Hill Climbing and Mountain Biking

Alisha says: The inevitable finally happened. There was a mountain bike race that Dave couldn't miss and a hill climb race that I couldn't pass up on the same weekend. I was a little nervous going to a race without him there to be my bike mechanic/support. Luckily, I met a new friend Leah, and we went together so I wasn't all alone. After last week Dave made me upgrade to a cat 3 which means that I race in a new category with all of the cat 1,2,3's. Sundance was a very scenic 8.7 mile hill climb. I had a great race. After riding in a group for a couple of minutes I went to the front and put in a good effort. After a while I looked back and it was only me and one other girl. A little after the two mile mark I pulled away from the other girl and continued to crank it all the way to the top and finished in first with a time of 48:13. One funny thing is that I wear mountain bike shoes and so for some reason everyone thought I was some new chick who is mainly a mountain biker. If they only knew that I still ride platforms when I mountain bike :).

Dave says: Alisha has definately found her area of expertise on the road bike. Even in the most difficult category she won with two minutes to spare. In other news, I went from hero to zero in today's mtb race at Snowbird starting out with a strong effort and leading the first lap and a half. Unfortunately, a combination of downhilling like I was on ice skates and cracking on the climbs left me in fifth (not an inherently bad place to finish, but in this case it was given the small turnout and the absence of big shots like Mitchell Peterson and Alex Grant (off at Nationals). Race winner Chris Holley has now bumped me out of third place in the overall standings and it will take a bit of luck and a lot of hard work to get that spot back with only two races to go. Maybe it's my turn to go to Alisha's races and hand her water bottles :).