California Gold State Race.

My ride report. HOT! Made some runs then took a few pictures.

My rr..
told everyone to watch the 2 top sandbox corners than came in way to hot and crashed OTB. massive bruises/ charlie horse and twisted knee. Followed by coming into the next one WAY to hot and crashing. Smacked the other thigh massively bruised and got the manmarbles as well. Had a smokin run if id a slowed down for the 2.
got over the saddle in good time only to be so flustered and in pain went the wrong way.
So basically i decided to pin it and not race it. Lol
12 out of 15 in expert G-class. My fault all the way.......

hope others had a good race....

lol. like shooting a basket in your own hoop.

you didnt head your own advice on those corners. still sounds like you had a good time. what other pirates raced? did badkitty end up racin?

Yep.

badkittyjing wrote:Yep.

Howd ya fair time wise!!!! Place etc... Sorry I cut out I was and still am in a crapload of pain...

Was a bit too much pain for the adrenaline mixed with a bad attitude after the 2nd one. I can take a hell of a beating but the knee was a bit over the top....

sinbin wrote:lol. like shooting a basket in your own hoop.

you didnt head your own advice on those corners. still sounds like you had a good time. what other pirates raced? did badkitty end up racin?

Its OK though give me a real course with some real nasty shit and Ill tear it up... Its the slow stuff I fight with and as a racer I should be pliable to the course and demands. If it calls for slow i should slow down.. Hell im not going to lie the suspension was dialed and the faster I went the better it felt, dropped Craig at Avalanche a line already and raved about it.....

bullcrew wrote:My rr..
told everyone to watch the 2 top sandbox corners than came in way to hot and crashed OTB. massive bruises/ charlie horse and twisted knee. Followed by coming into the next one WAY to hot and crashing. Smacked the other thigh massively bruised and got the manmarbles as well. Had a smokin run if id a slowed down for the 2.
got over the saddle in good time only to be so flustered and in pain went the wrong way.
So basically i decided to pin it and not race it. Lol
12 out of 15 in expert G-class. My fault all the way.......

hope others had a good race....

^^This coming from our Race team leader :D . Not sure if i want to follow your lines! LOL...Just kidding Travis! Good seeing you on Saturday!

My RR...
Got there on Saturday for practice...1st run...cautious but pedaled where I could. Went off course a couple of times...due to weird turns.
2nd run...Followed my cousin down, and was feeling the course a bit better and choosing my lines.
Took a lunch break and went up for run 3. This time I rode it a little more aggressive. Got a bit too aggressive, slide out a couple of corners, continued to ride then got to a G out. Drop in hot, hit the bottom of the G out, and compressed the whole bike and my back!!!
Rolled out and was on the ground for a while. Back was killing me and couldn't stand straight.
My cousin helped me down the hill and we took off to Urgent care. Got X-rays done...and everything is cleared...no fractures. Doctor said it was a sprained back. Got some vico and some muscle relaxers and went home.
Needless to say...I was not able to race today. Oh wells. Hopefully, I'll make the night race!

man. seems like a rough course. two injuries. ouch

Badkitty crushed it! She won her class and smoked most of us girls times in other classes too!Time for expert girl!

The course was less to be desired that's for sure. My cleanest run of the weekend ended up being race run, resulting in a W. It was hot and loose just like Fontana..

Hell yeah...barhump. 8)

wow! you girls crushed it!

i bet badkitty was stoked! we all knew shed kick ass too. great riding everyone. team GP has it in 2011 :arrrrrrr:

surlygal wrote:Badkitty crushed it! She won her class and smoked most of us girls times in other classes too!Time for expert girl!

The course was less to be desired that's for sure. My cleanest run of the weekend ended up being race run, resulting in a W. It was hot and loose just like Fontana..

What did badkittys time end up being...

Schwinstr8: Sorry to hear about your back man....
We need to learn to be just plain aggressive, theres too many cautious riders.

