The NVDC also known as the Napa Valley Dirt Classic is by far my favorite race. It usually lands on the weekend right after the Sea Otter Classic so the mood is always mellow and the crowd in good spirits. Basically everyone is so tired from the weekend prior that they just want to get out and have a nice low key race. The other part of this race is for the past two years, this one included, the weather is usually ify. This year it rained fairly substantially the day and night prior to the race! But as I awakened to my surprise there was sunshine! I went and picked up a friend of mine and headed north!
We arrived the PCU or Pacific Union College and headed up to reg! It's a yolk local race! Lots of familiar smiling faces ready to tear it up... This race definitely has a following and it's not because it's an easy race.
Once reg'ed and geared up I head over to my buddy Ray's car and jump onto the trainer to warm-up. This mainly consists of chatting with others and looking at number plates to see who else is racing in my category. I count 3 but at the start he counts 4. They combined the Pro Women with the experts and of course us pushy pro's take the front line. And we are off! It starts with a nice jaunt through the parking lot before we jump on to the single track, myself and a velo bella Barbara Howe deside that we are going to take immediate control of this race. We lead into the single tack and then it opens up onto a fire road followed by a switch back...we immidiately have nice gap on the rest of the group. We hang a sharp right up the slip and slide, which I definitlely do (on my hands and knees) and then up onto the flats. Here Barbara and I start to get to know each other and start chit chatting. Did i mention it was a low key race? Increasing or gap on the group we make our way over to the technical single track. I love this race because it's mostly all single track through the redwoods and ends with a long brutal climb out just to make sure your good and tired.
We start to turn into the single track and Barbara over shoots a turn and I head into the trail first. She is still on my tail...until we start climbing. I proceed to try and get a gap and figure if I can get out of sight I can also get out of mind. Sure enough it works. My friend Ray (who started before me) comes up my side and passes, "Where in the heck did you come from" " I missed a stupid turn." and then he informs me that when he passed Barbara she said that she had lost contact! So I keep plugging as hard as I can..my legs feel great and take the precautions to stay upright! Finally I hit the final hell hill and wow it is not nearly as bad as remember it. My fitness must be better, i was actually able to climb just about all of it except one nasty slippy slidie turn. Finally make it to the top and head for home! Just to make sure we are extra good and muddy they send us through this huge mud pit! then the turn onto the track and MY FIRST PRO WIN! I am officially $120 richer!
Monday, April 30, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
XC is Windy!
The Sea Otter Classic XC race is one of the longest courses and once again depending on weather can be a challenge. We do two laps around an 19+ mile course, which is long. Especially when there are gale force winds to be reconded with.
Due to the condition of my bike from the nasty short track race the day before, the mechanics had to take some time to fix it up and since I am unfortunately not the only one on the team and the tent that morning was in complete chaos, I ended up only getting about a 20 minute warm-up but warm-up shworm-up...who needs it especially on such a long course. Any ways, so we all gather for the call up, and they start calling up the usual front row ie, georgia, heather, wendy....i get settled in for the long wait when all the sudden I hear "NUMBER 224...Emily Van Meter" Holy crap! I am second row right behind Georgia and Heather Irmiger.
Not that a kick butt start position matters any for this course, which starts on the raceway for about the first quarter mile. By the way I know MTBer's are supposed to be better bike handlers...you would never guess when you have them all start like a road race start. They was bobbing and weaving and whoos and ahhhs. SCARY! So we wind on to the course and I am towards the front when Shonny Vanlandingham comes up my side. I decide to take this amazing opportunity to ride on one of the top women's in the countries wheel and jump on for the ride! She is definitley an amazing bike handler! In just those 15 minutes I pushed myself more that I ever have and don't regret any minute of it. I then proceeded to become one with a bush coming down the sand pit and Vanlandingham is gone. But I push and push and ride what I think is the best race ever...I spent the rest of the time riding with teammate Nina for a while and then my teammate Sue came up and coaxed me to keep going and not give up. This was on the second lap and I was definitley feeling the efforts from the first lap...so where a lot of others....I came across Shonny siting in the feed zone, passed Katie Compton(winner of the Short Track race) and then caught up to Chloe Forsman from the Luna Chix, but who then later proceeded to drop me and took off on the hill that consisted of one of the most nasty head winds ever. Between the cramping and the wind I just buried myself for the finish and wound up 21st!! which I am pretty happy about!
