And then, suddenly, we were racing again.
The long and dark and dormant winter seemed a distant memory, irrelevant and forgotten in the bright sun and red rock and dust. Pale legged mountain bikers gathered in a heap of anticipation and uncertainty – those winter months of training were about to be irrefutably graded. New bikes, [...]
March 2002. I was entering the spring with ambitions and expectations about the coming summer racing season. I was anxiously awaiting and anticipating the year’s first event, the Red Rock Rampage in St. George’s Green Valley–home to trails like Zen and Barrel Roll. But back then, I cared little for what else might occupy the [...]
Ali Goulet on his way to Saturday’s win
I watched my first cyclocross race on Saturday.
It was awesome. The racing was fast and furious. And of course, as I watched everyone pound around the course and hop over the barriers I was thinking that “I ought to really try this”. Several years ago I thought about [...]
I find myself continually replaying the 24 Hours of Moab through my clouded, foggy, and otherwise muddled brain. And I am left wondering if there is a more classic example of the very essence of mountain biking. Not the 2009 iteration specifically, but the event itself. It seems to embody everything that elevates mountain biking [...]
I always need a few days to wrap my brain around the 24 Hours of Moab. This year is no different. Except, that it is taking me longer to muddle through the sand and rock and sun. Someplace among all that is the story of 2009 – a story that is blessedly free of hostile [...]
There is an unequivocal enjoyment in knowing that in the next twelve hours there will be but 2 of them spent racing. That is, a 4-man team at a 12 hour race is pure fun. Especially when the course is 7.5 miles of fantastic Sundance singletrack. And so, round and round we went, like NASCAR [...]
Where does one begin, in trying to recap a 9 hour odyssey that comprised some of the greatest singletrack on Earth?
At the beginning, of course.
But then, I wonder where that even is. For the Park City Point to Point has occupied my brain for far longer than the duration of the race itself. In fact, [...]
Eight miles from the finish line at the PCPP I came across a racer that I had been riding with, off and on, for the entire race. He’d pull away on the downs, I’d pull him back on the ups. There was a bit of chit-chat here and there, but mostly we suffered in mutual [...]
The Park City Point to Point has become an instant classic. It is like that perfect bowl of porridge that Goldilocks found so appetizing: Not to cold, and not to hot. That is, it was just hard enough that you are going to be feeling it for the next umpteen days, and yet enjoyable enough [...]
It is entirely possible that I am alone in feeling this most disconcerting of emotional and physical phenomenons. But I doubt it. In the days leading up to a big race, and by big I mean the effort and distance, I develop a sickly, nervous pit deep within the recesses of my stomach. Self doubt [...]