There were some good guys there and some good riders, I feel bad for the 18+ expert thats the transfer to pro or Im not quite fast enough and ill stay here crowd. We need to get a good up and comer to seed that list for sure....


We also need to find nasty lines and start practicing bump jumping and just all out launching up and over its smoother in the air.

Will post up shortly. Just pulled in to driveway.

half xposted from the other thread (didnt see this one)

i had 2 crappy practice runs and 1 crappy race run. I, for lack of better wording, rode like a total hack for my race run. cased a bunch of jumps, blew corners, went super slow with tons of brakeage, got unclipped.

i did at least keep the rubber side down somehow, and even more amazingly managed a 9th of 21 in expert. time was like 2:59 if I remember right.

on the bright side, I think andy from bluefire actually got a decent picture of me for once. we'll see though.

My race report. Sat: Crashed twice in Super D practice resulting in a sprained wrist. Raced Super D got 1st!. Woke up Sunday morning, painfull wrist but had to race for points. Dropped in for the race and pain went away. Felt like my run was decent, ended up only being good for 15th. That's my report.

my race report...
only been downhilling for a year now so i enter with the old and slow. 35-42 beginners.. its nothing crazy, but this group of old fuckers loves to have fun and we try to smash each other every race..
i wont go into how bad the course was since thats been clearly covered.
practiced on saturday. it was so hot i only did two runs. figured it would be totally different by sunday anyway. only got one practice run in on sunday. the shuttle situation was a freakin joke.. the slowest i have ever seen. stood in line for almost an hour in the morning. that run was a little crappy. bobbled a bit her and there..
on my race run i felt great. did everything super clean and never washed out on any of the sandbox corners. caught up to the guy in front of me at that crappy flat right turn on the rock. he crashed a few times up top... but i couldnt find any place to pass him so i had to wait till the wall. put my head down and mashed as hard as i could on the road and went to pass him just after the pavement. i yelled out to him as loud as my out of breath body could yell "on your left". i had plenty of room to take the inside so i went for it.. then he went left! we clipped pedals and both of us went down.. nobody was hurt so i jumped up and grabbed my bike and took off. had to finish the race with tweaked handle bars.
got a 4th place finish and 3rd overall.
nothing to brag about.. had a lot of fun....

the only pirate i met and didnt already know was badkitty. cool pirate, and she killed it...
sorry for the long ass RR..

great job. sounds like ya still had a blast

(This is gonna be a long one because... uhh.... because it's my first race !!!!)

-----

First race... and I am hooked. Damnit! Who knew racing would be so addicting? My first race was bittersweet though.

Got there on Saturday and took the Slopestyle up for a couple of runs. Didn't have the suspension dialed in right and I'm thinking either the rear triangle is too flexy or there's something going on with my rear hub/wheel. Just couldn't quite get a handle of the course on that bike. Plus my brakes suck and it's either all or nothing with them, no modulation.

So I ditched the SS and took up my Knolly Endo for a few runs. Felt instantly better. Maybe it was because the new FF helmet I bought from the path matched the bike (purple and white). I know it's not a big bike, but with the way the course was laid out and the fact that we had the wall, it just made more sense. I wasn't able to plow through some of the chunk the way I would have on my SS, so getting through this course took a bit more finesse on the Endo.

Out of the 5 or so practice runs I did on Saturday, anytime I "pinned it" I would have a clean run half the time and the other half I would simple wash out or go off track. Not a good strategy.

Race day, I got in one practice run. Ate shit 3 times. But in a weird way, that actually made me feel better about doing the race run because I knew that when I fell, I was able to just pick back up and go. No nerves until the call for last shuttle. Then it was all nerves! Waiting in line, I decided the best course of action... get a good clean run, even if it means pulling it back and not going balls to the wall. To calm the nerves, I just said... "Pretend you're at Noble."

