Balancing mountain bike racing with a full-time career as students at
UC Berkeley can be really
hectic. Hence why our lovely blog often gets neglected. But 2007 was full of amazing moments, so we feel the need to summarize the rest of our season briefly here:
Deer Valley, UT NMBSCrazy weekend coincided with my sister's college graduation, but we made it happen. Such an awesome, brutal course! The race in Utah was one of the best courses we saw all season- great
singletrack climbs, descents, and sweeping views. The altitude made the experience pretty nasty for
Tsering and I, but we hope to return next year. The best part of the race was the journey there and back in the super dope
Vanderkitten seXTerra which Dave kindly lent us for the epic drive.
Return on the Jedi, Grants Pass, ORThis July we spent a great weekend up in Grants Pass, Oregon at Return on the Jedi, chilling
around the campfire with Mark Weir and Jason
Moeschler and loving the race course. Return on the Jedi is possibly the most awesome, epic
XC mountain bike race out there! Return has it all- brutally long
fire road climbs, ripping twisty
singletrack through the woods, rocky
cliff side descents,
singletrack climbs, creek crossings, and whatever else you can dream up. The course is 30+ miles, out and back, making it a epic race for all.
Unfortunately, I missed a turn and got lost, very lost. I descended into infinity down a
fire road until it dead-ended, then biked/ hiked my way up, completely losing the rest of the race- OTB in a big way. With 6 miles to go, I found another expert who got lost (a masters male). We kept
each other company on the long climb home and took turns fixing his chain.
Tsering, on the other hand, had his best race of the season! He stayed steady throughout the race and ended up battling it out with a sprint finish against pro racer and friend
Aren Timmel.
Aren took the sprint, but it was a hard
fought battle and
Tsering came in 4
th overall, 1st for Semi Pro!
Bigfoot Classic, Arcata CAThe Bigfoot Classic held on timber land off highway 299 in Northern Humboldt is always one
of my season favorites. Sadly, 2007 will be the last time racing on this course as we know it as the timber company is logging away parts of the course. Team Lost Coast represented on our home turf for 2007 though. I was the only woman at the race doing the full 2 laps, but I made it my goal to not finish last (a.k.a. to beat some boys). My plan worked out! Not only did I beat a few guys, I was able to keep up with my old high school mountain bike team "coach" and riding buddy
Tyce on the descents. I even passed him on the
fire road climb as he finished his race. It was a breakthrough moment for me as I have always been a more timid descender.
Tsering had some misfortune with his bike which forced him to finish the climbing-intensive race using only his big ring. Ouch!
Reggae Riding Mountain Bike Festival, Garberville CA
Team Lost Coast Brewery put on an awesome mountain bike race/ festival this August which included a long-track style
XC race in our local community park, rider clinics, kid's races, a wheelie and track stand competition, delicious BBQ, Lost Coast
rootbeer floats, booths, and live music!
NPK, Rootstock and
Prezident Brown performed into the evening. Everyone had an awesome time, especially the kids who all got prizes for participating. Reggae Riding was great community event and we hope to make it happen again in '08. More info here: http://reggaeriding.blogspot.com/
NMBS Finals in Snowmass, COTeam Lost Coast Brewery made our last epic journey of the season all the way to Colorado in August. The long drive had a traumatic start when my beautiful custom
Ahrens bike flew off our
roof rack as we merged onto the highway. Luckily, all that was damaged was the rear wheel and we were able to continue on our epic
jo
urney without much hassle. The
Snowmass course was crazy. There was an epic amount of climbing and technical descending, pretty much no rest the whole course- either grunting up a hill or tearing down the other side. This made for
some great racing and
Tsering and I suffered it out at altitude once more to finish off the season. I didn't place as high as I would've liked to in the actual race after I had a double-cramp in my quads on the last lap, but I managed to stay ahead of Vanessa from
Kenda-Backbone who I've been back and forth with in races all year. This helped my overall standings and bumped me up into
3rd place overall for the
NMBS races for expert women 19-29! I was pretty stoked about this achievement and it felt good to stand on the podium with Joy and Rene, who kicked major ass all season and will be racing pro in 2008 to free up some room for other girls to lay the smack down. I also ended up 6
th overall for the Super D series for Open Women. Maybe next year I should
consider doing more
SuperD races, they can be pretty sweet.
Tsering came in
25th overall for Semipro men in the
NMBS series for
XC racing. It was a season of learning for the both of us and a huge
accomplishment to just be at those big races. To celebrate the end of the
NMBS series, we hooked up with Lyle who races for
Helens and made an appearance at the 80's themed margarita party in
Snowmass Village. Cheers to a great season!
and stiffens up for hard climbs alike. It's a purpose-built trail bike, but inspires enough confidence that Brian Astell plans to race it in XC events as well as Super D races. Check out this winning review of the Quad XC for 2008.
