We woke up early Saturday morning (5 am) to the sound of rain. It was actually quite peaceful and nice. However, I'm not big on riding in the rain, so I sort of grumbled inside. Instead of showing up at the Demo Days at 8:30 to get a ride in on the XC course I decided to wait an extra an hour in the hopes that it'd be a bit more dry out.

At 9:30 when we got there it was perfect. Good temps, partly sunny/cloudy, and no huge amounts of standing puddles. The XC course was in good shape. No huge sand pits, as the rain had packed it all down really well. We didn't really see too many other riders; just a contingent of paintballers in the urban jungle before the last little fire road climb. I tried to go all out and keep up with Justin and Wally, but I can't hang with them. Especially not Wally. He was riding his SS and I don't think he even was breathing hard at all. My avg. HR was 162 with a max of 182.

Not race pace, but it's hard to replicate that. I did stop a few times. Just had to catch my breath.

So after our XC loop we headed back to the demo. It wasn't quite Interbike, but I think on Saturday they had a great turnout.

Foes, Trek, Intense, Brodie, Nicolai, Ironhorse, KHS, 661, ODI, Bionicon, and Cannondale. They manufacturers didn't bring out a ton of bikes, but they all had something decent. The Sunday's were checked out ALL day, so we didn't get to try any of those. We rode our own DH bikes on the downhill courses. It's interesting riding up there with no tape.

They did put some signs up letting people know which were the easier routes, and which were more advanced, so that was cool. But, with so many lines it's crazy trying to figure out where to go and where the rest of the group was. It was fun, though.

Justin and I both took a tumble on our first run down. He landed pretty hard on his upper knee/lower thigh, and ripped a little hole in his STR jersey. His back protection did its job saving his spine from a big injury, but he's got a nice bump and a good amount of pain on the right side of his spine.

I endo'd and tumbled twice down the hill (all at once). Have some lingering knee pain. Otherwise just a few small bruises. My entire upper body is sore, but that could be just as much from the uphill pushing as the crash, so it's hard to say.

Sunday was DH shuttle day. Justin woke up a bit stiff, but managed to get moving. We got there around 8:45 and Andy ended up with the last available Sunday. We had it out for 2.5 runs. I got to ride it down once.

It's definitely a lot more racey and fast-feeling than my Demo 7. Felt really light in the air. Maybe not as smooth/plush, but my bike is set up for me and the Sunday wasn't. Pedaled nice, also. I rode a Brodie Devo b-team (one of the riders' bikes). It felt pretty well balanced and worked well. The road cassette was nice for the race course.

I also checked out the Nicolai hard tail MTX bike. It was bitchin light and felt super flickable... If I could flick a bike, anyway. Very racey. If money were no object... 4X is pretty fun, though. I wish I had some skilz.

All in all, good weekend.

My first XC Sport race.

Or, how I ended up with a wicked sore throat.

Earlier this year I signed up for 2 XC races locally at the end of a winter series.  Since my XC bike was out of commission, I raced Beginner SS (one lap).  I was the only female in the entire series that had raced SS, so naturally was only racing against myself and won both races.

I knew signing up for a race that was part of the Southern CA Triple Crown series (I'd missed the first two races, so wasn't gunning for a title) that there would definitely be more than one female racing.

Seeing as how I'd done so well in my single speed racing venture (haha!) I decided to sign up for Sport and let the chips fall where they may.

Hubby and I had plans to have a few people out there for support.  Unfortunately right after we put on our number plates we realized we'd left our cooler (full of 4 bottles of water, 1 of HEED, 2 of Cytomax, Guinness, and Myoplex Lite shakes for post-race) at home, in the garage.  Not a good way to start our Sport racing careers.

Luckily we have some friends that come better prepared than we do, so we borrowed two bottles and a small Camelbak.  Off we went for a quick warm-up, then back to the staging area before the start.

I took a hit of Tropical Hammer Gel, a swig of water, set up my Edge 305, then patiently waited for teh GO!

