Sol Vista….tierra de destruccion
Road to Granby
The 2010 US Mountain Bike National Championships were held at Sol Vista (Granby, CO) for the second consecutive year. For me, it started off as a pleasant and beautiful, although hot, road trip from Santa Cruz, CA with my dog Noe, 4 bikes, excitement to race and my friend Evan Turpen (ET). And it ended in…..lack of sleep, no race photos for the blog, and some really broken friends.
Top o' the 4x track. Quite the view!
This year the amateurs raced on the old pro course, minus the 40 foot doubles. The gnarly doubles from last year were replaced with amateur friendly 20-30 foot gaps. The pro course this year was made a little more technical with a huge ladder drop to a huge double, followed by some more huge doubles. Unfortunately, the course seemed to destroy a lot of very talented riders, especially when the wind decided to pick up.
The Official Vehicle of the 2010 Mtn Bike National Championships
The destruction began on the first day of practice when US 4x favorite Mitch Ropelato broke his collar bone in 4x practice. It seemed to only worsen from there. I heard an ambulance about every hour, some of which ended up being “life flights” to Denver. In Friday’s practice, Kathy Pruitt went for one last practice run to perfect a section of the dh course, and the next thing that she remembers is that she was wrapped around a tree. It turns out her pivot bolt broke after landing the ladder drop, which sent her sailing over her bars at high speeds with nothing but a tree to slow her down. KP spent 5 days in the ICU in Denver with most of her ribs broken on her left side, a broken scapula, and a collapsed lung. She has recently been moved to a regular hospital room with no answers on when she will be discharged. KP has since been joined by Sean “Grizz” McClendon, after he broke his pelvis and dislocated a hip in his race run on Sunday. And to add to that list, Katie Holden broke her wrist in practice. Overall, most racers were emotionally rattled by all the chaos that went on this weekend, and the ones that could pull it together earned a spot on the podium.
KP super stoked to have Nadia and me visit her in the ICU. She was having a bit of a bad hair day so we supplied her with a super stylish fidora. Went perfectly with her hospital gown and various tubes emerging from her body.
Congratulations to Jill Kintner on her first National DH Championship gold! And, I’m super stoked for Jacqueline Harmony (silver) on her best finish at Nationals yet. Melissa Buhl earns bronze.
The Official Hardware
In pro 4x, Neven Steinmetz earns gold, Jacqueline Harmony earns silver and Melissa Buhl gets the bronze. In amateur 4x, Soraya Khalje wins the gold, Lauren Heitzman gets silver, Amber Price gets 3rd and Annemarie Hennes finishes 4th.
Check out how everyone else did by clicking here!!!
Congrats to all the racers that participated in this years US Mountain Bike National Championships. Stay positive and heal well to all the racers that broke themselves this weekend!
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