June 24/00 2:43 am - Shep and Chrissy Reports

Posted by Editor on 06/24/00
 

Shep Report

Ohhhhhhh I hurt like a mother today! From the previous e mail you probably got the impression that my form was finally making it's way back after completing my fourth race in 12 weeks. But no! I hate starting out on a negative but I wouldn't have been able to race with the ladies today! Good start and first two laps but then the stomach cried "no more". I tried to pull the parachute but all that came out were my stomach contents in intervals every five minutes. No excuses just really brown timing to have a bad tummy. Anyways you can't make a brick float so down through the field I fell. On the possitive side Mr Shamoe rode through the field and ended up 6th.....yeeee haaaa. Just behind was Rollie, kabush in 9th, wicked Peter Wedge was 13th, Razz-champ our teammate was 14th and that's about it.

The front was taken over by Christophe Saucer from the get go followed by Tcherkassov, Tinker, and the Dry Ryder (Hesjedal). He represented the front for about the first 15 minutes then put it into recover mode....that was my program for the final 2.5 laps to try and save something for the short track tomorrow. The course was fricking knasty--roots and rocks mixed with massive mud pits that seemed to swallow your wheel with each pass. Molday drove it like a mule and came from 9th to 2nd by the finish. Travis Brown rode well into 11th after coming back from an injury....well that's the show. I sure hope I'm not too crushed mentally for tomorrow but the Haro train will make it to the front in some way shape or form! Chow der

chris


Chrissy Redden Report

The 2nd race of the North American Series kicked off on the wet slopes of Mt. Snow, Vermont. The spectator friendly cloverleaf design of the course offered many spectator-viewing areas. The 6km course featured equal amounts of climbing and technical terrain. Due to the excessive rain the east coast has been having recently, the course was fairly wet and slick in the woods. But surprisingly the rest of the course held up fairly well and stayed quite fast. The two sections each consisted of fire road climbing with some good root infested wet descents. The women raced 4 laps and the men did 6 laps.

This is the best kind of press release to write: I won! Because of my 5th place finish at the series first race a mere 6 weeks ago, I got to line up on the front row, with my teammate, Mary. Knowing that I wanted hole shot at the first bit of single track, I started hard. The first climb was a good pace with Jimena Florit (RLX) taking an early lead, then Alison Dunlap (GT) maintaining a strong pace. Just about 50 meters before the first bit of single track I edged past Dunlap and was heading for the trail when Alison Sydor knicked past me. I figured she was a good wheel to be on!! Sure enough by the time we finished the first little section we had a 20 sec gap over the rest of the field. What surprised me the most, is the fact that I felt the urge to attack midway through the next major climb, and I broke away. I then maintained the hard pace and eventually on the start of the third lap got up to a 1:45 min lead. Needness to say, I felt good today. My strategy was then to hold this lead, play it safe, keep focussed and upright. All of which happened. I finished the race with about a 1:30 min lead.