Mountain States Cup – Crested Butte, CO – June 17-21, 2009

Day 1:  (Wednesday before race weekend)
Went up the hill in the late morning to ride the mountain and found out that the race course was already taped!  Awesome!  I can practice the race run all week long!  First run down the hill and, to my astonishment, I realize that I’m way up in elevation (10,500’).  Even a relaxed inspection run was a workout.  Same elevation as Angel Fire and Mammoth Mountain, but my lungs were complaining.
On to a steak dinner and a good night’s rest and lots of hydration.

Day 2: Get to the hill to ride first thing and start laying down the speed. Lungs still not entirely stoked, but the course is fun so it is all worthwhile. Rode with Justin Wyche – we were about the only ones there. My shoulder seems to be fully recovered.

Day 3: First official day of the event. Registration was a madhouse – long line even though I was there early, fill out 3 pages worth of waivers, take them to another line, get number and wait in another line for lift ticket. Then went out and continued practicing with a few more friends. More steak for me!

Saturday: Rode some more – the course felt like I was getting consistently faster each run. Went up and watched the 4X which ended up being quite the spectacle because it was a mud mountain cross race. Everyone that I thought was going to win that weekend crashed out in the first corner and local weekend warriors were taking the podium, except for Petr Hanak. I got to be Mitch Ropelato’s hero for the 4X because I came up the hill to watch with an umbrella and I became his umbrella-monkey for the rest of the 4X. The least I could do to repay him for lending me his bike for the Dual Stunt at Sea Otter in April!

Race Day: It had rained overnight so I went out and got a few practice runs in, strategically timed, and it was slickery snot in places. Qualifying started at 10:45, so I washed my bike and headed up the hill. I rolled in for my quali run, wanting a fast time so that I could get a late start time and the driest course for the race. I got to the bottom and knew I could have worked way harder to get a faster time, because it didn’t matter, because the entire run, I stuck all my lines and had perfect form the whole way, which earned me 4th place qualifier!

After a small celebration, I washed my bike again (did you hear that Kirt and Travis and Lars?), swapped to my race wheel set and did my pre-race prep Jamaican style – a glass of warm milk and a good nap. I went up for finals and got to the top with plenty of time to spare for a proper warm up. The riders dwindled and yet I stayed up there, spinning, trying to keep my legs warm at high elevation and deal with the endless mosquitoes making lunch of all the riders. I drop in – messed up a corner or two, but still shredded the rest of the course and hit a new line in my race run – I power manualed through a rock garden and came out of it at Mach 9! Getting close to the finish jump, and I decide to put a little whip in over the Bender-booter and everybody went insane! Pedaled, caught the last inside lines and squeezed the bike through the finish line as fast as I could. I didn’t barf through my full-face or fall down, but I had worked pretty hard and it paid off! 6th place out of over 60 riders! Fastest non-Coloradonite there!

It was a great weekend, my Santa Cruz V10 was awesome the whole week with my T-Rav factory-tuned rig!

-GP