Down the Rabbit Hole!

Another race in the books! This time me and few of my best riding pals road tripped it to Rabbit Valley near Fruita, Colorado for a Mountain States Cup race. Since this one of our most memorable biking destinations we were all quite excited to race there. After working in the U's ER until midnight on Friday, I crashed at my friend Amy's place in the SLC for a few hours before jumping in her sweet new Subaru for its maiden road trip, new bike rack and all!

We arrived in a sunny, yet windy Fruita for a pre-ride. The looming rain clouds chased us the entire 2 hours of pre-ridding, but we escaped the rain and enjoyed the scenery. The race course snakes around the edges of mesa tops which overlook the Colorado river. This is one of many reasons I love to ride my bike in Fruita, the views are amazing and never ending.

One of the few awesome views in Rabbit Valley

Starved from our long drive and ride we headed toward Grand Junction to meet up with the Davis's and Foss's for dinner at the Ale House. Cool thing about racing during the Fruita Fat Tire Festival...lots of stuff going on. Bad thing about racing during the Fruita Fat Tire Festival...lots of people enjoying all the stuff going on! In case you weren't aware, mountain biking and beer go together like peas and carrots! Therefore, any place called the Ale House that has beer tasting during a mountain bike festival is going to be beyond packed. Good thing the world's greatest beer store was located just a few doors down from the restaurant because we had about an hour to wait before our table was ready. This beer store has a huge walk-in cooler with beer from every neck of the woods. It was so fun to walk around and look at all the flavors and labels. After we combed the place with a fine-toothed comb, between the six of us I think we left with about 100 beers! Chad was in heaven!!

We woke to more sun and wind for the race on Sunday. I was excited and ready for a race to go well. The race started fast on the flat double track and before I knew it we were 10 miles into the 32 mile loop. When I reached the only long climb of the race around mile 12 or so the leaders were in sight just a few seconds ahead. The climb took us atop a mesa which was covered with whoops from the moto riders which made it difficult for me to find a pedaling rhythm and taxed my legs more than I expected. By then the top 3 girls were soon out of my sight but I continued to push knowing that I would soon have a descent that would allow a little time for recovery. This was the only section of trail that I hadn't pre-rode the day before and it proved to be more challenging that I had anticipated. There were a ton a little drops, rough rocky sections, and Juniper trees jutting into the trail that grabbed at my handlebars. The Junipers took a few victims including one of the expert men riding just in front of me who caught his handlebar on a branch and it caused him to endo down a little 2-foot drop. Ouch! 

By the time I hit mile 20 my legs were screaming at me to slow down! I made sure to keep the guy in front of me close and push through the last section. The last 5 miles started with lots of downhill sections but I knew the last 2 miles were going to be tough because it was a long flat or false-flat ATV road with a steep popper-hill right near the end, just in case your legs hadn't suffered enough. I came across the finish line in fourth place, 7 miles behind the winner Teal Stetson-Lee. My bike worked perfectly and I felt pretty good with my performance. That's what I was looking for so I guess mission accomplished! 

I still feel like I have a long way to go on my fitness level but there just aren't enough hours in the day to get where I want to! Oh well, only 3 months left of school and until August 5th I'm concentrating on making the most of the time I do have and having fun riding my bike! 

Amy enjoying some time off from clinic and riding the trails on her Jamis!