I was the 4th to last racer. 1 Women's Beginner 35+ was behind me and a Clyde was behind her. A do-over Expert young'un was behind him. 1 Men's Beginner 59+ was in front of me. Got up and heard the countdown. Not much in way of nerves by that point. Dropped in and basically said... "Here goes nothin!" Everything was smooth sailing up until the I got to the top after the saddle.

THE ABSOLUTE WORST PLACE TO HAVE TO CATCH UP TO SOMEONE !!! You need all your speed and momentum, not just to get you to the top, but to push you through the bit of chunk that followed into a turn. I guess I'm so used to be courteous on the trail, but I should've just been a bitch and yelled "Get the 'eff out of my way!!" Ended up having to dab at the top and push off with my foot to get any sort of momentum after he moved out of the way. UGH! The rest of the run ran smooth after that, but I couldn't get my "flow" back. I knew I was on the brakes too much at certain parts because I was too worried about washing out on the sandpit turns. Dabbed at the off-camber turn and had to push off there as well. Got to the wall and pushed it, but I know I could've pushed harder. Went right into a headwind! Grr. The winds weren't there for practice day, but it showed up for race day. Finished the run and put my bike down because my chest was hurting from breathing in all that dust.

I was still pretty stoked about my run though because it was really the first FULL, clean run I had done. What a rush !!! Adrenaline was still pumping and a big smile on my face. At that point, I didn't even care what time I had. I was hooked!

After a bit of resting and mingling, it was off to look at the times. My only real goal was to beat my friend's (JHill) time because he signed up by accident (he was just there to do practice runs and for moral support. He ended up beating my time by 9 seconds!!!!! Grr! I had him beat on all my practice runs... but come race day he pulled it out! He basically crashed at the first booter/ledge, but pinned it the rest of the course. He's also a sandbagging mofo when it comes to pedaling, so he made up quite a bit of time at the wall. He was disappointed with how his run went because it wasn't a smooth one, but it was because he went balls to the wall on it!!! His only goal was to not get passed and not finish last. Made me wish I wasn't so damn careful! He had 6 in his class and pulled off a 3rd place win. :)

My time ended up being 3:41. I was the only one in my class, so it was a guaranteed 1st place, so not anything to write home about on that. But I stacked up my times against all the girls since we ran the same course. I did "4th" out of the 9 that raced that day. Really looking forward to the next race!!
:arrrrrrr:

Went to go chill with my friend Chris and his team. Also mingled about with a couple people from GP. Stoked to see a few friends and GP members podium! Another friend took 1st place DH in his beginner class and took overall DH Champion as well.

I have a few pix from the weekend, nothing professional or anything. I'll post those up when I get home.

It was nice to meet/see surlygal, denmother, ejack, bullcrew, MikeLord, a few folks I rode with at BigBear, and a few Dirt Treaders.

These are the links to the pix of my friend JHill and I from cleghorn photography:

JHill

BKJ

Thanks for reading if you made it this far! 8)

If the GP members that raced give me their numbers I'll make a gallery just for us. Please email mike@six3events.com with your name and plate number. dont forget to include you LETTER/CLASS!!!!

The pirate gallery would be cool...

Im just looking for one of me crashing (twice LOL)

Congrats on the Run BKJ, nice going... Had an idea you could ride LOL...

Your friend did good too, tell him "congrats" especially since he was the moral support... Hes pretty damn cool good for him and you!


It was good seeing everyone there as well...

LOL good job everyone! Maybe next year i will be able to handle racing

I posted the race photos on FaceBook so far.

https://www.facebook.com/six3events

Please tag yourself and others you know! I'll post the high res versions soon and updated my website

I am SO GLAD I was wearing reflective lenses... I WAS IN SOOOOOO much pain right there LOL... I had no suport on my right knee.

Great shot .....

Congratulations to all who finished!!

To those that crashed or DNF, there is always the two races next month. Fix yer bikes, fix yer bones and we see you there.