Time is a funny thing. It sneaks up on you and before you know it, a week, a month even a year has gone by. Time is made more apparent when you engage in annual events, such as this Angelfire race weekend which I have done now for the past 4 years. You see people who you have not seen for months; maybe years…you see how they have changed and what new things they are doing in their lives. You talk about what new sponsors, bikes, gear they have been using and where they have been racing. Even people who you might have known for years seem a bit different when you relate their current state to how they were a year ago because the setting, the place, the environment makes it so. Either that or I am just getting old and time is getting distorted for me. Either way, I had an awesome time with some of my best friends up in the high-altitude town of Angelfire!
The journey started off on Wednesday afternoon at my home in Chula Vista, CA. The crew met up and loaded the trusty F250 which has made the 2,000 mile journey 3 years in a row. Hank Cadle, Wes, Daniel, Jon Buckell and myself loaded “white lightning” to capacity and charged the Southwest desert non-stop. We arrived in Taos, New Mexico at about 8am to hit up the local WalMart for supplies and famous Taos burritos at the “Chow Cart.” The skies were gray and nasty; it looked like rain was definitely on the horizon. Arriving at AngelFire a couple of hours later, it was apparent that the rest of the day would be pretty rainy…unfortunately this was the case for pretty much the whole weekend. The pro DH course at Angelfire is rather long but can be described in a few short words; rough, rocky and hard to race. You must practice and get your lines down but also keep in mind that, at the end of the weekend, you will need to go as fast as you can down this 5+ minute insanely rough track…In addition to all this, the weather also plays a factor. Most of the practice sessions were held in wet, slippery track conditions while the forecast for race day was dry. You must keep in mind that it is not worth doing a whole lot of runs in conditions that will be nowhere near the conditions on race day. Of course most of us were hammering out runs because it is simply fun! Practice went well, I was stoked to get on the hill with my fellow team riders Nick Van Dine, Ryan Cornielsen, and Darian Harvey. I would say that Cannondale Factory Racing (CFR) had a strong presence on the DH course!
Monday, Memorial Day came and it was time to lay some solid, non-stop runs down on the course. Most riders were wondering how they would do such a thing as they had not done a non-stop run all week! For my seeding run I did my usual conservative run making sure I hit all my lines, I got a bit carried away and had to remind myself that it was the seeding run, not race run. I made a mistake in one of the rock sections which was no big deal; I did not go completely down so I lost little time. I came down with a decent time and I knew I could definitely improve on it come race time. I coasted down to my pit (NEMA international) and cleaned up the bike and put her away, ready to race. Surprisingly, people told me that I qualified in the 8th place slot! I was quite happy and knew I could put something good together.
Race time came along and I felt good. Calm and as confident as one could be before descending the jackhammer-in your hands-like course. As I got into the gate I just cleared my mind and waited for the beeps, after the 5th beep time stood still and I started my run. As far as I could remember, everything went well except for a mistake in that same rock section. I came down with a time 10 seconds faster than my seeding run, I was pretty stoked! At the end of the day my run was good enough for 14th place, definitely a disappointment as I wanted to improve on last year’s result.
This trip was definitely something I needed, it put a lot of things in perspective, mainly the fact that I need to ride my bicycle a lot more because it is awesome!
The journey started off on Wednesday afternoon at my home in Chula Vista, CA. The crew met up and loaded the trusty F250 which has made the 2,000 mile journey 3 years in a row. Hank Cadle, Wes, Daniel, Jon Buckell and myself loaded “white lightning” to capacity and charged the Southwest desert non-stop. We arrived in Taos, New Mexico at about 8am to hit up the local WalMart for supplies and famous Taos burritos at the “Chow Cart.” The skies were gray and nasty; it looked like rain was definitely on the horizon. Arriving at AngelFire a couple of hours later, it was apparent that the rest of the day would be pretty rainy…unfortunately this was the case for pretty much the whole weekend. The pro DH course at Angelfire is rather long but can be described in a few short words; rough, rocky and hard to race. You must practice and get your lines down but also keep in mind that, at the end of the weekend, you will need to go as fast as you can down this 5+ minute insanely rough track…In addition to all this, the weather also plays a factor. Most of the practice sessions were held in wet, slippery track conditions while the forecast for race day was dry. You must keep in mind that it is not worth doing a whole lot of runs in conditions that will be nowhere near the conditions on race day. Of course most of us were hammering out runs because it is simply fun! Practice went well, I was stoked to get on the hill with my fellow team riders Nick Van Dine, Ryan Cornielsen, and Darian Harvey. I would say that Cannondale Factory Racing (CFR) had a strong presence on the DH course!
Monday, Memorial Day came and it was time to lay some solid, non-stop runs down on the course. Most riders were wondering how they would do such a thing as they had not done a non-stop run all week! For my seeding run I did my usual conservative run making sure I hit all my lines, I got a bit carried away and had to remind myself that it was the seeding run, not race run. I made a mistake in one of the rock sections which was no big deal; I did not go completely down so I lost little time. I came down with a decent time and I knew I could definitely improve on it come race time. I coasted down to my pit (NEMA international) and cleaned up the bike and put her away, ready to race. Surprisingly, people told me that I qualified in the 8th place slot! I was quite happy and knew I could put something good together.
Race time came along and I felt good. Calm and as confident as one could be before descending the jackhammer-in your hands-like course. As I got into the gate I just cleared my mind and waited for the beeps, after the 5th beep time stood still and I started my run. As far as I could remember, everything went well except for a mistake in that same rock section. I came down with a time 10 seconds faster than my seeding run, I was pretty stoked! At the end of the day my run was good enough for 14th place, definitely a disappointment as I wanted to improve on last year’s result.
This trip was definitely something I needed, it put a lot of things in perspective, mainly the fact that I need to ride my bicycle a lot more because it is awesome!
First photo by: Wes Pracht mtbphoto@gmail.com
Second photo: Shaun Spomer www.Littermag.com
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