Racing a World Cup in the USA was a great experience this past weekend!

One of the highlights of the entire weekend was having some of the Jamis Bicycle HQ crew out at the race. The Team Jamis manager, Sal, was there. He is the guy behind the scenes taking care of the details for getting and maintaining my equipment and helping manage my race schedule among many other things. He understands mountain bike racing and all the finer points that go into what I do all year long to get to a World Cup. As the mountain bike product manager, he also happens to be the super smart guy designs my race machines! I love the bikes he designs for me to race!

Tony is the video porduction and social media guy that creates all the amazing Jamis videos (check out the Jamis youtube channel). He has won multiple prestigious awards with what he creates. He should too, because he can make me look like a rock star! Once he gets that cam into slow motion and I come around a corner, it looks like I’m the World Champion! He came out to film me racing the World Cup and he’ll be making a trip to Salt Lake City in a few weeks to do some more filming as well. These are the nicest guys you could ask for and I’m so grateful to be part of the Jamis Family with them!

So onto the race…

The first 3 World Cups I went to were in other countries, so figuring out registration and all the other little details was a challenge since everything was in French, Czech then German. Having everything in Engish made the entire weekend so much smoother. Additionally, Windham was on the ProXCT last year, so I already knew the area and the course. Those points combined made it much less nerve wracking. The weather had been dry for the majority of the week prior to our race, so it was very manageable for someone used to racing in the west! The rock gardens and “mini wall” that were extremely slippery last year were just fun sections that I looked forward to.

I was ready to race, had the course dialed and was super psyched to finish the season with a bang! In a moment of bad luck, I had a minor mechanical that slowed my first lap, I stopped a few times to handle it. I was determined to not DNF so I rode it to the top feed zone and got some technical assistance. By then I was off the back, but I chased as hard as I could. I was able to make up some time and finished the next 3 laps cleanly and passed a handful of girls as well. I finished in 48th which is my best World Cup finish so far, so I’ll take it. I was pulled with one lap to go, the UCI official who also happens to be my friend told me I was 45 seconds from making the last lap. I easily wasted that much time on lap 1. Shoot! I know I had the power and ability to place much better, but that’s how it ended up. Just more to work for next year!

I rode my Jamis Dakar XCR with Stan's NoTubes Valors. That was the perfect combination for the course and the conditions we saw there.

Sal, Erica, Tony with the Jamis Dakar XCR behind us