Icycle 2009 - XC here I come.

Damn that hurt. So this past weekend I went to Fontana Village for the annual Icycle event. I had heard many a story about the fun times here and I was starting to be warned to not take it too seriously. After the Snake at the start of the year, I have had not much else to do but "train" so I had my eyes on this event, and thought it'd be a great place to try XC for a change. Snake Creek Gap, 4+ hrs, was the shortest mountain bike race I had ever competed in, and the thought of pinning it for a short distance really scared me.

We rolled out early on Friday to set up and start pedaling. After sweating profusely the whole drive down, I hopped on my bike as soon as I could, to spin the jitters out. The one lap I took seemed way shorter than I thought it would be and it turns out it was shorter than before (round 5ish miles). Although I had never raced in a XC race before I was encouraged by riding buddies to register in the Expert Class. Ok.. whatever, competition is good, and the longer the better, so 3 laps it was. Before the end of Friday night, we started running the DH (downhill) course over and over. I had to make myself stop and not get totally blown up before the Saturday race. Cruising around with Dunn was super rad, as we timed Jut, Bruce, Adam and Marshall for a few good runs, before takin' it back to the cabin for some chill time.

Saturday it was time to race. Another LeMans start, and pro - Jamie Dinkins was instantly way off the front, amazing pics here. She took off and left the field, never to be seen again by the ladies in the back. I got a good start and immediately hit that pinned pain pace and stayed there. The first climb of the course was by far the toughest and once that was over it was just a matter of staying on top of it. By the end of the first lap Kylie Krauss and Julia Tellman had passed me and it wasn't long before I couldn't see them anymore either. The first lap just hurt, and the second lap was even more uncomfortable and I had to try to get some drink mix in me quick before I totally bonked... I kept thinking to myself, "the third lap is going to feel Great!" And it did. Riding solo for most of the third lap, I was actually slightly bummed to see then number 3 chica - Juila, because this meant the race was back on for me. The good thing was I caught her just before the technical descent and since I had passed her here on the first lap for a bit, I figured this descent would give me a nice gain on her.

Yeah Third Place Finish! Finished strong, was ready to puke at the top of the hill and had destroyed lungs for the rest of the day. The strangest thing about this race was the fact that my lap times were dead on the same (only 1 sec different), as Marshall brought to my attention later that day. Strange because I felt so different during all three laps. I thought I went out too fast, thought I slowed down too much in the second.. and nailed it in the third.

I was way more excited about doing well in the downhill but had some seriously fast seasoned warriors to contend with. I saw Caroline Minicozzi millin' about during the day, and heard about how rad Johanna Tuttle is on the DH.. so I figured I was definitely not placing in the top two... Oh and I almost forgot.. my new excuse is that I was on a hard tail.. not a sweet full suspension like the one in the pic to the right (anyone know who this is?) but whatevs' it was still super fun! Downhill racing is a strange thing though. The ladies were to race first, so a crew of us loaded up in the truck and stood around for at least a half an hour at the top waiting for the rest of the ladies to show and for the clocks to get all set. Quiet times at the top, with tons of dudes a few chics standing around. Not as nerve racking as the XC thank god, but still...

We had only one run, which I was pretty bummed about. I had one major goal for this descent - not to spill at the wicked switch back at the bottom. My favorite part of the whole event was watching the expert dudes nail (or not) this steep muddy switch back. As for my run, I played it real safe. Got 4th expert. And after checking out the times, I wasn't too bummed anymore.. on my best run during the day, I think I probably did it in 1:55, still slower than number 3 - Laura Decker. Johanna and Caroline rocked it with times almost 20 sec. faster than myself. Totally looking forward to my next Down Hill race, my family is really stoked about this too (not).



PARTY ON YO! Great times hangin' out with everyone that night! Congrats to everyone that showed up and rocked it out, Esp. Kym Schifino - seen here after picking up first place awards for the Sport XC and DH! Lets go ride! Thanks to those that started a little dance party - Eli! (thanks for streaking through the crowd!) I couldn't have been happier to have a chance to bust a move on the dance floor with a bunch of rad mountain biking ladies. If only more bike races were as fun as this one.

Race pics above by BradO.