Press release from Europe trip
by Marla, Team Yeti
Big Bear, CA NORBA
I always look forward to Big Bear, despite its vicinity to that very large city. I usually drive my bus up a week early and camp while I’m making extra red blood cells. Because of the altitude, training and racing here can be exhausting. An athlete must make sure to stay hydrated and consume mass quantities of iron, which I obtain in the form of Guiness from the tap or can. I feel it’s okay to drink this type of beer during the week before high races.....besides,hospitals in Ireland serve it to pregnant women, so it can’t be that bad for you.
Already up to speed after two practice runs, I felt like racing the dusty downhill the very first day. I grew up racing here, well, not really. But I did learn how to downhill here about 6 years ago, so its fast, granular turns make me feel all nostalgic and warm inside. And the course tends to be slightly pedally, which favors certain riders whose approach to training is borderline obsessive/compulsive.
This trip was also marked with the unveiling of my new Red Bull data acquisition system. A couple engineers (Jeff Mcwhiney and Paolo Salvigione) from the bay area helped me obtain and customize this computer sytstem to my 8" YETI downhill bike. It records data on the suspension, brakes, speed, and course position to be downloaded and analyzed after a run. It was exciting to come down the mountain, pull up to my laptop at the chairlift, plug the bike and computer together and let them talk, and see all the colorful, quantitative data describe my run and bike set-up. Later that night I would pour over the figures, charts and graphs, and plot.
Of course all this effort was negated when I rear-flatted in my qualifier, and had to pedal twice as hard in the fashion you ride when you have a flat-- imagine riding a shopping cart backwards in a crowded, off-camber parking lot. Anyway, I still managed to barely qualify, although I knew I would have to pass the racer starting before me during the final run. Sure enough, I had to pass her in a tricky section, and who knows, this could have cost me the win. Fourth place isn’t so bad, but one can never help to think "woulda, coulda, shoulda....."