First Place at Howell Mountain Challenge Mountain Bike Race!!

I woke up early this morning to make the two hour drive to Napa Valley. I drove past a lot of the wineries I visited with my Mom a couple months ago. Took a right after St Helena and headed up the mountains on the east side of the Valley. I got to the course early, turns out Dean Meyer, another GT rider was also there to race. We set up both our tents and I went to warm up on the course. I had just enough time to get in a lap, which is 10 miles. This could have turned out to be a mistake because the course had a lot more climbing than I thought and was forced to work a little too hard for a warm up.

I raced in cat2 19-34 class. We did two 10 miles laps. There was a lot of us at the start, and one thing about mountain bike racing is you don't want to get caught behind the pack once the singletrack starts. The start was uphill off the line on pavement and then narrowed into a dirt path. I made sure I was lined up at the front on the start line and then hammered up the hill and reached the singletrack first. I could feel some lactic acid build up from this effort making me nervous about my extra long warm up. I got passed by someone in a different age group but kept my own pace. The group stayed behind me till we hit some uphill singletrack switchbacks in the first 1/3 of the first lap and then I left them and never saw anyone from my class again. (Podium pic taken a little late, no worries Rachel)

The course was amazing. Lots of singletrack with switchbacks both uphill and down and some double track flats or slight downhills to motor down. Cool little tech sections were scattered about too. The course threw about half a dozen tough climbs at you that were just long enough to hate them... a lot, glad I'm not Cat 1 like Dean who had to race three laps. One of which had to be walked it was so steep and loose. Also at the end of the laps was a huge set of rocky rollers with the crest and trough of all three of them being about a story and half tall deep and both sides being super steep. It was a course that changed terrain quickly and you had to look ahead to make sure you were in the right gear. The other plus was it was on a college campus and they opened the showers for us, which was nice after the dusty hot ride we had, thankfully most of the course was shaded!

Riding the last half of the first lap and beginning of second lap was lonely and its tough to push yourself and stay focused sometimes when your riding alone. It was nice to start catching some of the slower Cat 1 guys it makes you ride faster when you have someone to catch. On the last long climb before the end of the last lap there was a young kid laying on the side of the trail with a bunch of other riders. He didn't look like he crashed but instead heat exhaustion or heat stroke. We could hear emergency services coming up the fire road, one of which almost got stuck on those rocky rollers I described.

I took the turn off for the finish line and rode around the track through the finish line arms up in the air. I have been working on my climbing and this race tested both that and my endurance. I have a lot more work still but I know I can get better. Overall it was one of the best courses I've ever ridden, it was a great course for the carbon hardtail climbing machine that is the Zaskar.

In the picture below is Dean, in his GT shirt, Chris, in green who took second in his class, and I've done some road races with, and Justin, a young kid racing his first race. Justin picked a tough course to make his first race. He was worried about walking parts of the course and riding with the other riders. But he finished! which was a great feat for him. He was tired but enjoyed himself, who knows this kids may get addicted like the rest of us and come back three or four years from now and destroy us all on the race course. Keep riding Justin, cause mountain bike racing is fun!