Due to the condition of my bike from the nasty short track race the day before, the mechanics had to take some time to fix it up and since I am unfortunately not the only one on the team and the tent that morning was in complete chaos, I ended up only getting about a 20 minute warm-up but warm-up shworm-up...who needs it especially on such a long course. Any ways, so we all gather for the call up, and they start calling up the usual front row ie, georgia, heather, wendy....i get settled in for the long wait when all the sudden I hear "NUMBER 224...Emily Van Meter" Holy crap! I am second row right behind Georgia and Heather Irmiger.
Not that a kick butt start position matters any for this course, which starts on the raceway for about the first quarter mile. By the way I know MTBer's are supposed to be better bike handlers...you would never guess when you have them all start like a road race start. They was bobbing and weaving and whoos and ahhhs. SCARY! So we wind on to the course and I am towards the front when Shonny Vanlandingham comes up my side. I decide to take this amazing opportunity to ride on one of the top women's in the countries wheel and jump on for the ride! She is definitley an amazing bike handler! In just those 15 minutes I pushed myself more that I ever have and don't regret any minute of it. I then proceeded to become one with a bush coming down the sand pit and Vanlandingham is gone. But I push and push and ride what I think is the best race ever...I spent the rest of the time riding with teammate Nina for a while and then my teammate Sue came up and coaxed me to keep going and not give up. This was on the second lap and I was definitley feeling the efforts from the first lap...so where a lot of others....I came across Shonny siting in the feed zone, passed Katie Compton(winner of the Short Track race) and then caught up to Chloe Forsman from the Luna Chix, but who then later proceeded to drop me and took off on the hill that consisted of one of the most nasty head winds ever. Between the cramping and the wind I just buried myself for the finish and wound up 21st!! which I am pretty happy about!
Soggy Otter!
I am beginning to think that the Short Track race at the Sea Otter is cursed. There is nothing like walking into the venue to get ready to race when it's POURING rain and everyone else is going the other direction. This is going to be an amazing day! NOT. I get over to the Cannondale pit and decide that my tires that are designed for sand and dry conditions may not be the best for the race today. I head on over to the Michelin booth (next door) and they set me up with a killer set of mud tires. Just looking at them I know they will rock.
I head over to the course with my teammate Sue and take a lap around it before the start...just as I suspected, ooyie, gooyie, slippery, slidy , yucky mess. This is going to be AMAZING! It's what Mountain biking is all about right?!
They call us up for the start and BAM! the gun goes off...Get your foot into you stupid pedal genious. We hit the little hill on the back side (which was rideable when one is all by themselves) when you have 50 girls coming at it all at the same time it's a bit more chaotic. It's more like a high pitched screaming and cussing mass of bodies falling and crashing into each other. Once you get up and over the slip and slide it's a little straight away that I spent more time tring to get my stupid foot in the stupid pedal. Power around the uphill corner, hit the straight away, up the power climb (there is grass and not as steep as the other one, so it's ridable) another little straight away, into a hard right down a nice slip and slide, through the start finish.
So basically the race for me consisted of climbing on my hands and knees dragging my bike up the first little climb (very entertaining for the crowd), trying to get my stupid foot clipped into my stupid pedal, powering on the staight away and the other climb trying to make up some places, sliding down the downhill sections (but staying upright). This went on for I don't know how many laps until finally getting pulled with 4 laps to go.
All pictures courtesy of cyclingnews.com
I head over to the course with my teammate Sue and take a lap around it before the start...just as I suspected, ooyie, gooyie, slippery, slidy , yucky mess. This is going to be AMAZING! It's what Mountain biking is all about right?!
They call us up for the start and BAM! the gun goes off...Get your foot into you stupid pedal genious. We hit the little hill on the back side (which was rideable when one is all by themselves) when you have 50 girls coming at it all at the same time it's a bit more chaotic. It's more like a high pitched screaming and cussing mass of bodies falling and crashing into each other. Once you get up and over the slip and slide it's a little straight away that I spent more time tring to get my stupid foot in the stupid pedal. Power around the uphill corner, hit the straight away, up the power climb (there is grass and not as steep as the other one, so it's ridable) another little straight away, into a hard right down a nice slip and slide, through the start finish.
