Dirty December

This one features a bunch of my Family Cycling Center colleagues and friends. (Bob Barwick, Mike Colombani, Ryan Heywood, Jeremy Beck, Jamie Perugini, and Ariel Linsley) Of the SheShreds persuasion, this shredit features Cathy Chevron, Abby Hippely and myself (Annemarie Hennes). You think these chicks rip on a mountain bike, check them out on their dirt bikes! Abby is killing it on Pete’s Path…..

GoPro HD Addict

This is an exaggerated and silly version of how much I filmed, and wanted to film when I first got my GoPro HD. Addiction….but I think a healthy one. Only time will tell.  Funny enough, GoPro made this their video of the day on the GoPro facebook page. Thanks GoPro! And, thanks to everyone for the positive feedback. I wish you luck with YOUR addiction!

Stay tuned for more she shredits…at least ’til race season starts!

Annemarie cranks it to her 2nd place finish

Sunday morning, race day, I was awakened by a text message from Rosie. She made me aware that it was pouring outside and she wanted to know if I still wanted to head down to Toro Park for the race. I thought to myself, “My bed is warm, and pushing my forty pound downhill bike up the Toro Park hill two times in the rain sounds miserable”. Then I thought of my day without racing. I envisioned myself lying on the couch all day feeling anxious as I stared out the window at the rain, then looked over at my bored and restless dog, and then peered at my lonely bikes. I was depressed even momentarily thinking about that. So, I loaded up my bike and headed down to Salinas. I was still a bit grumpy when I got there, but all it took was a “hello” from all my CCCX friends and a practice run on my favorite CCCX course. You know, the long, off-camber, pedally one. (insert sarcastic comment here)

The Step Up

The CCCX DH series is not the most prestigious of downhill events and Toro Park does not have the most technical of terrain, but every time I show up to a race, I leave with a smile on my face. For the record, I ended up hiking up that hill three times. Each time the rain was coming down a little harder, and each time my smile was getting a little bigger in anticipation of how muddy and technical the course would be on my descent.

The CCCX regulars

The brave few that were left at end of the race, mostly the day’s leaders and their friends and familes, were huddled together under two tents while Rod and Keith handed out the medals. There wasn’t even a podium at this race, but everyone was stoked to be there riding bikes and hanging out with friends.

Nova Hairston, Ayshe Tuncer, & Jill Henrich (Expert Podium)

Women’s Race Report:

For the pro women, Junior Worlds contender Kelsey Anderson wins. Annemarie Hennes, racing for Family Cycling Center, earns second and Mary Moncorge, riding for Santa Cruz Alliance, earns third. For the expert women, former CCCX star, Nova Hairston returns to racing and gets the top spot on the podium. Ayshe Tuncer, a Santa Cruz local, earns second and Jill Henrich gets the bronze. Michele Lamelin, the lone warrior in the beginner class, dominates the podium.

Click Here for Full Results

Pro Women

1 3’57”.47 Kelsey Anderson

2 3’59”.36 Annemarie Hennes

3 4’01”.63 Mary Moncorge

4 4’02”.03 Rosie Bernhard

5 4’17”.38 Kelly Damschen

Expert Women

1 4’11”.12 Nova Hairston

2 4’37”.04 Ayshe Tuncer

3 4’47”47 Jill Henrich

4 4’47”85 Ashley Hernandez

Beginner Women

1 6’50”.89 Michelle Lamelin

Photo by: Pat Branch

Sabrina Jonnier and Greg Minnaar are the overall downhill World Cup Champions.  Tracy Moseley and Sam Hill are the downhill World Champions.  Jill Kintner races in her first downhill World Championship and finishes 10th.  Leigh Donovan returns after a long racing hiatus and becomes the 8th fastest DH racer in the World this year.  Local Santa Cruz-ian, Kelsey Anderson, represents the junior stars and stripes in her first World Championship race.  That about covers it for race news.  All my broken friends are healing up nicely, the tourists are gone, and it’s 90 degrees outside.  What now?……Time to gather my friends and shred on the new pumptracks in town!  Bikes are rad!

Road to Granby

The 2010 US Mountain Bike National Championships were held at Sol Vista (Granby, CO) for the second consecutive year.  For me, it started off as a pleasant and beautiful, although hot, road trip from Santa Cruz, CA with my dog Noe, 4 bikes, excitement to race and my friend Evan Turpen (ET).  And it ended in…..lack of sleep, no race photos for the blog, and some really broken friends.

Top o' the 4x track. Quite the view!

