The JR Expert race was mostly the 17-18 year olds including three guys that raced JR Worlds this past June in Italy. Jake was lined up in the back next to the California rider that beat him in the xc. Off the start Jake stuck to the wheel of the Cali rider and rode with him 18 minutes of the 20 minute plus 2 lap race.
At that point Jake attacked the Cali rider (William Curtis) and pulled away from him to cross the line 10th. He was about 2 minutes off the lead group and 15 seconds behind Seamus Powell.who raced worlds this year.
Jake rode solid and his legs felt much better today he said and a good confidence builder going into next weekend. Watched the Pro women, soft pedaling in the middle of the course to keep the legs loose.
Lined up a the back. With lap times under a minute 30 seconds I knew it would have to be 110% effort all the time to keep from getting pulled. I moved up like I wanted after the first two laps and the legs were feeling great. I rode steady and solid and kept picking off a few riders each lap on the climbs moving up to 35th out of 52 Pro starters. Just under 10 minutes, Frosty said that was it. Bummer. I was feeling good with still something in the tank. The Mt Snow st should be a bit longer so ready to give it a go again next week.
Most of the Midwest crew hanging out after the st races.
After the short track we caught a ride on the chair lift to take a practice run on the Super D course. It was a totally new course that started at the top of Windham mountain and included a part of the downhill of the xc, that was the easy part!! It was quite the course with a mix of grassy cat track and ski runs, steep drops and tight twisty rocky singletrack. The steep parts were behind the saddle stuff like 20 lakeside drops linked together. Awesome course. Not much flat and just a few very short climbs. There were only two sections we didn't ride and had to dismount. One rock section that was super greasy and hairy from the morning rain and this off camber rock 3 foot rock ledge that dropped into some greasy mud. The practice run took about 13 minutes. Rode the lift back up and only had 5 minutes to spare. Jake started 7 minutes after me with the Jr riders. At the line was top xc riders Craig, Decker, Wicks and a handful of downhill Pros. Crazy. Off the start the xc guys had the advantadge with the extra gears. As we hit the gnary stuff, the downhills came flying by. I was with Barry Wicks and wanted to stick with him. He wasn't taking any stupid chances like me and was fun riding behind him. When we hit the off camber rock ledge, this downhill guys came screaming buy, launched off the ledge to the right which was insance and his handlebar caught me in the process, taking me down and sliding down the hill about 15 feet. Got collected, nothing wrong with the bike or body and goal at that point was to just keep it clean rest of the race with no crashing. Ended up 14th out of 18 starters. Jake was riding pretty conservative in his race and was ahead of a downhill dude that came flying by him and forced him to a rocky line and Jake flatted and had to dnf. Lots of flats in the race. Super fun though was fun to ride different course. For VT will take a few more practice runs might rent a downhill bike if course lends to that and for sure run bigger tires like Nevegals. This Super D I didn't want to take chance with VT next weekend. After the race we bolted out of NY and made way to the cool town of Bennigton, VT and make way to MT Snow today and get dialed in for Jakes big race on Friday already.
2 comments:
Congrats to you and Jake on the good results in NY. You should have called before riding at Spirit because I would have showed you the 1 1/4 miles of new single track.
Good luck at Mount Snow.
Scott KJ
Thanks Scott. Yeah, we thought about trying to hook up with you. If we take the northern route back, we might try to ride on Tuesday. Will let you know. Thanks for all your efforts on the course.
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