So basically the race for me consisted of climbing on my hands and knees dragging my bike up the first little climb (very entertaining for the crowd), trying to get my stupid foot clipped into my stupid pedal, powering on the staight away and the other climb trying to make up some places, sliding down the downhill sections (but staying upright). This went on for I don't know how many laps until finally getting pulled with 4 laps to go.
All pictures courtesy of cyclingnews.com
5 minutes!
Is the shortest amount of time I have ever spent racing. You know it's an interesting race when you spend about 50x longer warming up for the race than the race itself. The Sea Otter TT was an interesting experience to say the least. How do you prepare for something like that...you don't .
The day before the race I spent the morning pre-riding the course with my good friends Katerina Nash, Heather Irmiger, and her hubby JHK. Well at least I knew who they were, I am sure they had no clue who the heck I was, other than some girl in a Cannondale kit that was curiously following them around the course. After slamming into the fence on the back side of the course three or four times I decided that if I didn't know the course now then I was never going to learn it. On the backside of the course you come down this nice straight stretch of single track, where you can gain quite a bit of speed....However, it ends with an extremely hard left hand turn that is a bit off camber and then immediately goes uphill. On the outside of the turn is a fence, so you basically come into this turn full speed, slide sidways into the fence and then power out, at least that was the best way I could negotiate the stupid turn and I will tell you it wasn't pretty but it did attract attention. There's something about the sound of a slam into a chainlink fence that makes heads turn.
Race day...so for the TT we are sent off in 30 second intervals and the order turned out to be alphabetical! Yes, I was sent off almost last, there were a couple other lucky end of the alphabeters behind me including the one and only Shonny Vanlandingham ( she seemed to haunt me a bit over the weekend or maybe it was vice versa) For those of you not up on the MTB scene, she is one of the LUNA Chix and a BA or B-- A--, is that's easier for you to figure out? Anyways...In front of me is a little one, aka DEVO, it's a developement team for teens and they travel all around and do all the races. Blah, Blah, Blah, It's now my turn and I am ready to start 5...4...3...2...1 "VanMeter it!" my silly friends. I hit the first little climb and am just crunching down on the pedals, I feel fantastic! I come around the corner, negotiate one of the tougher sections beautifully, hit the next little climb and I can see the DEVO in front of me. I am feeling so good and know for a fact that I am putting in a good time, hitting every line perfectly! I get to the little straight away, shift down a couple clicks and am ready to fit the fence! Wham! and I power out perfectly! iT's all down hill from here. Again I am just flying and gaining on the Devo by the second, until I catch her, now to get around....NO, NO, NO she did not just crash in front of me....yes she did, now get the heck around! Finally I get around but I know precious seconds are lost. To give you an idea of how precious these seconds where, there was 30sec seperating me from the leader and I ended down in 27th...Oh well at least she apologized.
The day before the race I spent the morning pre-riding the course with my good friends Katerina Nash, Heather Irmiger, and her hubby JHK. Well at least I knew who they were, I am sure they had no clue who the heck I was, other than some girl in a Cannondale kit that was curiously following them around the course. After slamming into the fence on the back side of the course three or four times I decided that if I didn't know the course now then I was never going to learn it. On the backside of the course you come down this nice straight stretch of single track, where you can gain quite a bit of speed....However, it ends with an extremely hard left hand turn that is a bit off camber and then immediately goes uphill. On the outside of the turn is a fence, so you basically come into this turn full speed, slide sidways into the fence and then power out, at least that was the best way I could negotiate the stupid turn and I will tell you it wasn't pretty but it did attract attention. There's something about the sound of a slam into a chainlink fence that makes heads turn.