This year the amateurs raced on the old pro course, minus the 40 foot doubles.  The gnarly doubles from last year were replaced with amateur friendly 20-30 foot gaps.  The pro course this year was made a little more technical with a huge ladder drop to a huge double, followed by some more huge doubles.  Unfortunately, the course seemed to destroy a lot of very talented riders, especially when the wind decided to pick up.

The Official Vehicle of the 2010 Mtn Bike National Championships

The destruction began on the first day of practice when US 4x favorite Mitch Ropelato broke his collar bone in 4x practice.  It seemed to only worsen from there.  I heard an ambulance about every hour, some of which ended up being “life flights” to Denver.  In Friday’s practice, Kathy Pruitt went for one last practice run to perfect a section of the dh course, and the next thing that she remembers is that she was wrapped around a tree.  It turns out her pivot bolt broke after landing the ladder drop, which sent her sailing over her bars at high speeds with nothing but a tree to slow her down.  KP spent 5 days in the ICU in Denver with most of her ribs broken on her left side, a broken scapula, and a collapsed lung.  She has recently been moved to a regular hospital room with no answers on when she will be discharged.  KP has since been joined by Sean “Grizz” McClendon, after he broke his pelvis and dislocated a hip in his race run on Sunday.  And to add to that list, Katie Holden broke her wrist in practice.  Overall, most racers were emotionally rattled by all the chaos that went on this weekend, and the ones that could pull it together earned a spot on the podium.

KP super stoked to have Nadia and me visit her in the ICU. She was having a bit of a bad hair day so we supplied her with a super stylish fidora. Went perfectly with her hospital gown and various tubes emerging from her body.

Congratulations to Jill Kintner on her first National DH Championship gold! And, I’m super stoked for Jacqueline Harmony (silver) on her best finish at Nationals yet. Melissa Buhl earns bronze.

The Official Hardware

In pro 4x, Neven Steinmetz earns gold, Jacqueline Harmony earns silver and Melissa Buhl gets the bronze.  In amateur 4x, Soraya Khalje wins the gold, Lauren Heitzman gets silver, Amber Price gets 3rd and Annemarie Hennes finishes 4th.

Check out how everyone else did by clicking here!!!

Congrats to all the racers that participated in this years US Mountain Bike National Championships. Stay positive and heal well to all the racers that broke themselves this weekend!

Jarod Smith tellin' it how it is

Northstar, or in the summer known as Gnarstar, hosted the ProGRT race on its Gypsy track this weekend.  Boulders, pedaling, tiring, altitude, step-downs, long, hot, moon dust and fun pretty much sum up the downhill course.  It was one of the biggest turnouts for a Northstar race including some of the biggest names in gravity racing.  Jill Kintner, Kathy Pruitt, Melissa Buhl, Joanna Petterson…..and for the guys Greg Minaar, Steve Peat, Bryn Atkinson, Cedric Gracia and the new fast guy on the scene, Mitch Ropelato.

Pruitt sending it to the finish

Kintner convincingly wins the DH, Pruitt comes in second finishing with massive air setting the crowd off, and Leigh Donovan gets the third best time showing the mountain bike world that she is back and fast.  Buhl comes from behind to beat Pruitt by a tire knob in the 4x.

Cathy Chevron airing her way to the top of the podium. PHOTO by: Lindsay Beth Currier

In the amateur scene, Mary Pralinsky, Cathy Chevron, and Cierra Smith win their respective classes for DH.  Mary Moncorge wins 4x and Annemarie Hennes comes in second.

Pro DH Podium

Downhill Results

Pro

1. Jill Kintner
2. Kathy Pruitt
3. Leigh Donovan

Cat 1

1. Cierra Smith
2. Robyn Embry
3. Mary Moncorge
   

   Kathy Pruitt and Cierra Smith....both showed up in the same prom dress. PHOTO by: Lindsay Beth Currier

Cat 2

1. Cathy Chevron
2. Andrea Napoli
3. Bonnie Miller

Cat 3

1. Mary Pralinsky

Full DH Results Here

4x Results

Pro

1. Melissa Buhl
2. Kathy Pruitt

Amateur

1. Mary Moncorge
2. Annemarie Hennes
3. Sally Hermansen
4. Bridgette LeBer

Full 4x Results Here

Ayshe Tuncer (photo: Steve Anderson)

This may have been CCCX’s most technical downhill course as of yet, which of course isn’t saying much, but it made for a fun day of ridin’ bikes!  It rained on and off all day, which caused a mud waterfall down a little steep section, to an off-camber mud river.  The photographers on the course witnessed a lot of amazing crashes down that section!  Check out this video that someone got with their IPhone.  It looks like they were trying to capture the waterfall coming down the trail, but little did they know, they were about to capture Rosie Bernhard’s magnificent crash.

