Snowmass Enduro Master of the Mass

This was the first of many enduro races of the season for the Roots.  Sean Shuman, Noah Sears, Kyle Fissel, Jesse Ruland, Eric Landis, and I (Sara Landis) headed up to Snowmass on Friday morning to begin a three day, four stage, enduro race through beautiful single track, creek crossings, tight trees, jumps, rocks and berms.  We had one bike to cover the gamut of racing and could only change tires and pedals for each stage.  It seems as though the 29er is beginning to have an edge as far as the all mountain bike goes as everyone but the Landii had a large wheeled steed.

Top of  Super D Course 3500' above the finish line!

Sara on the Super D course

The first stage was a 8.5 mile 3500 foot descent Super D course that took even the fastest pro’s 23 minutes to ride down.  It began at the very top of the Elk Camp Chair and ended on a service road near the rodeo parking lot and had everything you could ask for.  Although littered with mechanicals and small scale crashes, everyone had a fantastic run down.  A tough climb in the middle seemed to separate out the riders but all and all it was amazing.  We all had some catching up to do for Stage 2 though.

Sean – Pro – 15^th Place

Noah – Pro – 28^th Place (Flat tire)

Jesse – Pro – 25^th Place

Eric – Pro – 21^st Place (Mechanical)

Kyle – Am – 10^th Place

Sara – Am – 3^rd Place

The second stage, on Saturday Morning, was the one I dreaded most, the cross country.  It was a 9 mile loop with about 1200 ft of climbing.  Once again, we had some great single track and of course a trek on the fire roads but ended on Valhalla, the new jump trail in Snowmass.  It turned out not to be too terrible as it only lasted about an hour and it definitely made some changes in the overall standings.  Kyle had “food poisoning” making his trip fairly miserable but he managed to complete the trail in pretty good time, he still beat me!  

Cross Country Results: 

Sean –10^th

Noah – 24^th 

Jesse – 25^th 

Eric – 7^th

Kyle –13^th

Sara – 3^rd 

Noah using his skills to keep his competitors behind him through the creek crossing

Stage 3 was my overall favorite of the weekend.  It was a chainless downhill down Valhalla, a top to bottom trail full of incredible corners, wooden bridges and jumps that kept you using all of your skills to get down in one piece.  I loved this trail because I am not much of a jumper and as the weekend progressed, I was able to get more and more air over each jump. Since I didn’t have to worry about over jumping like all of the rest of the guys, I could just let go of the breaks and fly!

Proof that my tires left the ground (at least a little bit)

 There was definitely some good competition between Eric and Sean and they both planned on taking the win but Steve Wentz inched his way to 1^st beating Sean by 1 second and Eric ended up 5th.

Sean keeping it low over a lippy jump.

29" Flow Train from NoahColorado on Vimeo.
Chainless Downhill Results: Sean - 2^nd, Noah – 17^th , Jesse –16^th  , Eric – 5^th, Kyle – 7^th , Sara – 2^nd

The 4^th and final stage was run on the Pro Downhill course on Sunday and although everyone was used to running it on their big bikes, it didn’t slow anyone down to use their smaller all-mountain ride.  I was quite impressed with the aggression down the course.  I think the times were similar to those during an actual downhill race!  Our team was definitely in their element and riding fast, trying to show those cross country racers what was up.  Sean had a great run down the mountain and was pinning it when he slid out in a corner near the bottom, still ending up 12^th with an overall of 9^th. 

Sean dropping the road drop on the DH course

 Noah and Jesse both had good runs down ending up in 18^th and 20^th and overall they finished in 26^th and 24^th.  Eric was determined to win one of the stages and came as close to winning as possible but lost out to Steve Wentz by .01 seconds for a 2^nd place finish.  He worked his way up to 10^th for the overall on the weekend.

Eric looking through the corner on his super fast run down the DH course

Kyle got a flat tire near the road drop high up on the course and preceded to ride the hell out of the tire until it finally fell off of the wheel and destroyed the wheel as well but still finished 13^th and 11^th overall.

The result of a long ride on a flat tire. Check out the tire looped through the frame on the right!

The girls were supposed to run the big course but the rider in 1^st place was very uncomfortable on our practice run so we raced down Scorch which had not been ridden at all and was not terribly fun or long.  We got 1 practice run on it and raced so it wasn’t super fun but I finished 3^rd behind a girl that just joined in for that stage and ended up 2^nd overall for the weekend but earned my first paycheck of $100.00!