Race day...so for the TT we are sent off in 30 second intervals and the order turned out to be alphabetical! Yes, I was sent off almost last, there were a couple other lucky end of the alphabeters behind me including the one and only Shonny Vanlandingham ( she seemed to haunt me a bit over the weekend or maybe it was vice versa) For those of you not up on the MTB scene, she is one of the LUNA Chix and a BA or B-- A--, is that's easier for you to figure out? Anyways...In front of me is a little one, aka DEVO, it's a developement team for teens and they travel all around and do all the races. Blah, Blah, Blah, It's now my turn and I am ready to start 5...4...3...2...1 "VanMeter it!" my silly friends. I hit the first little climb and am just crunching down on the pedals, I feel fantastic! I come around the corner, negotiate one of the tougher sections beautifully, hit the next little climb and I can see the DEVO in front of me. I am feeling so good and know for a fact that I am putting in a good time, hitting every line perfectly! I get to the little straight away, shift down a couple clicks and am ready to fit the fence! Wham! and I power out perfectly! iT's all down hill from here. Again I am just flying and gaining on the Devo by the second, until I catch her, now to get around....NO, NO, NO she did not just crash in front of me....yes she did, now get the heck around! Finally I get around but I know precious seconds are lost. To give you an idea of how precious these seconds where, there was 30sec seperating me from the leader and I ended down in 27th...Oh well at least she apologized.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Friday, April 6, 2007
XC in AZ
Cross Country...The course in Arizona was FAST, HOT, and FAST. With pump sections, sweeping turns and power climbs this course was FUN! At least during the pre-rides when no effort is involved.
So same start situation is involved with the XC race as with the Short Track...Back of the pack! Again greeted by familiar faces, and the same look in there eyes...I am going to power to the front!
This time the race starts on a little open bit of fire road and then in about 100m narrows down in to single track. The gun goes off and it's just mad pack...get your foot clipped in you ding dong and GO GO GO! I manage to move up a bit on the famous out side line (man, I probably shouldn't be saying this, because all those spies are going to start to try and take my lines) and then Wham! We are into the single track and the pack becomes a long stung out single file line, much like that in grade school when you had to line up for recess, but this line was a bunch of angry dust-eating women!(if you would call us that)There's some elbow bumping, yelling, what have you. I try and seek every opportunity I have to try and pass (somewhat safely). With in the first couple of miles I manage to creep my way up to about the 20's when once again...we hit a little wide section descent and who gets stuck in the rut...you got it EMily gets stuck in the rut, and proceeds to superman off her bike...please don't hit a cactus...please don't hit a cactus...please don't hit a cactus...thank god I didn't hit a cactus, but I have the feeling I am missing some skin, crap that ground is like sand paper.
I get up dust myself off, put my chain back on, watch what feels like 50 girls fly by me..I think it was more like 10..go in to slight panic mode, but you have a long way to go and plenty of time to pick people of this is only the beginning of the first of 3 laps! So I took a deep breath and got into a nice rhythm...Stay strong, drink, eat...one down...stay strong, drink, eat...two down...stay strong, drink, eat...you get the picture. I knew others weren't eating or drinking which ment that they were going to suffer...as long as I could stay on top of that I could come out the strong one. Sure enough after 3 long laps in anywhere from 90-100degree temperatures(just a reminder, there is no shade in the desert) the finish line comes into view! Whew!!
What really separates road races from mountain bike races?? I will tell you at the end of that race it was clear. Mountain bike racers freaking suffer! I can say this because I do both, not say that roadies don't but I strongly believe MTBers do more. It is us against ourselves, how hard you can push you body and your mind is what it boils down to. We spend alto of time by ourselves out there.
When I came across that finish line, there was nothing left in the tank. My lower back went into spasms, the heat sets in and starts trying to cramp your muscles, the pain from the crash sets in and things start to hurt that you didn't know you hurt. The most lovely sight I saw was not just Ray(by the way the best feeder ever!) with a cold wet towel to put on my neck but two Luna Chicks(best riders in the country) crouched in the shade on the ground next to a pick up truck. You know it's tough when there is a team of medics at the finish asking over and over and over again if you are alright. Man I love this Sport!!!!! Really!!!! We are all crazy! Oh and the best part is I got my picture in Cycling News again...This time a bit better circumstances!
