2014 Spring Thaw Weekend Recap – From One Girl’s Experience:
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| Post races: Hanging with ladies of shred. |
Saturday’s
XC:
The sun was shining, the glare off of all the spandex was
intense, and the temp’s were perfect, but Saturdays XC was nothing short of painful
with 4,500’ feet of race-pace climbing over a 21 mile course. Best described as
a hill-climb followed by a super-d, this course allowed the strongest climbers
to make major gains on the unforgiving, long climb. Once the peak of Bull Gap Trail
was met, however, things started tilting downward and those with more taste for
the descent had to find strength in exhausted legs to sprint sections and let
it fly if they wanted to make up some time. A loud, booming voice was important too – when
coming up hot on other racers in order to get by, or at least to give fair
warning to those that wouldn't budge of the risky passing tactics that would be
taken. Coming from dh/enduro-style
racing, I never knew XC could be this exciting.
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| Quick rain gear for the rain dump on Sunday. |
Leading up to this race, I was worried about competing in Pro
Class XC, but since I was going for the combined All-Mountain “Queen of the Mountain”
– open to both the Elite (pro) and Expert classes, I had to compete in the same category for both the XC
and DH events. Being new to XC racing, but certainly no stranger to pedaling
hard, I was amazed at the pedal power of the Elite and Expert girls I was
racing with – most notably an Expert class, 16-year old Ashland girl that put down
a Pro class Men’s time. Whoa! It was inspiring.
After eeking out every bit of motivation I had to keep
myself chugging on the climb, and working through the exhaustion on the
descents - highlighted with bits of excitement in catching people, I finally
made it through that finish line. I was ecstatic. I didn’t know what my time
was, but I didn’t care; I’m frick’in done! After catching my breath, weaving
through the crowds of racers and talking with some of the other girls, the consensus
seemed to sum up to a good, clean day of hard racing – AND a third place
finish! Woot!
Sunday’s DH:
A good DH
race just wouldn’t be right without some action packed excitement, right? With
the XC event having gone so smoothly, things needed to balance out a bit for
the DH – at least that’s what the God’s of racing thought. A little cayenne pepp’ah to spice things right
up. Boo-yah!
The first
stage of the DH race was Catwalk Trail and second was the lower elevation BTI
Trail. The first racers were off at 10am, and if you popped off the start
between 10am and oh, about 11:30am, you had some good karma. Come 11:30,
though, the skies began to get angry and soon a fury of downpour let loose,
dumping rain on the remaining Expert and Elite class racers. The more water
that came down, the slicker and muddier the trail got and the less usable your
goggles became. For most of us Elite and Expert class girls, we all either went
down just before, during, or right after this major rain dump. That said, it
was about finding a balance between letting it hang out in the slick
conditions, but not losing it and ending up off your bike – which is really the
essence of all racing. Some of us had a dry
run, while others got drenched and/or mud encrusted. There were stories about
catching others in bad locations, dropped chains, hardly being able to see, and
getting dumped off your bike into the mud right before the finish - to the crowd
of heckler’s delight, of course. Basically, all of us that raced in and just after
the downpour had a story. It was racing and It got wild.
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| Sunday after the DH |
The all-around
butt-kicking, crusher lady of the weekend was Rebekah Rottenberg. She walked
away with the very cool, handmade trophy for the 2014 QOM. You are awesome,
Rebekah!
 |
| 3rd in XC and 3rd in DH - Cash, baby! Woot! |
Official OBRA Results:
XC Elite Women (Open)
Name
|
Team
|
Time
|
||
1
|
2:01:01
|
|||
2
|
2:06:12
|
|||
3
|
2:10:06
|
|||
4
|
2:21:30
|
|||
XC Expert Women
Name
|
Team
|
Time
|
||
1
|
1:52:11
|
|||
2
|
2:05:48
|
|||
3
|
2:05:49
|
|||
4
|
2:10:34
|
|||
5
|
2:11:32
|
|||
6
|
2:27:14
|
|||
7
|
2:30:40
|
|||
8
|
2:38:40
|
|||
DNF
|
0:00:00
|
|||
DNF
|
0:00:00
|
|||
DNF
|
0:00:00
|
DH Elite Women (Open)
Name
|
Team
|
Time
|
||
1
|
08:58.88
|
|||
2
|
09:09.65
|
|||
3
|
09:28.68
|
|||
4
|
09:42.28
|
|||
5
|
10:59.55
|
DH Expert Women
Name
|
Team
|
Time
|
||
1
|
09:04.27
|
|||
2
|
10:40.90
|
|||
3
|
10:42.56
|
|||
4
|
11:47.89
|
