She Shreds

Jarod Smith tellin' it how it is

Northstar, or in the summer known as Gnarstar, hosted the ProGRT race on its Gypsy track this weekend.  Boulders, pedaling, tiring, altitude, step-downs, long, hot, moon dust and fun pretty much sum up the downhill course.  It was one of the biggest turnouts for a Northstar race including some of the biggest names in gravity racing.  Jill Kintner, Kathy Pruitt, Melissa Buhl, Joanna Petterson…..and for the guys Greg Minaar, Steve Peat, Bryn Atkinson, Cedric Gracia and the new fast guy on the scene, Mitch Ropelato.

Pruitt sending it to the finish

Kintner convincingly wins the DH, Pruitt comes in second finishing with massive air setting the crowd off, and Leigh Donovan gets the third best time showing the mountain bike world that she is back and fast.  Buhl comes from behind to beat Pruitt by a tire knob in the 4x.

Cathy Chevron airing her way to the top of the podium. PHOTO by: Lindsay Beth Currier

In the amateur scene, Mary Pralinsky, Cathy Chevron, and Cierra Smith win their respective classes for DH.  Mary Moncorge wins 4x and Annemarie Hennes comes in second.

Pro DH Podium

Downhill Results

Pro

1. Jill Kintner
2. Kathy Pruitt
3. Leigh Donovan

Cat 1

1. Cierra Smith
2. Robyn Embry
3. Mary Moncorge
   

   Kathy Pruitt and Cierra Smith....both showed up in the same prom dress. PHOTO by: Lindsay Beth Currier

Cat 2

1. Cathy Chevron
2. Andrea Napoli
3. Bonnie Miller

Cat 3

1. Mary Pralinsky

Full DH Results Here

4x Results

Pro

1. Melissa Buhl
2. Kathy Pruitt

Amateur

1. Mary Moncorge
2. Annemarie Hennes
3. Sally Hermansen
4. Bridgette LeBer

Full 4x Results Here

Ayshe Tuncer (photo: Steve Anderson)

This may have been CCCX’s most technical downhill course as of yet, which of course isn’t saying much, but it made for a fun day of ridin’ bikes!  It rained on and off all day, which caused a mud waterfall down a little steep section, to an off-camber mud river.  The photographers on the course witnessed a lot of amazing crashes down that section!  Check out this video that someone got with their IPhone.  It looks like they were trying to capture the waterfall coming down the trail, but little did they know, they were about to capture Rosie Bernhard’s magnificent crash.

As far as results go, Mary Moncorge was the fastest woman of the day, one second faster than Sharon Hill.

CCCX Downhill Results- May 9, 2010

Pro Women

1) Sharon Hill

2) Annemarie Hennes

3) Rosie Bernhard

Expert Women

1) Mary Moncorge

2) Kelly Johnson

3) Mollie Sitkin

4) Jill Henrich

5) Ayshe Tuncer

6) Ashley Hernandez

Sport Women

1) Jessica Spray

2) Courtney Rosiak

Beginner Women

1) Mary Pralinsky

2) Sarah Skammel

Junior Girls

1) Faith Siebe

For Full Results Click Here

Mary Moncorge & Kelly Johnson (photo: Steve Anderson)

dual slalom 2010

This was one of the best Sea Otter’s I’ve ever been to!  Granted, helping set up the event this year and winning cat 1 dual slalom definitely added to my fun factor, it felt like everyone was as stoked as I was to be there.  It seemed like every top ranked pro showed up from the mountain bike world….from 2009 DH World Champion Steve Peat, to Jared Graves and Greg Minaarr.

Pro Katie Holden, DH

On the women’s side 27 women filled the DH pro class and the max 16 competed in dual slalom.  Melissa Buhl won the DH. Rachel Atherton is back racing after she took a pick-up truck windshield to the shoulder over a year ago…and looking fast taking the silver in dual slalom and downhill.  Jill Kitner won dual slalom, and took sixth in one of her first recent downhill races since she decided to focus on downhill.  Leigh Donovan convincingly emerged from her racing retirement, or break, whatever you want to call it.  She took an impressive fifth place in dual slalom and downhill!  I even saw park rider/dirt jumper Nadia Steinbrecher out there racing the downhill on her 45 lb Iron Horse Sunday.  I guess no one told her what a pedally course it is.

