July 24 Cancelled!

Well, it was bound to happen some time. We had lucked out with weather so far, but tonight is looking grim. We've got some rain and lightning at the bike park now, and radar is showing more to come. So no racing tonight. The sand pit will have to wait for another week.

If you already pre-registered for tonight's race, we'll carry that over to next week for you.

Also note that next week has an augmented schedule. We'll be putting on another adaptive bike race, so the schedule will be adjusted like last time:
4:30 p.m. - Registration begins
5:00 p.m. - Kid's Race ages 9 and under (10 minutes)
5:15 p.m. - Women's B and Juniors age 10-14 (15 min)
5:35 p.m. - Men's C's (20 min)
6:00 p.m. - Men's B (25 min)
6:30 p.m. - Adaptive Bikes (20 min)
6:55 p.m. - Women's A and Single Speed (25 min)
7:25 p.m. - Men's A (30 min)

See you on the 31st!

Clunk, Clunk, Clunk, Clunk....

That was the sound that accompanied chain-slap as you all sped down the Belgian Steps last night. I must say, it was fun and impressive to watch. I think there was only one casualty from the steps, though at least one rider slid out on the surprise mud at the bottom. Yann Ropers has some pictures from last night.

Of course John Mansell was there -- as always with his cyclocross bike. He dismounted and sprinted down the stairs, and showed us all how to remount and speed off again. He'll be ready for the fall/winter cross season for sure.

Josh Whitney provided some entertainment throughout the evening - he brought a bunch of prizes for the night - t-shirts and burrito coupons from EVOL, delicious chocolate from Pharmaca Life, and drinks from Good Belly. The entertainment came in the hand-ups of chocolate bars and burrito coupons. They both proved very challenging to hang on to. The entire crowd cheered loudly when finally one racer successfully pocketed a burrito coupon.

The results are posted, and with some tight moves for the overall in a few categories - the top 3 in the Men's C's are all within 30 points of each other. The standings will be interesting in these last few weeks. Remember that we're dropping the 4 lowest scores for the entire 13-race series, so with 9 races down, the rest will go to improving older scores.

We apologize for the terrible delay at the start of the evening. But it was awesome that so many racers were patient and even happy to help us with the final course adjustments. Thanks a ton to all of you who helped out so much there. We'll do everything we can to make sure the shortage of course setup staff and park construction don't occur together again.

Don't forget about Valmont Trail Work, tonight (Thursday) at 5:30, and we'll see you next Wednesday.

Valmont trail work on Thursday

Hi everyone!
Up this week, we have a super technical course, with rock-drops and stairs, and a fair amount of climbing. The course looks something like this:

We'll also have prizes from EVOL, PharmacaLife and GoodBelly Drinks, so bring your A-game, even if you're racing C's!

The other big announcement is that Boulder Mountain Bike Alliance is doing a trail work day at Valmont, Thursday evening. The short track series has seen unprecedented race numbers, which has been awesome! We love that so many people show up to race and enjoy the park. Of course, having so many racers does put the trails under some extra stress. 

So please come out Thursday to help out for a bit. Tools will be provided, so just bring some work gloves. Sign up to volunteer here.

Thanks, and see you Wednesday and Thursday!

Technical course next week!

It was a hot one last night, and attendance was a little low for it. However, we had a few highlights on last night's smooth and flowy course:

• Kevin Bracy-Knight out racing on a Fat-Bike
• Single Speeder Mark Baudry finished with his signature wheelie
• Scott Gurst (a long time veteran of the series) got his first short track win!
• 5-year-old Joshua Lucas did his first mountain bike race ever, a single day after taking off his training wheels!
• Two legendary A riders almost went into trackstand mode in an awesome duel near the finish of the Men's A's -- Brady Kappius and John Mansell duking it out in a manner of sorts.

We also had a few changes in the overall standings! Results are in the usual places - check 'em out. Also check out Dejan's pics from July 3rd's race (among others).

A few things to note - with how smooth this week's course was, we're making next week's course very interesting. We'll have forced rock drops (no go-around options) and a descent down the Belgian Steps. This will be a course for the full-suspensioners. (We'll of course have some options for the kids race.)

We're also working out specifics with EVOL for some prizes, as well as a series-end party.

Themed races: We might add a bmx/dirt-jumper race for August 7 - it'll be one heck of a race. We're also inviting costumes for August 14th, as usual. Prizes for the best costume.

We've been taking note from Barry's Thursday-night crit series in Longmont with the fruit spread. We've been happy to supply the watermelon for racers every week. However, would you prefer some other fruit too? Perhaps oranges?

See you on next week's technical course!

Happy Independence Day!

Thanks to everyone who was still around for the holiday who came out to our 7th race at Valmont. The watermelon, courtesy of Charlie Liu, was very refreshing throughout the hot evening. It was also fun having some sweet gear from Nite Ize to give away as prizes for the races. We'll have some more for next week too.

There were a couple missed attempts at the cash handups that we had, but a couple riders grabbed and pocketed like seasoned pros. The bunny hops and wheelies made scoring the finish entertaining for me too.

The results are posted in the usual spots. There are a couple of big shifts in the standings since a few key riders were missing this week. Brady Kappius, Bryan Alders and Allen Krughoff in the Men's A's were all missing, though Sam Morrison was turning some really fast lasps and may have gotten the birthday win anyway. However, the worst 4 races get dropped, so we'll have to see if their absence remains to be a factor.

Enjoy the holiday and long weekend! We'll see you at Valmont next week!