I arrived in
Sugarbush, Vermont Thursday evening after driving for 3 days, 35 hours
across the country from Boulder, Colorado. I’m here for the second round
of the MTB Grand Prix, the first stop on my east coast tour. A grand
hotel that is fashioned after a barn is what I see first thing in the
morning light as it illuminates the mountain behind it. While driving
here in the dark I was trying to paint a picture of what the mountain
might look like based upon past experiences, other than the barn hotel
and base area the mountain is exactly what I thought I would be.
Situated just outside the town of Warren, Sugarbush and its densely
green and lush slopes elevate high above the valley floor. This is the
Green Mountain State after all. After the usual pit setup, bike bolt
check and a good helping of cereal with fruit and nuts I acquired the
energy to mount up, head up the hill and have a peek at what I was in
for this weekend.
The only previous knowledge I
had on the course was that it is a local’s favorite. With past race
times around 4 minutes, I was excited to see what it was all about.
Straight out of the gate there is a sprint into the open ski run, which
fallows with a high speed barrage of g outs, drops, dips and berms. This
top section lasts for more than a minute and then it’s straight into
the trees. Hero dirt mixed with shall rock and a spider web of roots
adorned the different sections in the trees. There were even a few good
compression holes and natural double jumps that were necessary to clean
if you wanted to keep a good flow. It’s been dry here and the track
surface was perfect and there was grip everywhere. The bottom of the
track took shape just after exiting the forest and back onto the ski run
directly above the finish arena. A few high speed banked turns lead
into two table top jumps and ended with a dry, dusty and loose S turn.
It
took me a little while to get up to speed, but after the first day of
practice I was raving about the course. It emulated a world cup course
in sections as it was fast, rough and very physical. On Saturday the run
before afternoon pro seeding, I was gauging the speed of certain
sections of the track when I came into a large compression hole too fast
and slightly off line. This pitched me over the bars and onto the track
shaken up a bit. It was right back to the top after a little ice on the
shoulder and a quick once over on the bike. Having a bit of trust
issues with the track I ran a conservative and clean run down and knew I
had some work to do and lines to look at Sunday morning. The weekend
stayed dry, the course quickened each day and also developed new ruts,
holes and uncovered slick roots. Coming from the Rocky Mountains, I’m
not too familiar with this type of terrain and every year I come back
east I have to count on my past experiences to help me figure out my
limitations. The dry dust and rocks I’m used to have a different feel
and less traction than this east coast mixture, yet its still tough to
trust the soil to hold at higher speeds. The last practice run I took
before finals instilled some much-needed confidence as I was letting
myself ride the terrain in a more aggressive manor.
I
spent the time between practice and finals socializing with fellow
riders, cooking and reading just to relax a little knowing that I needed
to be one hundred percent committed when the time comes. I had a great
warm up and took a solo lift ride to the top allowing myself to gaze off
into the horizon, in this part of the county I get so disoriented by
the similar surroundings that I lose my directional bearings. Once in
the start gate I took some deep breaths and tried to capture all of the
extra oxygen that I could because by the time I reach the bottom I’ll be
digging deep to hold on. I was cleared to go and I was on pace for a
much better run than in qualifiers. I hit most everything on the top
section as fast as I was comfortable and made my way into the trees.
Even with a clear lens I fought the intense light that would dash in and
out of the course creating dark shadows and muddling the rocks, roots
and holes. Depth perception wasn’t the only thing I was fighting on the
way down as I also fought the urge to over brake instead of trusting the
track. All in all I had a relatively clean run but lost some strength
before exiting the woods and into the final section. I crossed the line
into 2nd place and finished 16th out of 36 overall.
I’m
slightly disappointed with my result and felt that I was well suited
and prepared for this physical style of track. I just couldn’t wrap my
mind around the riding surface and was ultimately unable to push myself
to trust the track that I fought and struggled with every time I thought
I was about to crack the code. I know experience means a lot, and
during some fun runs with some locals I figured out exactly how much
more I could push myself and my equipment. I wanted to go right back to
the starting gate and do it all over again, but I’ll have to wait
another week to put another one down. I had an incredible time here at
Sugarbush and am very excited to come back here. There are some
fantastic trails on the mountain that I would like to ride again, the
people around here are extremely friendly and the countryside is
beautiful. Thank you Cardinal Family for your hospitality and support, I
had a great time hanging with my new biggest fans Blake and Mason.
Thank you Garson for the hours spent riding your pump track, showing me
around the insanely fun Waterbury XC trails and local waterholes.
Lastly, thank you to everyone that is supporting me as I continue my
mountain bike adventure up north to Mount Sainte Anne, Quebec for the
4th round of the World Cup.
Ride On!
- Brian
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