It's been another pretty good month of racing.  I was pretty burnt out coming into the Snowmass NORBA national so I decided to skip it.  This proved to be a great decision as I was hungrier than ever for a win at the Solvista G3 the following weekend.  Unfortunately, on the first DH, I sustained two flat tires early in my run and wound up with a two minute deficit.  The DH #1 course suited me with its high speed and loose corners and big jumps, so it was unfortunate I flattted.  Super D was a flop.  The race was delayed an hour and I had nothing left in my legs after a long day.  Sunday however, I came back for DH # 2 and had a fairly clean run despite two major hangups.   I wound up 6th, just off the podium, but overall this was a good result considering the tight and twisty turns and rocks that didn't suit me as well.  I will be training hard the next few weeks preparing for the Keystone MSC, which is a very long course with many elements that suit me very well.  I plan on ending the season with a bang.

Well, July has been a good month.  I have attended both the Blast the Mass (Snowmass, CO) regional and the Crankworx Colorado DH event.  Unfortunately, timing fiascoes at both events produced frustration and anger in many racers (including myself) when accurate times for either event were not produced.  I will not be discussing or using my results from these two events for any reason as I firmly believe they are inaccurate.  However, I had a great time riding and spending time with friends at both of these events, and I have no regrets attending either one.  I just hope someone has their act together for Telluride!



Alex

In the past month I have participated in the Angelfire, NM Chili Challenge (NORBA) and the Crested Butte, CO Wildflower Rush.  At the Chili Challenge, I was left mostly with disappointment and many lessons learned.  I felt very good in practice for both MX and DH but crashes kept me off of my game.  In the DH I qualified 20th with a fall up top on the Pro rock section which I was pleased with knowing that I could easily break the top 10 if I could stay on my bike.  Unfortunately my mental game is still not yet up to par and I had another more time consuming crash in my final run and wound up at the bottom of the list. 



At Crested butte I was riding well in practice and managed to have a pretty good result, with a respectable mid-pack pro time.  I had many bobbles, blew a couple of turns and key lines, and even dropped my chain once and still managed alright.  All in all many lessons learned and I'm hungrier than ever to race again.

This past weekend was the Chalk Creek Stampede and it was my first race of the season.  While this is usually a very small venue there was no lack of talent or trailers in the pit area.  Fox, Yeti, Spike energy drink, Shimano, Big Crank, and many others came out to support the event.



Saturday was the 4X.  I felt very strong and smooth in practice, but my mental game was not yet where it should have been, so I wound up jumping the gate and clipping out during qualifying.



Sunday was the Dual Slalom.  I learned from the mistakes I had made the previous day and managed to qualify 19/56 in Pro/Semipro, making me the 4th fastest semipro.  I was very pleased with this result and managed to make it through my first heat with ease.  However, in the second heat local pro Kain Leonard took me out by a small differental.  He is an outstanding bike rider and an experienced pro so I had no qualms with losing to him in that heat. 



Next race is the Gravity National in Angelfire, NM.  I hope to place top five in both events and will be training very hard the next couple of weeks in order to achieve this goal.