2008 USA Cycling National MTB Championships
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Conditions:
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Warm, sunny and humid, with temps in the mid 80’s. The trails were dry and almost dusty on Friday and slick and greasy, but still 100x better than the previous Mount Snow race we attended, on Saturday.
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The Course:
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The course was a 5.2 mile loop on a combination of ski mountain access roads, some ski slope and some aged coupled with some super fresh single and double track mountain bike trails. There were also ample rock-bed trails and a much shorter descent that would typically be considered a full on DH MTB trail. The elevation gain was about 1000’ per lap, and came in a combo of mostly rideable but technical woods singletrack and brutally steep access road climbs as well as one fun squishy, grass covered, insanely steep ski slope climb. Friday night, the Mount Snow area saw an impressive lightening and rain storm.
Beginner and Juniors did 1 lap, Sport 2 laps and Expert 3 laps and Pro and Semi-Pro did 4 laps.
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Results:
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NEBC/Cycle Loft/Devonshire Dental had a solid turnout at the National XC Championship events with solid representation on the podium racking up an impressive National Championship title by Libby as well as two other podium spots and a top ten finish by other team members. More good exposure for the team, this time at the National level.
Excellent work to everyone on a very, challenging race.
- Libby White – Jr Women 13-14 – 1st
- Mike Rowell – Expert Men 40-45 – 3rd
- Keith Reynolds – Expert Men 30-35 – 11th
- Scott Brooks – Sport Men 30-35 – 4th
- Jason Gulbinas – Sport Men 30-35 – 6th
- Wayne Cunningham – Sport Men 40-45 – 17th
- Teri Carilli – Sport Women 40+ – 9th
https://www.usacycling.org/news/user/story.php?id=3730
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Reports:
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[Libby White]
I was in the lead for the first 200 feet or so when I saw a skinny girl in red and yellow sprint past me. I kicked it up to try to stay on her wheel but she still made a good 50 feet on me up the first hill. As I started to descend I saw someone get up off the ground and start to hit her saddle back into place. Once I realized that it was her I starting climbing as hard as I could. Just as my vision started to get blurry and my stomach felt like it had flipped I took a left turn off of the fire road onto some fairly new single track. I later found out that Grace (which I later found out was the girl’s name) was right on my wheel after that terrible climb (which I had to walk up and she rode the whole way). As I passed through the beginner field, pedaled up the vicious Mount Snow climb, and descended down the fresh-cut single track I made almost 3 and a half minutes on Grace, coming in first place in the women’s junior 13-14 category! After the race we talked and I got Grace’s email- I love having scary fast friends :)
[Mike Rowell]
Just a few weeks ago I raced at Mount Snow where conditions were awful and the course was brutal. I swore that I’d never race there again. After the race I made some noise about the course and the conditions and the negative message that erosion and extremely muddy terrain send to the general public. The powers that be at Mount Snow listened and made sweeping changes in record time. Last week I decided to race. Great way to break in my ultra spiffy new race bike (thanks Jeff).
Friday evening I pre-rode the course. Big changes and a very different feel. Excellent new switch-backed singletrack on rooty, rocky alpine fresh cut, dry switchback ski slope and the mother of all two stage grunt climbs. The course was almost bone dry and fast. This was going to hurt and the new singletrack was going to be challenging. We then all met and went out to eat as a team (thanks Dave).
I awoke at about 11:45pm Friday to severe lightening and driving rain; figures. Saturday AM I prepped, ate and headed out to warm-up a little. Next thing I was on the line with a fairly big field, all the regulars like Jonny Bold, Stu Jensen and Mark Stotz, as well as many unknowns. Large mud-puddles that we had to stage around had me losing position just moving up to the start line. The whistle blew and the sprint started; mayhem. Who am I racing against, where are the guys I know? We hit the first steep grass climb and the real suffering starts. Over the top to the screaming down, around a fast corner, up a rise, down around a fast, loose and muddy corner and into another climb. Here comes the traffic and we are in the back of the group ahead. We hit the mother of all grunt climbs and there are people everywhere. Off the bike, run, walk 90 degree right and up a bunch more. Into some technical singletrack still too much traffic, off the bike, run, back on, repeat. Finally up to the steep access road climb and the beat of the drum.
At this point I’m way over the top and just trying to hold on. I see Jonny just ahead and he’s my target. No idea who else is ahead. Up, up, up and I see Keith up ahead. Cheer as best I can in passing, more up and finally the down comes. More traffic and then I hear the leader from the group behind coming by. Ugh. Then I hear someone ask to pass me by name. It’s Kevin Hines and he is flying and right behind the leader of his group (Kevin would go on to win). Toward the bottom of the descent I hear a bunch of friendlies cheering me on. Thanks. Through the feed zone and Cathy says top 5. I finished the lap and passed a bunch of people from other groups at the bottom.