(from left) Heather McFadden, Annemarie Hennes, Kelsey Anderson, Hannah Trimble

On the amateur side, 47 women competed in the downhill.  Essence Barton won the cat 1 downhill, Cathy (Cat) Chevron from Santa Cruz won the cat 2 downhill, or as I like to say, “Cat won Cat 2″.  Karla Kingsley out of Oakland won the Cat 3 gold.  In dual slalom, Annemarie Hennes (me) won the cat 1 category, and Sally Hermansen took first in cat 2.

Rosie Bernhard, cat 1 Dual Slalom (photo by: Rick Rasmussen)

For full Sea Otter results click here

Bunny Hoppin' Clinic

Ray’s Angels Women’s Weekend was well worth the 8 hour travel day from sunny Santa Cruz, CA to to cold and snowy Cleveland, Ohio.  It was also worth having to explain to everyone in the Cleveland Airport why we were bringing our mountain bikes to Cleveland in the middle of winter.  Locals were even more baffled when they asked where we were from.

Coaches

There were over 160 women that showed up for the event on Friday and a lot of the women stuck around for the whole weekend to play around in the park.  The coaches included names like Tammy Donahugh, Nadia Steinbrecher, Jackie Baker, Tamara Peloguin, Angi Weston, Nina Buitrago, Darcy Turenne, Judy Freeman, Leigh Donovan, Cory Coffey, Angie Marino, Stacey Mulligan, Stephanie Nychka, Katie Polk, Gale Dahlager, and Kathy Pruitt.

Sierra Nevada Happy Hour!

The weekend was non stop awesome from Darryl at the Award Winning Airport Holiday Inn, to the 5-7 hours of riding each day, to the Women of Dirt Premier, to the friday night PBR party.  Does anyone know how to contact that DJ?  KP, I heard you guys are pretty tight.  I really want to hire him for one of my parties.

pump track

Anyway, thanks to Ray’s MTB Park and everyone that helped put on one of the biggest women’s bike events in the world!  It was awesome!  If you missed it this year you should make sure to catch it next time.

Kathy Pruitt Race Run

A KILLER time was had by all at the last CCCX race of the fall series.  The third fastest chick in the world showed up, series champions were crowned, hot links were eaten, and most importantly there was a lot of shreddin’ going on (and of course, what is a CCCX race without a little pedaling?)

Sport Chicks!

Click here for full results

All Photos by Rick Rasmussen

CCCX Race #5 Full Women’s Results

Rosie Bernhard

The women were representin’ in Toro Park last Sunday!  That’s the most women I’ve ever seen at a CCCX race!  Awesome to see a bunch of fresh faces in the beginner category.  The word is out in the chick world, “Downhilling is RAD!”  Congratulations to all the racers.  Looking forward to the last race of the series on Jan 31st.

Beginner Podium

Pro Women

Expert Women

Sport Women

Beginner Women

Click here for full Race 4 results

All Photos by: Rick Rasmussen

Click here for more photos

Kelly Damschen gettin' air on her 1st place race run.

Jess Spray losing her goggles on her way to the podium.

Note to self:  Don’t bring my 40 lb DH bike to a pedally Super D course.  Check!

CCCX DH Races Series: Race #3 Results

I have been a professional soccer trainer since 2001.  Most recently I’ve trained and coached teams for the Santa Cruz County Breakers.  While I will continue to guest train for the Breakers, this is my last year of training soccer teams full-time.

While I love the game of soccer and will miss the rewards and triumphs of coaching, I have decided to pursue a career path with my other passion, cycling.  Also, graduate school is coming to a finish and I am very excited to use my master’s degree in sport marketing to promote the growth of cycling.

The only way to describe what soccer has meant to me is to explain it as being my first love.  Soccer has been a very large part of my life for almost twenty years .  I played division 1 soccer at the University of Illinois for 3 years and finished my college playing career at San Jose State University.  I have been involved with training numerous teams at every level, all over the Bay Area throughout the past 9 years.

Training and coaching soccer has taught me numerous lessons that are difficult to obtain in any other setting.  I have not only taken with me a great technical and tactical knowledge of the game, but I have also taken with me qualities such as leadership, management, communication, organization and problem solving.  I will continue to use the things I have learned from soccer in every aspect of my life, including my new career.