newbie racer update #4

Dear PdCers, I have some updates on my 15-year-old daughter's continued exploration of the junior racing world.

In this update:  HS MTB season wrap-up, and something new!

Sneak peak here, more after the jump.

The story so far -- fat tires and lots of dirt.  These are our previous posts about our daughter over the past couple of years:

• Advice to New Racer?
• from daunted newbie to PODIUM!!!
• newbie racer / proud papa update

So! This month she wrapped up the NorCal High School Mountain Bike Racing League's 2010 season with a 3rd place (off 2nd by six seconds at the line after more than an hour of racing!) at the season-finale NorCal / SoCal California State Championship race.  PODIUM!

We weren't sure if she was going to end up with 3rd or 2nd in the overall season rankings for sophomore girls, until they called them up for the... PODIUM!  2nd place overall in the sophomore girls category for 2010. :)

She's signed up for her first MTB cross country race outside of the high school league in a couple of weeks, we've got some additional cross country MTB races penciled in on the calendar for the summer, and we're planning on schlepping all the way out to Colorado for the USA Cycling MTB National Championships in July. :)

Meanwhile, we were exchanging some e-mail with an acquaintance of ours about the current junior activities at the track.  In those discussions, Beth drew our attention to a local junior development team and a road race scheduled for May 23, and made various e-mail introductions to some junior roadie girls and their parents.

Emily decided to have a go at the road race, so we signed her up!  She was inspired by Beth's and Alicia's blogs, and we got a book on junior racing.  We got her bike geared down to meet the junior 26-foot rollout limit, did some road practices in the evenings last week, Em read a bunch in that book, and we got some of our nuts-and-bolts questions answered via e-mail by the other racers' parents.

We got up terribly, terribly early on Sunday, and headed down to the race start at a winery to the south of Hollister -- which is south of Gilroy, which is south of San Jose.

We serendipitously parked right next to some Tieni Duro riders, who were happy to give Em some first-race advice and tell her all about their team and their rides.  Here's Em and some of the TD riders warming up:

Tieni Duro racer Page was riding in Em's bracket (15-16 girls), and was super helpful:

Page's dad got drafted (pun intended) to drive the spare wheel support car for 15-16 girls, and invited me to ride shotgun.  Wow, I was going to ride in a race vehicle!!  And see some of the race!!  Woooo!! :)

The 13-14 boys & girls start together with the 15-16 girls.  USA Cycling rules (we read 'em all....!) forbid taking pace from riders in another group, but they apparently throw that out the window for the younger junior riders with small fields.  So, it's one peloton of several dozen kids, girls 13-16 and boys 13-14.  The picture at the top is a picture I took of their group from the support car.

Hell, I could tell you about the race, but you could just have a look at Emily's race write-up in her new blog! Well, ok, here's a spoiler:

Booyeah!! PODIUM!! :D

Ok, so they kept calling this the state championship road race.  I guess "state" means northern CA+NV, as opposed to southern CA+NV.  Anyway, they gave her a bronze US Cycling medal that says "STATE CHAMPIONSHIP" on it.  I guess that means she brought home 3rd place in the state championship events in her categories in MTB XC *and* road for 2010?!?

She may try a criterium on Memorial Day, and is considering entering an upcoming uphill time trial on Mount Diablo.  Our weekends are a little booked at the moment, but we'll be heading out to that junior development road team's weekend rides very soon.  She very much wants to do some more road races, so we'll try to get to some more.  Also, our track friend says that the guy who runs the weekly espoirs session would love to have her come down and ride with the group.

That's it 'til next time!