Its been a long time since I last posted, but I figure what better time to start then after racing the two North American World cups!
Mont Sainte Anne was my kind of course! Full of rocks and roots, technical up and down! The two days before the race the sky was blue and the weather was beautiful, and the course was dry to the point of being dusty (atypical for Mont Sainte Anne). The night before the race the clouds opened up, and let a down poor out, which continued on and off throughout race day. So the race would be true Mont Sainte Anne style; muddy! My race was not until 4:30, so I had the whole day to be nervous. When warm up time rolled around, it decided to rain again, so rather then a warm up, it was more of a get everything really soggy before the race. The rain let up and we were off the line racing!
It was a fun race, the mud and wet gave the track a whole new feel. It was a lot of jumping on and off the bike and running up sections, it really made me wish I had done some cyclocross races! It was also just being able to be light over everything so that the wet roots wouldn't put you on the ground. I rode La Beatrice on my second lap, which is the famous technical descent on the course. There were some fly over bridges on the course that were killer! They were almost vertical at some points. On the second lap I was following a girl up it, and she slowed a bit more that I would have liked and I was not able to make it up. Thankfully I grabbed the railing on the side or else I would have fallen all the way back to the bottom. I was just stuck there for a second until I could get my foot on a part of the railing and hoist my bike and my self up to the top. The rest of the race I was just trying to be smooth over everything and have fun, I passed a few girls, and I got caught by some. It was a solid race, finishing 14th.
After the race we made our way down to Vermont, where we rode on the kingdom trails!
Erin Killing it at Windham!
Windham was dry and dusty, and stayed that way for the race. The course was as Colorado as you can get on the east coast. Lots and lots of climbing, and rocky loose descents. I had a terrible start, and spent most of the race picking people off, just tapping out a consistent pace up the climbs and letting it rip on the descents. I was trying hard to catch the two other Americans ahead of me, but never was able to close the gap all the way.
My Dads side of the family lives near Windham, and came up for the race. It was great to show them the mountain bike scene, and have them cheering for me!!
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