I don’t recall much about lap 2. Basically head down and maintain, pass as many riders from other groups as possible and try not to settle in behind someone going backwards. I’ve no idea where I am, all the Intel said was top 5 or so. The only person I know is up the trail in Jonny.
Lap 3 and up again, then down and around and crap, my chain dropped and wedged on the outside coming through the stutter bumps. Jump off and fiddle with it and get passed by 6 or 7 including Mark. I tell myself Mark is NOT going to drop me, not this time. I chase back on and stick 2 feet off his wheel all the way up and into the singletrack descent. Mark passed a rider from a different group and I weasel by as well and then he slides out on the wet roots. He’s back up and we move on but then he hits a tree and splays all over the trail. I need to go. “Mark, I’ll lead, get on my wheel”. Not sure why I felt the need to work together but I floored it and didn’t look back. The trail was treacherous and I fumbled a bunch but moved as fast as possible. At the bottom we break to access road descent and I go for all I have. Passing people at 35+ mph and I’m safe through the finish. I see Jonny and he said he though he was 2nd. No idea where I was though. Cathy comes by and said that I was just behind Jonny. Really, I finished in 3rd? I’ll take it :)
[Keith Reynolds]
Earlier this year I had set my sights on qualifying for MTB Nationals and seeing how it went. It would be a little bit of an honor to go and see what all the fuss was about. Most of the venues I go to are inviting, relaxed, sit around in the grass afterwards to catch your breath like the EFTA series which got me into the whole race thing in the first place.
Qualifying meant being a citizen, paying USAC some more money for an MTB race license and finishing in the top 15 of a category earlier in the year. With all that buttoned up I jumped in the car at 4:40am Saturday to Vermont. Arriving at the event showed a festival-like atmosphere, sort of Pedrosfest for racers. About this time I saw Team Platinum riders zipping around like they were Mario Lopez as a bike Cop. Registration had just opened upon my arrival at 7, many of the racers in line were frazzled waiting in line and delaying their warm-up.
I did a short prep and warmed up on the initial start hill. I saw Cathy & Mike Rowell and John Mosher. I figured the hill was going to go up, up and up to mid-mountain. That’s pretty much what it felt like during the race. You’d dip into some single track and become complacent with your position. Descending you’d inevitably get stuck behind someone who wasn’t comfortable with the terrain, to some extent this was good limiting crashing.
Lap one was a little slow for me; staring on the monster hills and failing a proper warm-up was evident. Gary Douville pulled away with the lead group and mid-lap Mike Rowell came by looking strong as I cheered him to go chase down the lead. Lap 2 I started to get in the grove, until some slippery roots sent me sideways. All the while I heard cheering on the sidelines; from the mega feed zone, lap-area, nasty climb (thanks Scott & ML), nasty descent and the 3 piece band high on the hill belting out a death march. The feed zone was larger than life, something on the order of Fitchburg RR packed into half the space.
By the time Lap 3 came around I was reconnecting with my field and chasing down a few riders that had been pulling away. The pain and breathless feeling would be over soon – all I did was focus on staying upright on the mega descent and keeping in control on one of the final turns heading under a bridge. Every lap prior I would break traction on the loose stone.
I finished 11th, some 15 minutes behind the leader and I’ll take that as both encouragement and a benchmark to tackle future races. Thanks again to those out there supporting the team. Congrats to the others like Libby (gaining a National title), Scott & Mike with their Podiums and Jason just outside of a Podium.
[Scott Brooks]
After a LOT of going back and forth, I finally decided to compete in the Sport category at MTB nationals at Mt Snow, Vermont. This is only my first year of racing mountain bikes, or even riding them for ten years, but after doing three races this year, I wanted to go to the big show. Heck, I’ve traveled to Kansas to race nationals, why not travel all the way to Vermont?
As we took the line we were notified that the race would be shortened to two laps, consisting of a total of 10 miles, not the advertised three laps or 15 miles. At high noon, the temps were in the low 90s so I wasn’t disappointed to hear this change. At the gun I settled into third place and wanted to just hold the top couple of positions for the first lap, and then see what I can do on the second lap. About two minutes into the race, I had moved up to second, and then 30 seconds later took the lead. As the course wound its want around the lower mountain I was feeling pretty good. All it took was one turn to notice that the course went up the mountain. Up the ski mountain. I ground out at the front for a little bit before looking up the course and noticed that the earlier fields were going sooo slow. At this point I decided to dismount and walk the bike up. My thinking was that this wouldn’t be much slower then riding, but would allow me to conserve energy (boy, those guys were working a ton grinding away not going anywhere) and also give my back a rest before the next section. A couple of riders passed me, but everyone pretty much held their position. There were a couple of traversing sections, then we pointed the wheels downhill and let the bikes rip. Although the course had been rerouted since the last race held there a month ago, it was still very technical, more so for a novice rider.
