Ah Aspen, my home away from home, how I love thee. The first stop of the Big Mountain Enduro Tour and the second stop of the NAET took place this weekend (June 21-22) at Snowmass Village, Colorado and hot dang, it was awesome. Over 300 racers came out, with 60+ registered pro men and 16 registered pro women. Old and new, the fast people were there and ready to shred. Sweetly enough, some of those old and new people were some of my best friends.
The two day race covered seven stages and all seven stages were fast and physically exhausting. Stages 1, 2, 3, and 5 consisted of tight corners and trees and loose dirt, testing not only my cornering abilities but also my ability to sprint and accelerate out of those corners. As for the others, stage 4 and part of 6 took place on a jump trail, Valhalla, which was three miles of nothing but berms, wall-rides, table-tops, booters, and doubles. The top half of stage 6 was Vapor, a wicked fast, chunky, descent off the very top of Snowmass--it was one of my favorites. Stage 7, Bonzai DH, was the NORBA/World Cup DH trail and was another favorite of mine. I'm happy to say that by the end of the weekend I had established a steady and healthy relationship with berms, have a close friendship with drops, and learned to play nice with the jumps.
I got into Snowmass on Thursday morning and got to pre-ride that afternoon and Friday. Pre-riding was a little difficult at this race--the opening day for the Snowmass Bike Park was Saturday, the 21st, which also happened to be the first day of the race. The crew at Snowmass was kind enough to open the gondola on Friday for racers, but a couple of trails still couldn't be ridden. Vapor was off of the top chairlift, which was closed until Saturday, the bottom half of stage 5 was a nature trail that was only open to bikes after 5pm, stages 2 and 3 had pretty long and grueling climbs and transitions to get to them, and stage 6 spit you out about two miles below the village leaving us with a lovely climb back. Obviously this is the nature of enduro racing, it can't all be downhill, but dang, trying to pre-ride everything in a day and a half makes you tired! I rode stages, 2, 3, and 7 on Thursday, and stages 1, 4, and 7 (again... and again and again and again) on Friday. We were planning on trying to ride everything we could on Friday, but Scott ended up blowing up his fork going through a super fast and chunky section of stage 7 so the remainder of our day was spent searching and begging for a 27.5 fork. Thankfully, Nick, the owner of Aloha Mountain Cyclery in Carbondale, hooked Scott up with his personal Pike for the weekend. Crisis averted.
Saturday was a beautiful day in Snowmass; a little cloud cover and not too hot. Stages 1-4 went really well for me, no crashes (SAY WHAT?!) and no mechanicals. At the end of the day I was sitting in 3rd behind Brittany Clawson and Margaret Gregory. Sunday rolled around and I just wanted to keep myself together and ride clean. Stage 5 was similar to stage 1 in the fact that it was pedal-y and had a lot of tight turns, but I didn't get to pre-ride it. There was a two minute road sprint in the middle that pretty much wiped the look of death all over my face followed by really tight, rooty, and turny single-track to the finish. I managed to make it down in 5th, no crashes and no mechanicals. I got to pre-ride probably 5 of the 7 miles that made up stage 6, leaving only the bottom 2 miles a mystery. The bottom single track was like the rest--pedaly, fast, and really turny. I crashed once trying to go way too fast around a corner, but I didn't lose much time still managing to come in 3rd on that stage. Last was Bonzai, my favorite stage (even though it scared the crap out of me). The top was a wide open through a grass field that quickly converged into a technical section through tight trees, roots, and loose dirt. It opened back up to traverse across an open ski run, diving back into single track through the aspen trees. A rock garden was followed instantly by a big road drop with a pretty steep landing and immediate 90 degree right-hand turn. The trail only calmed down for a moment until it turned quickly down and to the left, through "Hell's Kitchen" over a waterfall drop into yet another 90 degree right-hander. After exiting the last single track it was fast and wide open through the grass, onto a service road, off a booter, and into the finish. I made it down clean, no issues.
Oddly enough, my best stage finishes were on the longer, more pedal-y stages. I was expecting my best stage finishes to be the shorter and gnarlier ones. In fact, stage 7, which was the least pedal-y and the most gnarly, was my worse finish, and stages 1, 3, and 6, which were the longer, less steep, and most pedal-y were my best finishes. Expect the unexpected I guess! Perhaps this means that those intervals and all my work on cornering is starting to pay off? I hope so because it is off to Durango this weekend (June 28 and 29) for two days of seriously physical riding.
Check out these links!
http://vimeo.com/98957970
http://www.pinkbike.com/news/big-mountain-enduro-1-snowmass-colorado-2014.html
http://enduro-mtb.com/en/race-report-big-mountain-enduro-1-snowmass-colorado/
http://www.mountainflyermagazine.com/view.php/photo-gallery-big-mountain-enduro-series-race-1-snowmass-2014.html
Full Race Results
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