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Monday, August 20, 2007
Racing at Altitude.
Posted by: Claire
After not putting together a good final run at the NORBA Finals in Snowmass, I was stoked to finish on top at one of the G3 Gravity Series events in Solvista, Colorado. We hadn't heard of the event until the weekend before and we thought, what the hell,we're in the area, lets check it out! Sure glad we did.........
I'll start off by saying, racing at altitude is hard. My puny lungs and I have been struggling here in the Colorado Rockies. Oh, and this is Frenchie. Thats what they call him. Probably because of his high energy french accent. I think he might be affected by the altitude......he is crazy. Everybody loves him, he knows all the kids and this picture was taken right after he pulled that beer out of his spandex shorts.....then he kissed me because he always has to kiss the winner, ha, yeah right.
The G3 events are set up like a stage race. The winner is determined by their overall combined time on 3 different tracks.
The 1st track was sick. A bit of everything. Technical, big step downs, jumps, wide open fast corners, berms. My favorite. I rode solid and won by 5+ seconds. That gave me a 5+ second advantage in the overall standing.
The 2nd track was my first Super D ever. This is when I really felt my lungs. We had to run and jump on our bikes and sprint uphill before sprinting along a fire road and then across the ski run before hitting some long technical singletrack. Pedalling my DH bike..........hmmmmm, not as fun as pinning it. It felt horrible but I finished 3rd. Lisa Myklak was able to gain a 4 hundredths of a second lead on me in the overall standings after this race.
So it was all up to gaining that time back on the last DH track. Similar to the first track, I knew it suited me and I knew I could win. Technical, huge ski jump-step down, fast open grassy turns, loved it. The pressure was on but I knew if I didn't flat I could do it. I came across the finish 4+ seconds faster than Jackie Harmony and Lisa Myklak(bummer)ended up crashing out.
That gave me an overall lead of 17+ seconds so I took home the winand 900 bucks prize money!! It must have been the burger.
And I got to hang out with VanDines girl, Tara Dakides, yup, just the sickest snowboarder on the planet......I have her signature Vans snowboard boots.
Serious props to the race organizers for an awesome event. Its not that often that you get good organization, sick tracks, free food, chill atmosphere and good prize money!!!!
Claire.
