The month of September was full of riding and racing for me, not only Downhill but a fair bit of Cross Country as well! It started off with the Cal-State finals at Mammoth Mountain, CA. Legendary venue, this place has literally seen the sport of mountain biking “grow up." There is no mountain resort that I can think of that possesses more bike racing history (Maybe Snow Summit or Mount Snow) than M.M. Anyway, the downhill course was very fast and challenging. What made it even more interesting was the 30mph winds that are so common for this high-altitude venue. One of those gusts caught me on the first day of practice as I attempted to negotiate a drop at the beginning of the course. I went down pretty hard, but the injuries were minor. Race day was good for me, I managed to rack up 9th place with a very sloppy run. Just to give you an idea of how close the racing was, less than 2 seconds separated me from the podium!! This race was great and I hope to race it again in '010. I also did the 24hours of adrenaline @ Hurkey Creek. I had done this even many times when I was younger and...ahheemmm, in better XC shape! But I could not resist the opportunity when my old buddy who is now a Cat 1 road racer asked if I wanted to join his team (of roadies!). I thought, wow, a downhiller in a roadie XC team...sounds good. It was, I didn't slow the team down much as we finished second in our division (5-person co-ed) and scored a podium!!! Stoked! Also, Dez was out there and he was killing it! He finished first in the solo division! Can't forget Interbike. I strolled around Sin City for a couple days, checking out the bikes and other attractions. Had a chance to say hi, to Matty J and check out the new booth, lookin' good.