ST in AZ
So the first National Mountain Bike Race took place in the Beautiful retirement community of Fountain Hills Arizona! Fountain Hills is called Fountain hills because in the middle of the town there is a giant fountain that shoots over 100 feet in the air (I think) and goes of every hour for 15 minutes. It is a sight to see and everyone should go there just to see it's magnificent beauty! As Ray described it "It's like a beautiful feather!" In all actuality it is about the biggest waist of water I have ever seen! With temperatures pushing into the hundreds at least half the water has got to evaporate before it ever comes down. Anyways, the town was quite pretty and the cacti where like little fuzzy bunny's...Ask Kim about that one and the plenty of other folks who encountered the mighty choia cacti.
Anywho, the Short Track race for those of you who know nothing, which could be the lot of you...is a race that consists of a small loop that typically takes less than 2 minutes to get around (roadies, it's just like a crit)and lasts for about 20min, well 15min plus 3 laps to be exact! They are extremely spectator friendly and rider unfriendly, it's one of those races that is kind of a sick and twisted fun. When you are done, your lungs are usually on fire, some dry heaving can be involved, and just an beautiful overall sense of complete exhaustion. Although the race itself is short, it is extremely painful. The thing that stands this one apart from all the others is it was at 7:30 at night! It was down town and consisted of going up the street and then winding around onto a giant dirt lot with flood lights lighting it up so we could see at least a little bit.
Unlike road races where you can start where ever you want...in mountain bike races they line you up according to rank, so like poll position. Since this was sort of my first pro race, I had the privilege of starting at the back of the pack! At least I wasn't alone and some of my fellow competitors from last year and a new team mate where back there with me. So the start is on the street and heads up about a city block and then hangs a hard right on to the dirt. Using my ninja (roady skills) during the call up I went to the right side of the group, knowing that when we hit that corner it would bottle neck up and I could be super stealth and take the outside line! It worked and as we hit the corner I passed probably 10 or 15 girls as they all smashed into the barrier! I love the sound of cussing girls on bikes!
For the short track races they like to try and make them exciting by throwing in little whop di doos. This course they threw one in on a corner....so about halfway through the race, I was moving up and felt strong, I came around a corner and HELLO, a girl was done and I managed to pile on top of her along with about three other girls back on top of me! I scrambled back up and got rolling again with no serious damage other than a shifter that had shifted...Anyways, I believe I finally ended up about 17th or 18th overall! Still waiting for final results...From the back of the pack, that ain't to shabby!
Anywho, the Short Track race for those of you who know nothing, which could be the lot of you...is a race that consists of a small loop that typically takes less than 2 minutes to get around (roadies, it's just like a crit)and lasts for about 20min, well 15min plus 3 laps to be exact! They are extremely spectator friendly and rider unfriendly, it's one of those races that is kind of a sick and twisted fun. When you are done, your lungs are usually on fire, some dry heaving can be involved, and just an beautiful overall sense of complete exhaustion. Although the race itself is short, it is extremely painful. The thing that stands this one apart from all the others is it was at 7:30 at night! It was down town and consisted of going up the street and then winding around onto a giant dirt lot with flood lights lighting it up so we could see at least a little bit.
Unlike road races where you can start where ever you want...in mountain bike races they line you up according to rank, so like poll position. Since this was sort of my first pro race, I had the privilege of starting at the back of the pack! At least I wasn't alone and some of my fellow competitors from last year and a new team mate where back there with me. So the start is on the street and heads up about a city block and then hangs a hard right on to the dirt. Using my ninja (roady skills) during the call up I went to the right side of the group, knowing that when we hit that corner it would bottle neck up and I could be super stealth and take the outside line! It worked and as we hit the corner I passed probably 10 or 15 girls as they all smashed into the barrier! I love the sound of cussing girls on bikes!
For the short track races they like to try and make them exciting by throwing in little whop di doos. This course they threw one in on a corner....so about halfway through the race, I was moving up and felt strong, I came around a corner and HELLO, a girl was done and I managed to pile on top of her along with about three other girls back on top of me! I scrambled back up and got rolling again with no serious damage other than a shifter that had shifted...Anyways, I believe I finally ended up about 17th or 18th overall! Still waiting for final results...From the back of the pack, that ain't to shabby!
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