Soon we were off.  The Sport racers all started together, just ahead of the Beginners, and 2 hours before Expert/Pro was to start.  It was a harried pace.  I am not the fastest on incline's, so I started to fall back, despite being at 182BPM.

After a short pavement stint there was a dip through some pine needles, and a somewhat steep but narrow climb.  Lots of people got held up, some getting off to walk.  I passed the only other female I'd seen at the start when she had to dismount and I followed a guy through the wave of bodies.

At the next hill the other woman passed me, followed by another woman.  Hmm.  Third already and I wasn't even half a mile in.  I tried to hang on, but my heart rate was through the roof (probably about 8 BPM away from the highest/max I'd seen to date) and I just couldn't hang on to them on the climb.  There was a short descent, another steep graded climb, then another descent.

The two women were long gone.  I happened to look back at one point and noticed another sport female.  Well, I wasn't last.  Yet.

She eventually managed to pass me on one of the climbs, but I caught up to her on every descent.  Ahhh... the wonders of being a DHer.  I was flying down a fire road and saw a bike tumble, followed by a body.  I slowed way down.

It was the other female sport racer.  I yelled back a few times to see if she was okay, but no response.  I'm somewhat sorry I slowed to ask at all, as she had her iPod on, and never responded.  Despite her crash, she caught up to me on the following climb and inched me out to enter a singletrack descent just ahead of me.  I was about half a foot behind her the entire rocky descent, but she didn't budge.  I let her go on a short climb and didn't catch back up until we were crossing a road for a nice set of rollers.

She ended up finishing lap one right ahead of me.  What a race!

We went back and forth, with her taking off on the climbs, and me getting back within sight on every descent.  I passed her where she had crashed on lap one, noticed her bike's drivetrain was making a helluva racket, and chuckled to myself (it must've been frustrating, but my bike was working great).  I tried to hold her off on the next climb to stay in front of her on the singletrack descent, but she sprinted to get ahead of me.  After following her on lap one I was having none of it on lap two.

I called going around to the right and blazed by her through the rocks.  I got held up by a few beginner racers, but passed them also and continued on.

Naturally, she cuaght up to me on the rolling climbs that ensued.  I was starting to get disheartened.  I just couldn't climb at her pace.  My breathing was more even than hers, but I was trying to act like I was doing great as I heard her huffing, puffing, struggling, and her bike clunking ahead of me up the hill.  It didn't seem to work.

Down a really sandy loose descent I came... and there she was, in the dirt again.  That just had to suck.  I went around her and didn't look back.  I came through the start finish transition and kept pedaling like mad.  I didn't hear her name called when I was on my way out, so I kept hoping I could gain some time on her...

I struggled to keep pedaling.  My hamstrings threatened to cramp up.  My stomach started to get really irritated, and I was running out of water.  I didn't want HEED.  The mixture I'd gotten from the start/finish Feed Zone was really strong.  I just kept trying to sip on the water.

I passed a kid on a singletrack after a short climb and tried to offer encouragement as I went around in the sticks.  I got passed by a few fast Sport guys.  Blazed down the singletrack descents...struggled on the climbs.  At one point I looked back and saw the girl two turns back.  I cranked it up into a few harder gears and let it hang out on every descent.

Eventually on one of the long sustained climbs I turned around a few times and didn't see her at all.  Phew...

I did okay on the singletrack rocky descent, but had to pass a kid and his dad before the climb since they were poking along.  Almost got in an accident (the dad called for me to go around on the right, so the kid went to the right, where I was headed).  Disaster averted, and on I continued...

I had to convince myself to keep pedaling on the last few climbs.  "One more climb!  One more climb..."

I had a few friends cheering me at the hairy loose descent, and heard hubby there as well cheering me on.  I went down it controlled so as not to crash, and pedaled as hard as I could to the finish...

I didn't hear my placing, but was happy to be done.  When they posted the results I was stoked to see I'd finished 3rd!!

I was happy to find out I even made $25.  Not bad for a Sunday ride...