, the beginners were in the middle of their race. I came up on Wendy Herrick as she was slowly picking her way through the techy trails. We came up on one of the trickier, steep descents and she stopped at the top and looked like she was getting ready to dismount and walk it. I rolled up beside her and offered some instruction on how to negotiate the trail. I jumped on my bike and demonstrated what I had told her and then waited at the bottom for her. She thought about it for a couple of seconds, backed up a little and then took the plunge. As soon as she hit the bottom, she let out a scream of excitement as she rolled to stop. The look on her face was of pure excitement and I could tell that she was a little overwhelmed from the rush of adrenaline that she has just experienced. After being thanked several times, I continued on my course recon. I had a really hard time containing the grin that I had on my face for the remainder of the ride. That experience alone made up for the lack of success during the race. Moments like that are why I love hosting the women’s mountain biking clinic every year. It is so much fun watching others experience various aspects of mountain biking for the first time!


Thanks for reading,

CK

Thursday, June 10, 2010

State Fair Crit


Blockin' the wind for Dewie with 3 laps to go


With nothing going on the dirt within a 3 hour radius this weekend, we decided to keep it local and get some Snake Alley practice in at the Iowa State Fairgrounds crit. After doing several recon laps, I can see why people might liken this course to Snake Alley, with one exception, there are no flats on this course, either up or down.
I needed a good training weekend, so Julie and I went our separate ways the day before and did a 4 hour endurance ride. I felt really good throughout the ride and kinda thought that I would have a pretty good couple of races on Sunday. I planned to do the 40+ race, see how it goes, then decide on the P/1/2 race afterwards.
We lined up for the 40+ race to a pretty stacked field for a bunch of old guys, Dewey Dickey, Kung Lou, Paul Deninger and Babe (formerly known as Shrek) to name a few. I got off to my usual crappy start due to my inability to get clipped in before slotting myself into DFL. I quickly caught up to the lead group by the time we hit the top of the climb. A few laps later the lead group had whittled itself down to myself, Dewey, Babe, Paul, Lou…there may have been a few others. There were a few attacks going up the hill, however it was a half-hearted attack by Dewey that shattered the remainder of the group. I managed to stay with him and when we hit the top of the hill, I took a quick look back and saw that we were alone. I took the lead and kept the pressure on going down the hill.




Dewey didn’t appear to have any interest in sharing the workload, so I broke the wind over the next couple of laps, waiting for the inevitable attack from Dewey going up the hill. The attack never occurred and as we hit the top of the hill, I pretty much had myself ready to turn myself inside out to keep Dewey behind me. We hit the bottom of the hill, rounded the 180, and found the perfect gear to accelerate up the small climb to the finish. I never really considered myself to be much of a sprinter, but I managed to outkick Dewey for the win. It was great to finally beat Dewey after having gotten my arse handed to me by him over the last 10 or so years, however I also realize that he was most likely saving himself for the P/1/2 race.
I felt good enough after the race that I decided to sign up for the P/1/2 race. I think that I might have acted a little too quickly in my decision as my brain was still operating off of little to no blood flow from the previous race. This realization came at the bottom of the climb on lap 1 of the P/1/2 race. Randy Reichardt and a few others thought it would be a great idea to amp it up on lap 1. Once again my inability to get my feet situated into the pedals had me rolling up the hill in last place.
By the time that I gotten myself out of the chaos of the rear end, a lead group of six had formed and appeared to be long gone. It was at about lap 3 that everybody in my group appeared to be self destructing as they were dropping like flies when going up the hill. The 2nd group contained myself, Brian West and a few others. I could see the lead group ahead of us and the gap wasn’t growing, so I figured that we still had a small chance of catching up. Once again, I found myself doing the bulk of the work at the front and about midway through the race, the lead group was about ¼ of the way up the hill when we were at the bottom. They appeared to be going at a fairly slow rate, so I put in pretty hard dig and started to close the gap at a pretty rapid rate. As I was closing in, Dewey took a look back and appeared to notice me catching up. He took off up the hill right as I had caught up and that was the end of the battle for the top spot on the podium.
I settled into the back of the chase group, consisting of Randy, Bryan Moritz, Jared Osterloh, Clark Priebe and Chad Bishop. I did little to no work as I had already worked myself over pretty good in bridging the gap from the 2nd group to the lead group. I was actually feeling pretty good as long as the effort didn’t exceed my Zone 3. Whenever the effort forced me into Zone 4, my legs protested the effort by threatening to detach themselves and club me over the head.
Over the last couple of laps, the attacks up the hill began. I didn’t have the legs to keep up, but I was able to bring myself back on the descent. On the final lap, Jared put in a pretty fierce attack up the hill and once again, I was unable to respond with the group. I caught back up to Chad Bishop, but the effort to catch him pretty much drained me of any sprint for the finish. I ended up in 7th and was pretty content with the result at the end of a hard weekend of training.


