DH on the lowdown

Lori and I had a great trip this week. For those who don’t
know, Lori has been working on putting together a bid for a high school
mountain biking league in Utah. NICA, the National Interscholastic Cycling
Association, is the governing body for high school cycling and they approve new
league bids. This weekend was the California High School Mountain Biking State
Championships. There are two leagues in California, so this weekend was the
culmination of both league’s seasons. We decided this would be the best time to
see the longest running high school leagues in action. This is likely going to
be a long post and I’m sure will be well worth your time. More pictures to come, I’m just a bit too tired to keep working on it right now.

We met some amazing people this weekend. Between the
never-resting NorCal and SoCal league staff, NICA officials, and the supportive
and excited parents, Lori and I were welcomed as friends and coworkers. We
really had no idea how things were going to go and if we would be able to get
involved in the action or not. I figured we would be able to at least observe
how they did things but didn’t know for sure.

The best part of the drive out was our trip up the 101 from
the Los Angeles area to Los Olivos. We did take a bit of a detour from Santa
Barbara up over the mountains to Lake Cachuma and it was beautiful. Looks like
the entire area would be an amazing place to do a lot of both MTB and road
riding. Just a few miles north of Los Olivos is a large area of private
property that is home to a large herd of cows most of the time but this past
weekend was home to over 400 high school mtb racers and their family and
friends. A fun part of the high school mtb race scene is the on-site camping.
The kids get a chance to make and maintain friendships with kids from all over
the league. The parents also get to do some note comparing on how to run the
teams and discuss their kid’s training.

So we pulled off into the race venue and the first person we
met was Matt Gunnell, the director of the SoCal High School MTB League. This
guy has some serious energy and keeps people organized and on task. He lined us
up with a prime parking spot right close to one of the principals involved with
starting the NorCal league, Mark Kintz. Mark and his wife Patty are from
Monterrey, CA. They currently have a daughter racing in the NorCal league. Mark
has been involved with NorCal for 13 years and is one of the league’s Board of
Directors members. He has a great interest in making sure all of the kids are
safe out on the course and is super conscientious about course design and how
the kids will “see” the race course.

Our other neighbors were John and Claudia from Corona, CA.
John has been a cyclist for quite a while and thought that his son and some
friends could have a great time with mountain biking. They formed a composite
team so that the boys who are friends could ride together. Talk about some
enthusiasm about looking for ways for the boys to have fun as well as become
more experienced riders and racers. John is also having a lot of fun getting
out as the boy’s coach and working them over on road bikes. He said that they
school him on the MTB climbs but when he gets them out on road rides on the
Huntington Beach bike path they are no match!

There were many other friendly parents that made us feel welcome
and were very excited to hear about the efforts being made towards a Utah
League. A big part of making it out was so we could get in the mix of helping
to put the race together so we could have an idea of what it takes on race
weekend. Race day was Sunday and we arrived on Friday afternoon just in time to
roll out with Matt Gunnell, Mark Kintz, and Sean McCoy, Mountain Bike Action’s
Managing Editor, who is SoCal’s course setter. Turns out that the course setter
job is on the very important side for high school mountain biking. We did a “slow
roll” of the course to make sure it was to NICA specification as well as decide
what needed to be worked on for the Saturday set up. We were looking for places
that needed clean-up, fill-in, course marshal positioning, and signage. The
signage wouldn’t go up until Saturday morning.

After the “slow roll” lap I did a hot lap and while not
super technical it was a really hard course. The first climb came just under a
mile into the lap. The beginning of the lap was steep with some tough
switchbacks that would definitely be selective. A long, winding descent with a
few technical corners followed leading into a more moderate and steady climb.
Again, the descent was winding and the lap finished with a fairly long
straightaway leading into the winding infield and finish line. The course
measured 5.65 miles total with a fair amount of elevation gain.

A quick reminder is needed. There is a very large herd of
cows on this property. I’m not a huge fan of large animals that make sudden
moves when I’m riding a bike. For the first few hours of riding the cows would
move off the trail well in advance of seeing us. After my fast lap I decided to
roll another. I may have freaked myself out a bit about the cows but maybe not.
Lori and I met up part way through the lap and enjoyed the comfortable
temperatures just before the sun went down. As we were rolling along the long
straight coming back towards the start/finish area I had to repeatedly holler
ahead at the cows to move off. One decided he wasn’t too psyched to move at my
request so I slowed up a bit. I was getting ready to stop with my fingers
lightly pulling on the brakes when he made a lunge towards us resulting in me
grabbing a handful of brake lever and launching over the front of the bars.
Ouch! Fortunately for Sunday race day there were enough people around to
motivate the cows to move to a more remote area of the property.

