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Race report by Mike Gin Well, where should I start? The poor organization of the race? The changed course? The heat? The altitude? Or that we just plain sucked? Okay, here are the results:
Me - 24/47 sport 30-34 Yes, it was a stellar day for TWW. Rich and I got to Squaw the morning of the race, geared up and headed to registration. On the way we ran into Scott. He said his race did not go well (his practice runs were better). He thought he went over the handlebars 3 times. He lost count at some point. Not a good sign. Then we find out that the course was not going to be the cool course from America's Championship in 1994 (as had been stated in the website). Instead, we would be racing at the base camp. Hmm... I did not like the sound of this. More in a bit. We got into registration. What a bunch of idiots. No one knew anything. Rich pre-registered and they didn't have his entry. Then they proceeded to give him the wrong number. They gave out men's DH numbers to women XC riders. They botched licensing. The NORBA official was nowhere to be found. There were three different costs for same day registration - $39 on the website, $40 on a flyer, and $43 at the registration booth. And, to top it all off, we didn't get a WTB tire as was stated in the website. Instead, we got a wrist band that would allow us into the venue each day to watch the Pros and listen to the alleged "national entertainment". What a crock. If there is one thing we learned from this race, it's DON'T RACE THOSE LAME ASS KNOBULAR RACES!!!!! TWW will not touch these in the future. The course was a joke. They reportedly had to change the course due to snow at High Camp. Well, why the hell didn't they tell us that earlier?! Why not change the website? They said skiing had just been stopped a week ago. It's not like there was a freak snow storm up there. Assholes. They didn't want to do a little extra work so they put together a cheesy course. Poor course markings too - whatever happened to downward pointing arrows at tough sections? Take a lesson from Mammoth when they snow plowed for days to make the course rideable (12' snow banks and all). I contemplated on not racing. The new course was a climber's course - 1,200'+ of climbing in 4 miles. And my knees weren't too up for so much climbing (I almost brought my singlespeed for the other course 6 miles and 800' of climbing). Here's how the course went - long, dusty, exposed hill climb. Stupid crossover (hay bales where the course crossed). More long, dusty exposed hill climb. Turn onto a shale singletrack, mostly flat with some uphill sections. Bomb down a fire road. Hit the crossover again and lose all momentum. Then climb up another long, dusty, exposed hill climb. Then turn down a section of their old DH course - rocky, loose sand. Then you hit the finish area. In other words, up-down-up-down. We did three laps. Only 12 miles but over 3,600' of climbing. The temps exceeded 90 degrees and there was zero wind and lots and lots of sun. I was closing to DNF'ing myself. A fellow competitor talked me out of it. And thanks to Jodi and Erica for the cheers - that helped to keep me rolling. Rich was the smarter of the two and did DNF. It just wasn't his day - he had taken 10th place at Laguna Seca a couple of weeks earlier too. This was possibly the most difficult race that I have done. Rich felt the same way - "there were no redeeming qualities of this race course." The heat up the climbs was the main factor. But also, on the singletrack, it was so technical that you could not relax even a bit. The upper body took a beating. Did I mention the heat? So anyhow, we got spanked. But so did a bunch of others. There were 12 DNF's in my category and many, many more at the race. We saw some good wounds too. And to top it all off, Rich and I had no clue that there were a bunch of vendors there with schwag. Oh well. As for Scott, he indicated the DH course was basically 4-6 inches of loose, sandy soil (and some rocks mixed in for good measure). Made for no traction, no braking, and speeds not exceeding 10MPH. It was steep and treacherous. Of course, they just had cut the course in a few days before the race. What's up with that? Scott's friend crashed too - bent his cranks in the process. Just wasn't a good day for our group of racers. The best thing that happened to our DH'ers is that they stopped by the Intense booth while the mechanics were in the process of throwing away old tires (raced ONE time by their Pros). They asked if they could have them, and he said, "sure thing brah" or something like that. Probably $50 tires with virtually no wear. Score, a direct hit. So after licking our wounds, on Sunday, we all decided to get in a quick ride - we did Corral and Powerline. Good classic Tahoe riding. Just a very small taste of Mr. Toad's - which we'll be doing on August 28/29 weekend. Amazingly, no one in the group had ridden in Tahoe before (besides racing). Well, hopefully we'll have better luck next time. That is at the next race - not ever again at a Knobular race.
Mike
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