Julie looks really good on a bike...purrrrrrr.




Takin' the high speed 180 like a mountain biker.


Julie wasn’t quite as fortunate in her race as she was still suffering from the effects of the previous days ride. She’s also still trying to get the road bike racing thing figured out, especially when going downhill on certain courses like the State Fair course. She put in a very respectable effort, finishing 7 out of 11 in a race that combined all of the women into one category. When she finished her race, she told me that her legs were pretty po’d at me. They got over it pretty quickly as we treated ourselves to dinner and beer (for Julie) at the Court Avenue Brewey with Maria Von Ruuuuutenberg, Lisa V, Jeremy and a few others.


Thanks for reading,

CK

Monday, June 07, 2010

Ingawanis

I always look forward to the annual trip to Waverly for the IMBCS race at Camp Ingawanis. Rob Walters and his posse always do a nice job with the course, schwag and post race food. I especially look forward to it when they do the race on the north loop. Lot’s of climbing, a sweet, techy rock garden and a lot of smokin’ fast descents. Today was especially cool because it was Mother’s Day and my Mom made the trip up from the QC to do the race.
After a recon lap, we lined up for the start and I took off with intent of being first into the woods. We hit the singletrack with me leading the way. The lead group eventually whittled down to myself, Kevin McConnell, Scott Gall and I think Brian Fuhrmann might have been there for a short while too. During lap 1 we eventually shook Brian and it was the three of us riding together for the first two laps.
After lap 1, Scott took over going up the gravel climb and we rolled into the woods on lap 3 with Kevin on my wheel. Throughout lap 3, I could tell that Scott was beginning to run out of gas, especially on the climbs. So about midway through lap 3, I went by Scott and put in a slight acceleration with the hope of at least loosing Scott. Kevin also got by Scott and tried to close the gap down to me, but seemed to be struggling.
I kept the pressure on with one eye on the trail and the other on Kevin. It’s a good course for Kevin because he’s a good technical rider. So I focused on putting hammer down on the fast open sections and being smooth through the techy stuff. I managed to hold off Kevin for the my first win of the season. Kevin rode a great race and brought home a much deserved 2nd. Brian Fuhrmann kept it together enough to get by a rapidly fading Scott Gall for 3rd.
Julie had ‘one of those days’. She was pretty pumped because the women’s Cat 1 field had 6 racers…that’s right, I said six! It wasn’t that long ago when we were lucky to have one woman toe the line in the expert / Cat 1 field. Julie and I are both totally stoked at the growth of women participation in mountain bike racing. So back to ‘one of those days’. Julie and I were doing a course recon and I was riding a little ahead of her to show her the ins and outs of the course. We were cruising through the rock garden and I was far enough ahead of her that I couldn’t see her when I looked back. I cleared the garden and shortly thereafter I heard a loud ‘crack’. My ‘female might be in trouble’ radar was in full alert mode, despite there being several other folks riding in front of and behind us. I doubled back and found her standing next to her bike, doubled over. She said that she had t-boned a tree and was taking inventory of any possible bodily damage. Once we determined that all was good, we continued on.
That more or less set the tone for the rest of her day as she hit the deck again during the race. She somehow managed to cross up her front wheel and flatted. She had forgotten to bring Co2 with her and ended up walking. Jim Logan eventually rolled up to her and offered his Co2, however the bead wasn’t set and the tire wouldn’t hold air. Jim, being the great guy that he is, offered Julie his front wheel. He was having a not so good day too, and was pretty insistent that she take it. She tried to decline, however Jim was having none of it. He pretty much took her wheel and put his on her bike and told her to get lost. That’s one of the many reasons that I love this sport. You won’t find a better group of people to hang out with. Oh, and Linda, if you’re reading this, mountain bike racing is still a very safe sport! If and when we crash, we usually land on very soft dirt and weeds and rarely end up with any broken body parts. I wouldn’t let your daughter participate if I thought that she was in any kind of danger. Nor would I allow my Mom to partake in the fun.
Speaking of my Mom, she had her usual ear to ear grin on her face the entire time she was riding. Watch her ride and that pretty says it all as far as how much fun riding a mountain bike can be.

