In my last post, I mentioned that I was going to race the Bear Jaw Groove race. Well, I did! The race was yesterday and my four-person team did splendidly. The race was held at the Arizona Nordic Village and the race format is simple: ride as many laps as you can in 6 hours. Each lap is 11 miles long. Obviously, the solo and duo team riders had it a bit harder than the four-person teams because they don’t have as long of a break in between laps. It was pretty easy to tell which riders were the solo riders because they were all super skinny, wore spandex, and had intense gazes. Kind of like the solo male winner:
I got into Flagstaff around 3:15pm on Friday. I thought I was beating the traffic, but quickly learned that move-in day for Northern Arizona University (NAU) was that day. Traffic in town was SO BUSY. I got to my airbnb and decided against going downtown for dinner because I didn’t want to face traffic again. Instead, I walked to the closest Safeway and picked up some items for dinner and lunch the next day.
My airbnb was a cute little bedroom in a single-family house with its own private entrance. The family owns a few chickens and the coop is right next to the airbnb entrance. I really enjoyed meeting the chickens and hearing their quiet “clucks” during my stay. (When I told the chickens I don’t eat meat, they seemed to appreciate that fact, haha!)
My cute little airbnb 
The airbnb chickens!
Race day! For those of you who’ve never been to a mountain bike race before, it’s basically a big party. Yes, there’s an actual race, but there are also things like food trucks, vendors, live music, and activities for families such as a kids’ bike race. I was with a group of ladies from Hawesaholics Babes Ride On (HBRO), a ladies’ mountain biking group in Phoenix. We all arrived at the race site by 8am, set up our home base, and got our bikes and ourselves ready to go.
Race swag 
HBRO racers right before the race started 
My four-person team 
Some of the vendors’ tents 
The finish line! 
Our HBRO area….lots of bikes!
Like I said earlier, the race course is 11 miles long. For the four-person teams, one racer rides the course at a time. When one racer finishes, the next racer will start riding. I was the second person to go on my team, which worked well for me. I didn’t have to deal with the mass start and I had a bit more time to get mentally prepared.
My new Canada gloves. I may be an American citizen now, but I’ll never forget my Canadian roots! 
Right before I set off for my lap
The race course is not a technical one, i.e., riders of all levels can ride this course. My team pre-rode the course a couple of weeks before the race, so we had a good idea of what to expect. The most annoying part about the course is the climbing; almost half the course is uphill. It’s one of those steady grinds that seem to go on forever. Not fun. But, after the climb, the rest of the course is mostly downhill, which is way better! I had a couple of goals for the race: 1) beat my pre-ride time of 1 hour 40 minutes (I felt like my pre-ride time was slow because the ride was a big group ride and there were lots of stops to get people acquainted with the route) and 2) do my first lap in 1 hour 15 minutes. I met both goals!
I’ve had a few people ask me what I thought of the course. Aside from my course description above, my top three highlights — in no particular order — during the race were:
- riding through the Aspen trees (I WISH I could have taken a picture! It was so pretty there!);
- hearing a guy behind me yell “I was trying to keep up with you but you’re totally bombing the downhill!” (TRY HARDER, DUDE). Oh, FYI, “bombing” refers to racing down a trail as fast as possible. I left that guy in the dust. Literally!; and
- pedaling as fast as I can towards the finish line in case a photographer was there to capture the moment (I wanted to look intense…you know, like a REAL racer).
My whole team did really well and we were very happy to learn that we placed first in our category!
Right after the race ended. We decided to wear our matching tank tops for the post-race photo. 🙂 
Right after the awards ceremony 
Cool medal! It’s also a bottle opener!
Ok….so full disclosure….we were the only team in our category (four-person team, women). HAHAHA! But hey, it’s still cool that we did the race and even cooler that we have a souvenir (i.e., medal)!
I had a really fun time and I’m glad I did this race. I got to know some awesome ladies better and we are all doing another race together in December! Stay tuned for more training and event stories!
reluctantroadie 