Saturday morning it got moving! Lori got connected with the
infield set up crew. I rolled out with the course set up crew. There’s nothing
like rolling a lap in jeans with a shovel across the handlebars. Sean from MTB
Action was on his motorcycle making decisions on how to mark the course. As I
mentioned earlier, there is a big focus on keeping things safe. Freshman
through Seniors, beginners through soon-to-be-Pros, compete on the same course.
Sean said he wanted to “over mark” the course since there are many tight turns
on fast descents. While he dropped stakes written with directional arrows or
double and triple down arrows to signify caution points on the course, I was on
the lookout for areas that needed to be smoothed out. It was informative to get
a great idea on how a NICA approved course should be set.

Once the course was dialed in, Lori rolled out with Chris
from NICA to do a lap on the race course. I pulled the road bike off the rack
and took advantage of the quiet backroads between Los Olivos and Santa Maria.
It was vineyard after vineyard for 25 of the 35 miles on the out along Foxen
Canyon Road. The last 10 miles towards Santa Maria included plenty of
strawberry fields and other produce. It was very quiet and relaxing and best of
all I felt great riding at a few hundred feet above sea level. I wanted to make
a loop to the west of the 101 back from Santa Maria but my phone died and I
wasn’t sure of directions. However, going back the same way was a new
experience as well. I love riding somewhere I’ve never been and it was even
better that there was hardly any traffic.

We had another great evening visiting with other parents
from the SoCal league and enjoying their excitement that we are trying to get
the league rolling in Utah. A lot of the parents mentioned how much of a
positive experience it is to be part of a team and how much fun they have as
parents out at the races. It sure seems like everyone pitches in to make it all
happen. There were lots of volunteers to go out on the course set up and a lot
of other parents worked on their kid’s bikes.

Saturday night into Sunday morning brought 5 or 6 downpours.
Fortunately our tent kept the water out but I expected a mudfest Sunday
morning. The ground must have been dry enough because all it did was hold down
the dust for the morning. Lori found her way to the course marshal meeting and
I met up with Chris from NICA and got to be part of the set up crew for the
staging area and the opening straightaway. They have very specific set up rules
for NICA races. Needless to say, I did a lot of hammering rebar with a hefty
hammer. Watch out when I flex the guns! Lori came back over to do some course
taping and I was able to get Felipe from Ventura to give me a hand with some of
the hammering.

We hurried and grabbed some lunch and I got a look at how
immense the compound had become. There is a large pit area set aside for the
teams to set up. They got something like an area of 18’x25’ to put up tents and
trainers to get themselves ready for their races. The kids had been riding the
race course all morning. It looked like everyone was having a ton of fun so far.

After lunch we went back over to see what else we could get
involved with. There were going to be 3 waves of racers. The girls fields raced
first, followed by the Freshman and Sophomore boys. The final wave was Varsity
boys and the two divisions of Junior Varsity. I was able to get in the mix of
racer staging. First off, all of the student athletes were very considerate and
responsive. Again for safety, NICA rules have the kids line up 5 to a row with
no overlapping. Since it was a championship race for California the top-10 from
each league were called up. It was a lot of fun organizing the racers and
seeing their excitement to get out on the course.

Between the race waves I got to view some of the racing
closer to the staging area and visit with Lori while she was observing at the
scoring table. Talk about a great system! NorCal’s original official is still
with them and he has put together a web-based scoring system that provides real
time results to anyone with a device that can pick up WiFi. Yes people, real
time results on your smart phone while you walk around watching the race.
During the Varsity race we hiked up on one of the hills to watch the kids rally
the descent. We got to see a lot of good sportsmanship and encouragement.

After a long day and weekend I felt like we had really
benefited a lot by making the trip to have a good understanding on what it
takes to make one of these races happen. It was great to meet the driving
forces behind NICA and high school mountain biking. Very inspiring to see how
hard the crews work and the commitment they put in to make such a positive
experience for youth. Lori has been motivated and inspired to put in the work
it takes, but I’ve not seen her more excited or motivated than yesterday
afternoon after seeing it all in action.