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Mount Snow Natz Report |
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Written by Adam Craig
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Friday, 27 July 2007 |
The Homeland. That’s Mount Snow, Vermont for this kid. I’ve been coming here and racing bikes since about 1995, whether it was Dual Slalom, Downhill, Cross Country or Hillclimbs, if they had it in Vermont, I’d race it and have a damn good time. My current awesome situation as bike racer guy got off the ground on this very soil in 1998 with a second place in the Junior Expert XC race and subsequent berth on the US National Team for Worlds in Quebec.
This led to one Mr. John Kemp approaching me in a dimly lit hallway with a super sweet new carbon fiber riser bar that he handed to me as a way of saying I had a spot on the Devo team for the next year. I repaid him that very year at Mount Snow by winning the Junior National Championship (at Mount Snow, as it were…) and the rest has just fallen into place. Vermont has always been a place I could count on the plan coming together. (Except for the last 30 seconds of my Downhill race run in 1998, when I laid it down in an innocuous corner, taking myself out of the top 5 and a possible spot on the DH worlds team as well… might have been for the best anyway…) Fortunately, the tradition of good times at Vermont would continue for me this year, and it just happened that this year my favorite place hosted the one-day US National Championships. Perfect.
Even more perfect was that while hitching a ride down from Maine with a local Junior ripper I woke from a quick nap to the steady pitter patter of rain on the roof. Nice. Upon arrival at the Giant team trailer, Carl greeted me with a mud-covered smile which Tom immediately explained. Evidently, Carl had just returned from pre-riding the XC course and had told Tom that I was going to “Shit a pink twinkie” when I saw how slippery it was getting up in the woods… He was right. I love twinkies…
Up first was the Women’s XC race on Friday afternoon. Kelli was back in action, still a bit stiff in the shoulder but fired up to be racing again, even if it was in the mud. Carl and I recommended that she ride in some nice lines for us and dry out the track a bit under the sunny skies to improve our (mostly Carl’s) chances in our Saturday race… She did a good job of that, coming in a solid 8th place in the meantime, happy with her new “no crashing” approach…
Next up was good, proper XC racing for us boys. Excellent. Saturday dawned clear, cool, breezy, essentially perfect. Consultation with some singlespeed racers who had first tracks on the course told the story I wanted to hear. Climbs still slick in the woods but dry in the sunny, fast bits. Descents a bit slick but riding fast, like they should be. The race start was a total shocker. Barry Wicks and Ryan Trebron with a 100 yard gap at the top of the first climb. Weird. Fortunately, 100 yards into the first descent, just after putting a sweet inside pass on Todd Wells, I heard the telltale sound of a tubeless tire getting slammed into a rock, first burping out all it’s air, then smashing into the next rock, curing it permanently of any pneumatic characteristics… This was obviously followed by Ryan swearing and careening off the trail. Wicks and I hooked up and railed the descent proper, having a real good time. I rode around Barry and set off up the main climb with a gap on the other major players. Ten minutes of big ring climbing and feeling awesome, but composed, later, I couldn’t see anyone anymore. That would be the theme for the rest of the race, riding alone on my favorite course at a rate of speed that ended up being a minute or two faster per lap than most of the other fellows riding around in the woods. Awesome. I kept it on two wheels (most of the time, except for when I flailed in front of a bunch of kids and had to do a jump off/behind the back bike grab/save) and (much to Tom’s delight) didn’t break anything on the last lap. It seemed like I had plenty of time for a proper finish line wheelie, so I did one… Turned out I had about four and a half minutes on second place. Perfect. I was up on the stage rambling away into the microphone when Carl rolled through, looking relaxed and relieved for 11th position, I have him the aussie cheer of “DECKA DECKA DECKA” over the PA, much to his delight, or was that chagrin…
Sunday morning dawned early and blurry. Kelli and I had to be on the lift by 7:45am to try and pinch two Super D practice runs before our 9am race start… We made it on the life by 8 and at least got in one (pretty entertaining, kind of scary for that hour) run top to bottom so we knew where we were going and where not to go… Tom Spiegel takes great pride in keeping the Super D start sequence a secret until about ten minutes before the sequence is set to begin. This time he had a good one for us. Start at painted yellow line A, run to line B where your trusty steed eagerly awaited your arrival, run with or ride said steed to line C, leave it there, run back to line B, tag it, turn around and run back to line C, finally reuniting with your bike for good. From line C it was a short but steep climb to a traverse before all hell broke loose in the name of 30mph ski slope bombing over big ledges with multiple lines. I sagged (by that I mean got smoked on) the run, getting on my bike in about 15th place, then promptly picked off about 10 guys before we dropped in. Sam Koerber and I got immediately passed, in the air, over a natural gap (that never occurred to me) by our recently crowned Dual Slalom National Champ, Chris Herndon, who promptly disappeared down the hill. Fortunately, in the first flat mud bog section, he reappeared, running with his bike… One down. Now only Mike West remained about 15 seconds up the fireroad traverse that would prove to be the race’s crux (other than not flatting or crashing). I set to work pedaling harder that I ever have whilst mounted on the Reign X, which was actually pretty rewarding. Mike and I bumped elbows for the turn into the second downhill section, but, for the first time ever, I had the inside and momentum on my side and held my own. We charged down the next high speed ledge sections with him looking for a place to pass and me making sure that didn’t happen. Once I hit the top of the cross country descent with a gap I had a good time railing the 6+” bike down what I’d ridden so many times already this weekend. Once more for good measure, and another National Title, seemed appropriate.
The women set out a couple minutes after us and Kelli put her morning recce to good use, keeping it smooth up top to conserve her pinner little Trance Advanced, then turning it up on the pedaling sections to come across the line in 3rd place. Nice work on the no more crashing but still riding damn fast program… She continued the racing back into shape effort with an 8th place in the Short Track, dangling just off the lead group for most of the event, but at least riding the turns and rollers with style.
This left only the Short Track on Sunday evening for us to contest. Everyone was looking at me like I should win the hat trick on the weekend. There was only one problem, named Ryan Trebron, who had dropped out after half of the XC on Saturday… He’s disgustingly fast in short tracks anyway, and when he’s fresh and I’m a bit buggered from the long XC and early SD, well, let’s just say I had a fair challenger. From the gun it was basically Ryan and I trading punches. A small group would join us every couple laps as we recovered a tiny bit, but when we were on the gas we were on our own. Carl was there to help and was riding fast in his own right, but a small bobble cost him contact with the group and saw him finish in 6th position. At least he got to sleep in… Ryan and I finally checked out for good about 15 minutes into the race and took turns digging on the front. The only problem was that Ryan’s leading pace was about two ticks faster than mine. I settled into the old habit of trying to turn a huge gear while Ryan turned a two second gap into four into twelve over the last three laps. Well, whaddya gonna do, start dropping out of the glorious XC to focus on the ST? Not likely for this kid… I ended up second, which I’ll take on the weekend. We’ve still got next year, when I’ll actually be in shape, to sew up the hat trick at Mount Snow.
That’s right, we get another year of National Championships in Vermont before they more somewhere that can’t possibly be as awesome. I love it here. Hopefully it’ll keep being a place we can always count on a plan coming together…
Till then, thanks for reading and helping out.
Adam and Carl and Kelli’s fun Giant Mountain Bike Team. |
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