The second lap was pretty uneventful. I had passed a number of racers, but had been passed by many too. The race organizers had written riders waves on the calf of each starter, so theoretically you could identify who you were racing against, but in the heat of a race, it’s pretty tough to remember if four, five, three, or some other number of racers had passed me. I did take notice when a Salem, MA rider in my category passed me and I would have none of that. On the next climb I pushed myself and retook my place. While not a climber on the road, I’ve really come to embrace the climbs in mountain bike races. Near the top of the climbing, I could see a rider that I had been talking to before the race and knew that he was in my category. I tried to bring him back, but as soon as we entered the woods, I decided to go as hard as I could. If that wouldn’t bring him back, then I couldn’t worry about. Tossing concern of myself aside, I screamed down the hill, passing several riders, including one I literally rode over when he crashed on a slightly technical section. As unfortunate as this was for this rider, it was more fortunate for me that he crashed right next to two course marshals, because hearing him yell “Oh my leg” anywhere else would have brought me to a stop to help. With volunteers on site, I decided to continue with my mad descending. At almost the bottom of the climb, I was snapped back to reality by the rider behind me yelling at me to get off the brakes and get going. Um, I’m flying here, can’t you understand that? Oh, I’m not going that crazy fast? I’m sorry, it certainly feels like that. As I finished this conversation in my mind, we popped out of the wood sand jammed to the finish line. As soon as I was done, I immediately went to the picnic tables and took ten minutes to regain my senses. My first nationals done, in one piece with no scratches (perhaps I didn’t go hard enough?) and pleased with myself. Being pleased gave way to elation when the results were posted and I finished 4th! In biking, that’s a podium place, a medal and a great story to tell everyone at work!!!
Back to the road for a little bit, but certainly a new bike has found it’s way into my life again.
[Wayne Cunningham]
I went in to this race with high hopes that I could do well here. I had won my last MTB race at Mount Snow just weeks before and had a very good Fitchburg leading up to a rest week just before MTB Nationals. I arrived the day before the race to register and pre ride the course. At registration I was told the course was changed from the last race I did and it would be 2 laps not 3. Ok that was fine with me, last time we only did 2 laps also. I got in a lap and liked the changes as it felt smoother and faster. The downhill part seamed to be longer and flow better than the earlier course’s short steep sections. I knew I would have to take risks on it to hold anything I could gain on the climbing.
Race day: The course was dry and dusty. We had a noon start it was hot and sunny. I would have liked to have had a wet course but I was still ready to go. I’d put a lot of mental prep into this race picturing how the race would go, where I could push, where I could recover and where I could make the big moves.
The field had a lot of the regulars but also many others whom none of us knew. At the start I got a call up to the line as one of the top 3 highest ranked riders. I don’t know what the rank was based on as I did not hear. I moved to the line and thought I could really win this thing! It was the first big race I have ever started where I truly dared to dream.
Off we go, the field quickly started to spread out on the first climb. We flew down the first hill, up the road to the steepest climb and at this point there is only one rider ahead of me as we run into the back of the field that started one minute before us. The lead rider moved up in to the lapped riders, someone bobbles in front of me so I hop off and run with my bike on my shoulder. I get stuck behind riders going through the single track then pop out on to the service road climb but don’t see the lead guy as he was in the group ahead mixed in. I push the pace harder and pass more rider before entering the down hill section. I think to my self, keep your butt back easy on the front brake and let it rip. I felt good everything was going smoothly though I knew I had to ride this section fast. So I tried to ride above my comfort zone and remember to look as far ahead as I could. If I could just hold off any chasers till we start up I would only have the leader to deal with and hoped he was fading. Then I felt it, the rear tire went flat. There was no bang of the rim on rock; there was no hiss of air just the rumble of a tire that had gone flat. This was not in my pre-race dreams. I thought, can I keep riding it? No it’s the first lap stupid. I leapt off my bike, popped out the wheel and started to change to tube. I kept my back to the race I did not want see who was going by, but I could hear them as they shouted encouragement to me. I fumbled and fought with that tire it was a loose older tire so it came off easy but kept falling off as i tried to remount it. I added air but hadn’t noticed that the lower bead was not on. I let out some air, remounted it got it back on the bike. I looked up to see the lead of the women’s race and possible one more goes by. Knowing they had started 2 fields back from me, my heart went as flat as that tire.