Thanks for reading,

CK

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Swanson

Swanson is one of my favorite courses in the Psycowpath series. I like it even more when rain falls a couple of days prior to the event and dampens the course a little, making it tacky and fast. The usual suspects were toeing the line and when the whistle blew, Kent McNeill took off like a scalded dog. Shim managed to wedge himself between Kent and myself during the open field start loop. I came pretty close to blowing my wad in getting by Shim before we hit the woods, and by then Kent had already opened up a gap on us. I closed the gap down, only to have it re-open a few seconds later. And that was all she wrote for the battle for the win.
Within a half a lap, Kent was out of sight and had the rest of us more or less resigned to racing for the 2nd step on the podium. The first couple of laps were spent shadow boxing with Shim and MOD, until Shim clipped his pedal on tree. The tree knock him off his bike, Shim and his bike were sprawled across the trail. Being on Shim’s wheel, I had a quick decision to make. Ride over the top of Shim, or track stand it until he was able to get himself cleared. I opted for the latter because I like him and didn’t want to leave a tread mark up the side of his head. I eventually got around the wreckage and shortly after that MOD went by me.
I stayed on MOD’s wheel for a while, and after that ‘while’ was over I began to dangle until the elastic finally broke. For whatever reason, I just didn’t have it in me over the first half of the race. I found myself being very tentative through some of the more technical sections. It was one of those days I guess. MOD rode off into the sunset and left myself, Shim and Kev to battle for the table scraps.
So for the 3rd time, my plans for the race had to be revised. Throughout lap 3, I began to feel better physically and technically and figured that I would try to shell my companions through the start / finish area at the beginning of lap 4 if I were to have any chance of reeling MOD back in. We rolled through the start / finish area and I punched it. I heard a lot of chaos behind me, I didn’t realize it at the time, but Shim and Kev were both trying to get bottle hand ups. I kept the pressure on and opened a gap as we entered the woods. The gap continued to grow throughout lap 4, however I found myself being more concerned about the gap between MOD and myself.
I had finally found my groove and thought for sure that I was closing in on MOD. I kept the pressure on throughout lap 4 and 5, however MOD was riding really well and I never did see him.
I ended up finishing 3rd with Kent taking the W, and MOD finishing in a well deserved 2nd. Right now, Kent is in a league of his own and MOD is also going to be really tough to beat this year. I’m looking forward to taking another shot at both of them…I love the competition…
I was pretty happy to salvage a 3rd place on the day, considering how things were going over the first half of the race. I was off my game, but somehow managed to pull it together a little more over the last half. That I was able to turn things around like that made me pretty happy. My last two laps were my fastest of the race, to the tune of about 60 seconds, and they were on par with Kent’s lap times. I’m cool with that.
Julie had another great race, posting a win in the Cat 1 race. Yeah, she was the only Cat 1 registered, however they started her with the Cat 2 women. She rode away from the Cat 2 field and posted faster lap times than all of them. She is riding on some pretty good form right now and she’s handling the bike much better than I did when I was a year into mountain bike racing. If you’re a dude, and you get chicked by Julie, don’t feel bad about it ‘cause she’s tearin’ it up right now.


Thanks for reading,

CK