We went up Wednesday, before any of the practices started, if nothing to hopefully get away from the 100 degree heat in town. Beth, if you are reading thing, THANK YOU for the loan of the condo. Nice doesn't even begin to describe it, and it was about a 3 minute walk from the base.
The weather report for the four days was sunny and hot. This means 85 degree days up at altitude. Sunscreen and hat weather, and lots of dust.
Lots of photos, but it's going to take me a few days to get that part together.
I signed in Thursday morning, and picked up my T-shirt and radio, then a few us were hauled up to the DH course to marshall the first set of practice runs. I was placed at the top of Alter Boy, the crux move of the course. It's a rock face, maybe about 45 degrees steep and 50 feet long. Some of the rider would "read and run" (boating term for going for it) other with stop, and park their bike and check it out briefly, and then a small percentage would stare at it for 15, 20, 45 minutes until they were completely psyched out. My main job was to manage traffic, as you'd get a ball up of riders blasting down the hill and having to stop up short to wait for someone to get off the face. Also, the beginner/sport line Y'd off here and even tho there were signs and tape, riders were so focused on their lines that they'd take the wrong line even with a sign and it being taped off.
Since I was at the top of the drop, I never really got to see the whole thing, but Mr. Penny was stationed at the bottom of the drop as a medic. I found out that psyched out racers don't like it when you say things like, "don't worry, there's a great medic at the bottom...." After lunch, I moved to a different spot for the beginner practice. One of the fun things is just talking to people as they were hiking the course... lots of parents supporting their racers, and folks from all over the place. That evening found us hot, really really dirty and tired. The medic crew was camping out in the day care like a big slumber party. Cascade Toboggans had donated $$ for stuff so we had a great group dinner and then crawled into bed.
Friday morning myself, another marshall, Mr. Penny and a couple of other medics decided to ride the XC course. The medic crew's goal is to figure out the action spots for positioning. Me, I just thought it'd be good to get out for a ride. As an XC ride, the course was nothing really special but I guess it had enough variety to be an interesting race course. Fire road climbs, rock garden single tracks, some downhill singletrack descents, creek crossings and my-oh-my... the boomerang single track section. Think: sweet windy, switchbacked forest singletrack, once pristine, but now unmaintained and worn down due to over riding and lack of maintenance. It's deep and rutted, lots of roots, and dust about 4-6" deep... before the racing began. ( we had a long talk with one of the guys who helped build this trail years ago, the bottom line is that the ski area doesn't do any trail maintenance and thinks that little fairies {local volunteers} will just take care of everything and the little fairies are sick of being used by the ski area....)
Friday afternoon's XC race (expert, semi pro, jr expert) stationed me at the corner where the riders take a sharp turn off the road and drop into boomerang. It's a sharp steep corner, dropping right into the afore-described ruts and dust. My job this time is to monitor riders: at this particular location the trail goes both directions and someone could easily cut under the tape and shave their distance. Also, I have to monitor for "no assistance" for mechanicals, running of water etc. I have a few spectators here... some kids from San Diego watching for their dad, and some team folks with Cannondale Leftys... finally got a good look at those.
A few minutes before the racers hit my section on the first lap ( 10 mile laps) Mr. Penny shows up with a backboard and we hang out together. In-between the laps it's pretty boring, but we found lots of huckleberries in the woods right there. When the pack comes by on the first lap, it's pretty exciting as they ball up dropping into the trail, and the dust cloud... .unbelievable. ( photos to follow of course) Craig wait anxiously as we can hear riders going down and over in there, but there are no injuries... just a lot of cussing coming out of the wood. You can see the airborne bikes in the woods, and then barely make out the helmets as riders recover and head on down the trail.
By the second lap, these guys and gals are really hot and dusty. Their faces, arms and legs are just caked with dust. The pack has dissipated, so the dust isn't so bad. One rider has a very good strategy... he does a running dismount dropping into the section, and runs and carries his bike through this section. He gains time on every lap. No real excitement here: I have to radio in a few DNF's for mechanicals; we give a kid some water after he drops out, and we have a very long bull session with a product guy from Shimano who drops out and then hangs around to chat.
After the race, Craig and I hit the team trailers. We manage to get Schwinn T-shirts from the Schwinn guys... "hey we are mister and mrs. Sch(wyn) seems to work pretty well. Not much schwag out there tho. I drop my bike off at Rock Sux where I have a RS tech rebuild my fork for 1/2 of what the lbs wanted for it... the best solution for now. We then clean up and go out for dinner: great food but the worst service I've had in 10 years. How can a town NOT be prepared for the onslaught of folks for a national sporting event.? Every hotel in town was booked!!
more later
Penny