As far as results go, Mary Moncorge was the fastest woman of the day, one second faster than Sharon Hill.

CCCX Downhill Results- May 9, 2010

Pro Women

1) Sharon Hill

2) Annemarie Hennes

3) Rosie Bernhard

Expert Women

1) Mary Moncorge

2) Kelly Johnson

3) Mollie Sitkin

4) Jill Henrich

5) Ayshe Tuncer

6) Ashley Hernandez

Sport Women

1) Jessica Spray

2) Courtney Rosiak

Beginner Women

1) Mary Pralinsky

2) Sarah Skammel

Junior Girls

1) Faith Siebe

For Full Results Click Here

Mary Moncorge & Kelly Johnson (photo: Steve Anderson)

dual slalom 2010

This was one of the best Sea Otter’s I’ve ever been to!  Granted, helping set up the event this year and winning cat 1 dual slalom definitely added to my fun factor, it felt like everyone was as stoked as I was to be there.  It seemed like every top ranked pro showed up from the mountain bike world….from 2009 DH World Champion Steve Peat, to Jared Graves and Greg Minaarr.

Pro Katie Holden, DH

On the women’s side 27 women filled the DH pro class and the max 16 competed in dual slalom.  Melissa Buhl won the DH. Rachel Atherton is back racing after she took a pick-up truck windshield to the shoulder over a year ago…and looking fast taking the silver in dual slalom and downhill.  Jill Kitner won dual slalom, and took sixth in one of her first recent downhill races since she decided to focus on downhill.  Leigh Donovan convincingly emerged from her racing retirement, or break, whatever you want to call it.  She took an impressive fifth place in dual slalom and downhill!  I even saw park rider/dirt jumper Nadia Steinbrecher out there racing the downhill on her 45 lb Iron Horse Sunday.  I guess no one told her what a pedally course it is.

(from left) Heather McFadden, Annemarie Hennes, Kelsey Anderson, Hannah Trimble

On the amateur side, 47 women competed in the downhill.  Essence Barton won the cat 1 downhill, Cathy (Cat) Chevron from Santa Cruz won the cat 2 downhill, or as I like to say, “Cat won Cat 2″.  Karla Kingsley out of Oakland won the Cat 3 gold.  In dual slalom, Annemarie Hennes (me) won the cat 1 category, and Sally Hermansen took first in cat 2.

Rosie Bernhard, cat 1 Dual Slalom (photo by: Rick Rasmussen)

For full Sea Otter results click here

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Bunny Hoppin' Clinic

Ray’s Angels Women’s Weekend was well worth the 8 hour travel day from sunny Santa Cruz, CA to to cold and snowy Cleveland, Ohio.  It was also worth having to explain to everyone in the Cleveland Airport why we were bringing our mountain bikes to Cleveland in the middle of winter.  Locals were even more baffled when they asked where we were from.

Coaches

There were over 160 women that showed up for the event on Friday and a lot of the women stuck around for the whole weekend to play around in the park.  The coaches included names like Tammy Donahugh, Nadia Steinbrecher, Jackie Baker, Tamara Peloguin, Angi Weston, Nina Buitrago, Darcy Turenne, Judy Freeman, Leigh Donovan, Cory Coffey, Angie Marino, Stacey Mulligan, Stephanie Nychka, Katie Polk, Gale Dahlager, and Kathy Pruitt.

Sierra Nevada Happy Hour!

The weekend was non stop awesome from Darryl at the Award Winning Airport Holiday Inn, to the 5-7 hours of riding each day, to the Women of Dirt Premier, to the friday night PBR party.  Does anyone know how to contact that DJ?  KP, I heard you guys are pretty tight.  I really want to hire him for one of my parties.

pump track

Anyway, thanks to Ray’s MTB Park and everyone that helped put on one of the biggest women’s bike events in the world!  It was awesome!  If you missed it this year you should make sure to catch it next time.

Kathy Pruitt Race Run

A KILLER time was had by all at the last CCCX race of the fall series.  The third fastest chick in the world showed up, series champions were crowned, hot links were eaten, and most importantly there was a lot of shreddin’ going on (and of course, what is a CCCX race without a little pedaling?)

Sport Chicks!

Click here for full results

All Photos by Rick Rasmussen

CCCX Race #5 Full Women’s Results

Rosie Bernhard

Beginner Podium

Pro Women

Expert Women

Sport Women

Beginner Women

Click here for full Race 4 results

All Photos by: Rick Rasmussen

Click here for more photos

Kelly Damschen gettin' air on her 1st place race run.

Jess Spray losing her goggles on her way to the podium.