After watching all of the boys kill it up at Mont Sain Anne we headed down to ride Mountain Creek for a few days. The bike park there is rad with everything from flowy jump lines to technical rock gardens.
We then headed up to Windham New York where the next Pro GRT was being held. They decided to run us on the World Cup track from last year. The bottom grass was taped differently but everything else was pretty much the same. This was by far the best track we had raced all year, challenging and steep.
The track stayed pretty wet for most of the weekend due to the daily thunderstorms that came throught every evening but usually dried up througout the day. On Saturday we had a pretty bad storm come across the mountain that took out multiple pits and ripped the awning right off of our van. I had a decent qualifying result putting me into 16th but I knew I would need to push a lot harder for Sundays final to hang onto that top 20.
Sundays mornings practice felt great and I was ready throwdown! It was supposed to rain right before we all dropped. Luckily it held out and was only just drizzling when the last man was coming down the hill. I felt really good about my run with only one small mistake up top. That run put me into 15th. My first top 20 result at a National!
From Windham we headed straight to Snowshoe where we pedaled some laps and made a little edit with trail bikes. The mountain there is unique because instead of the village being at the bottom of the mountain it is at the top. You ride down into the valley where there is nothing then catch the lift back up. The track was pretty long with some grass turns up top and long rock gardens down lower.
This was another race with lots of rain in the forcast. The first day of practice was pretty dry as was Saturdays practice and qualifying. The damper in my fork decided to blow on the first lap on Friday leaving me scrambling to get it sorted. I tried a lap on the trail bike and quickly realized that wasn't going to happen. Luckily I was able to track down an entire right side stanchion assembly that I could run for the weekend.
Saturdays qualies went great for me as I placed 9th and had lots more to improve on in finals. It was supossed to rain most of the night and all the way through Sunday, and it did. The track was pretty much a river when we dropped in for practice and only became more sloppy as the day went on. My race run was feeling great until I smashed a wheel in some of the up rocks ending the run way to early.
First mechanicle of the season so I guess I can't complain too much! I'm now headed back west for a few more races before the season comes to an end. I have learned so much from these past weeks out east here riding lots of new and different terrain. Huge thanks to Joy Ride Bikes for making all of this possible, wouldn't have been able to do it without the shops support!!
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