Julia stomps the Stampede!

It was a great race, one of my best, both in effort and tactics. I really love the course, it’s perfect for me because it doesn’t start with a big climb. It’s a great equalizing course, not a huge time difference between the fastest and middle/slower riders. There is only so fast you can go on a course with lots of twisty-turny singletrack and rock gardens. A fast climber can climb twice as fast as me, but he isn’t going to ride that singletrack a whole lot faster than I can. I think one of my REALL teammates, Luke, was trying to do that and hit a tree with his face. My time was just under 2:08, pretty close to the same as last year, I thought I was faster and pretty sure the course was the same. But my placing was a lot better, so I guess the competition was just different. But I was 3rd of 17 in the largest women’s field, Cat 2 age 40-49. For the narrowest age group (outside of juniors), it’s a lot of riders, always the largest women’s field. Read more »

Sisters Stampede 2013

The Reall Racing team had it’s biggest showing of the early season over Memorial Day weekend. Six team members made the trip over the Cascade mountains to Sisters Oregon for the 4th annual Sisters Stampede mountain bike race. After leaving the wet and chilly valley early in the morning we were greeted to partially sunny skies and a cool breeze. An overnight rain left the typically dry dusty trails damp and fast for the start of the race. Read more »

Too Bonzai!

Ashland, Oregon.
The Spring Thaw in Ashland was another great race for me. The weather was not very cooperative and it was kinda cold then on the second lap it began to rain. The race started in a different place then usual so right off the get go im going wide open for about a half mile! The climb should have eased up– well, too late now! Thank goodness I had two bottles of GU Brew, I think it saved me on the second climb I was feeling pretty good heading into the second lap with (former teammate) James Shingleton. Made it to the top and it was time for my Kenda tires with the Orange Seal to earn the money. Boy did they ever–I made some fantastic corners except one switch back that i came into way too fast and went down leaving a little flesh! While I lost a second or two, I flew the rest of the way to the finish line in 1:53 not bad for a 50 year old and took home the GOLD for Team REALL!

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2012 Stottlemeyer60 Photo: Jerry Gamez

On Mother’s Day weekend I traveled north to Port Gamble, Washington for the first event of the NW Epic Series. The promoter of these relatively new endurance mountain bike races contacted me about four years ago with questions regarding the key components of great MTB endurance events. I thought it was pretty awesome to have a would-be director actually ask riders’ opinions, so this year I made it a point to go check out his races!

This particular event, the Stottlemeyer 30/60 has been held each of the last four years. Since NW Epic took over this race three years ago it has grown from 50 to 450 finishers. and is now the second largest event in Washington! Port Gamble is a tiny, historic community that sits quaintly on a point of land just across the Puget Sound from Seattle. The race began a few hundred meters from the waters edge.

There is little in the way of mountains so local trail builders have carved beautiful ribbons of single track all over the little peninsula in direct cooperation with private land owners. The Stottlemeyer course navigates a 13 mile loop (two or four times) that ties multiple sections of trail together with very short bits of fire road. With only several hundred feet of elevation difference, these architects have made the most of the loamy soil and dense conifer forest creating a near mind-boggling maze of twisting, undulating track. Read more »

Momma Julia ready to break some Chains!

What a difference a month makes! Spring was skipped this year and went right from a wintry Mudslinger to midsummer-like Cascade Chainbreaker. It was moved this year from its traditional Mother’s Day to Saturday before, but it still sounded like a great way to celebrate to me, my son Tony joined me for support and media. They also moved the start to an hour later, which meant it was already about 80 degrees when we took off just after 11:00 AM. The first climb let me know that the heat and elevation together was going to be a challenge. Read more »

Ryan Rides the Fence!

On Sunday May 5th 2013, Jeremy Warnicke, Dave Hill, and I headed down to Newport Oregon for the Coast Hills Classic mountain bike race. Last year we were very lucky to race in warm sunny weather at the beach during the race. As luck would have it, we hit the lottery again and raced in unseasonably hot weather on the Oregon coast in 80 plus degree heat. After applying about a gallon of sunscreen to my wintery white skin, I still managed to end the day with a sunburn.

Jeremy and I raced the single speed class while the elderly speedster Dave raced the cat 1 50 and over class. After a slow start off the line I was able to move up a couple positions on the uphill climb to the first trail. After being slowed a bit on the trail I was able to make a pass into fourth place as the trail hit a long gravel road section. As my legs and lungs were both yelling at me to slow down because of the high intensity start, I was only a few seconds behind the leaders and tried to charge up to them. I caught up to third place but this was as close to the leader as I would get. Third place and I battled back and forth for most of the first lap but all I could do was watch as the top three riders slowly rode away because my legs just didn’t have the snap they needed to go fast. Read more »