I got on my bike thinking you’ve really got to go hard. Within seconds I realized that I had not re-attached the rear brake straddle cable as I went off course, stopped hooked up the brake still being passed by a steady stream of riders. By the time I got half way up the climbs again my spirits were low to say the least. I was not seeing any of the riders in my field and with the climbs being granny gear climbs you could not even trick yourself into how fast you were going and making up so much time. I was wishing now we had three laps I figured some people would be fading then. I may have passed a rider or two from my group on the last lap but I could not make up the time I lost in one lap. I finished off 17th of 26. So with that major let down of the season I’m going to go through with my up grade to expert and start all over struggling my way along as pack filler. Why does fate like to slap me back down when ever I dare to dream? I just once thought I could fly to the sun and my wax wings melted away.
[Teri Carilli]
We arrived at Mount Snow late afternoon on Thursday. Checked into the hotel, changed and went out for a pre-ride on the newly changed course. What a difference from last year’s pre-ride in the dumping rain! The surface for the most part was dry, dusty, and loose. The first section (north loop) had been changed so there was no cut-through in the woods on single-track. This meant we had to climb a bit higher and the descent was on a service road. Not technical, kind of boring, a few drainage ditches to keep an eye on but otherwise a piece of cake.
Then the long climb to start the south loop. And it just seemed like it never ended. Instead of the hike-a-bike section in the woods, they routed us up a STEEP service road. Ouch. Then into some switchbacks in woods (yay, shade), then back on service roads, up, up, up. At a couple of the climbing sections there were 90 degree turns. You’d think you had reached the top, turn, and look up to more climbing. Finally, some downhill. Some of it was different from last year. In particular, the nasty stairs sections was gone. All in all, it felt very rideable. There was one section that caused me to pause, get off and watch some riders go by. Soon, I saw Libby zipping by me. Figured that was the line to take and tried to imitate her. I managed to get down but just not as fast. I think my extra 30 or so years on her make me a bit more cautious. ;-)
Throughout my pre-ride, my chain was skipping all over the cassette again. Unfortunately, the Shimano guys were gone by the time I made it back down. Fortunately, they were there early the next morning, so two hours before my race, they managed to fix it. (bent derailleur hanger. No idea how I did it.)
Lined up at the start with 10 other women, only one I recognized from local races. At the line, I was making my usual squint-into-the sun face that the announcer mistook for a smile. “Look at 804 folks! She’s smiling! She won’t be smiling soon, though, on that first leg burner granny-gear hill.” No joke. I had an awesome start at the whistle and led the field up the first hill. That was the last time I saw first place. One by one, 6 women passed me on that first hill. I was determined not to get off and push. I’m still wondering about that strategy. One of my goals was to ride the whole race – no wussy girl pushing the bike up the hill or walking down the tricky downhill sections.
So I did manage to ride the entire first lap. The uphills were painful – just sat there, spinning the pedals and going about 4 mph. How lame. But the downhills – I flew (for me). Weighting and unweighting the bike, concentrating on picking a line that wouldn’t kill me, so wrapped up in the trail I almost forgot I was racing. I love that zen feeling. At one point, I was congratulating myself on riding a particularily nasty section of trail that had me walking on the pre-ride, and managed to plant my front wheel. Uh oh. Here goes. Spectacular endo in the making. But somehow, I balanced on that front wheel, felt the rear of the bike swing around, I kicked it back with my left, unclipped foot, and shifted my weight back to get the rear wheel down. OMG! No endo! A proud moment despite being caused by my carelessness. Even the marshal was expecting carnage, “Nice recovery there!”
At the end of the first lap, I passed one woman. I was soon passed back on the first uphill of the second lap. Then passed by another. And one more. That last one we traded places back and forth for most of the second lap but she finally put down the hammer on the last long uphill and I never could catch her again. As she cruised up the hill, I gave up. (Meh – I hate admitting that.) I was hot, on the service road, sun beating down, pedaling hard, going about 3 mph now and not making up any ground on her. I got off and pushed. Wretched. Just wretched. :(
So I’m trying to take away some good from the race. I finished DFL. Ok, well maybe not last but the only woman behind me was a DNF. It’s clear that I’m able to ride stuff that scared the shorts off me last year. That’s a plus. The minus is I’m clearly in worse shape than I was last year. I hate that. It’s also clear that I need to figure out a way to train better given my travel schedule if I’m hoping to do better at ‘cross this season.