PreRace is Live!

Hello race fans!

                With less than a week to go before our first races of the year, PreRace preregistration is live! Sign up for individual races ($18 before the race) by midnight the day before the race or sign up for all 11 races of the series ($170). The Short Track Crew is gearing up for an awesome season, and I hope you are too. Stay tuned in the coming days for the first race course map so you can prepare mentally for the battle to come.

                For any last-minute announcements, follow CU Cycling on Facebook.

As always, all ages and abilities are invited to come try their hand at Boulder’s summer MTB Fight Club!

Get Ready for Short Track 2014!

CU Cycling is proud to host another MTB Summer Short Track Series at Valmont Bike Park during the summer of 2014! Races take place every Wednesday from June 4 through August 13, starting at around 5pm with children’s races and continuing until the night finishes at around 7:15pm with the start of the Men’s A field. Riders of any and all abilities and ages are welcome and encouraged to come join in Boulder’s long-standing tradition of great community fun. If you’re not a racer but you’ve ever thought about racing a mountain bike, this is the time to swallow your nerves and give it a go!

This summer, the race organizers will be trying something a little different, oriented to the more gravity-inclined folks: two dual slalom races during the season will take place of normal short track! Stay tuned to this website for updates on the when and how of these two races.

Continue to visit the Short Track page at http://cushorttrack.blogspot.com/ to stay connected and in the know about the series and other announcements race organizers will have during the season. Come feed your competitive side at Valmont Bike Park this summer and get in touch with the outstanding community of cyclists that call Boulder home!

- Chad Hotimsky, CU Summer Short Track Coordinator

Party time!

Hey gang!

Thank you all so much for making this summer a huge success! It was of course our first year at Valmont, and it sounds like everyone loved the new venue. We've got some plans to make it even better next year, too.

The money raised this summer goes directly to the CU Cycling Team, supporting us throughout the long collegiate racing seasons (mountain, track, cyvlocross, road and BMX). So we're thrilled with this summer's success. It couldn't have gone so well without the help of so many dedicated volunteers, and of course all of you coming back to race every week. As a way to say thanks, we are throwing a party tonight at Rocky Mounts: 2055 26th Street in Boulder at 6pm. We'll have food from Half Fast and drinks from Oskar Blues. So come out one last Wednesday to celebrate with us!

A huge thanks to our generous race sponsors:
-Josh Whitney for hooking us up with EVOL, Goodbelly and PharmacaLife prizes,
-Full Cycle for wrenching and grilling hot dogs every week,
-Julie Hudetz with a bunch of Nite Ize schwag,
-JellyBelly and Gatorade for a ton of goodies throughout the Summer.

See you at Rocky Mounts tonight!

Last race of the series!

It will be the last adaptive race of the summer too! So remember the augmented schedule:
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)

And bring your costumes! Points and prizes (at least jelly beans) for everyone in costume, and special prizes for the best in each category! I think we'll do a vote by crowd after each race, so stick around.

We also have some hefty prizes for the series winners, but you have to be here to claim them! Also be on the lookout for a potential short track celebration party next week. Details on that, and tomorrow's course, forthcoming.

See you tomorrow!

One race left!

It's official - in the realm of race hand-ups, jelly beans are easier to grab than cash. Maybe with all that climbing this week, everyone was more eager for the magical beans. One of the expert cash graps was Margell Abel, who held on tight to a 5-dollar bill - a nice accessory to go with her Women's A win. Bjorn Riley has locked up his lead in the overall with another win this week. Luke Kriedl extended his lead over Henry Rapinz in the kids race as they finished 1-2 in a sprint, but Henry can still take the overall with a good performance next week.

Check out some of Dejan's photos in the Corkscrew, and take a look at the results from the past two weeks: July 31, Aug 7, and the Overall Standings

We still have a bunch of tight competition in the standings for the last week. The top 3 in the Men's C's are within 35 points, though Scott Gurst has been on a role lately and will certainly do what he can to hold on to his lead. In the single speed category, Tom Hopper and Brad Berger are tied for the lead, and Justin Sheldon is close behind. Lydia Tanner and Ksenia Lepikhina are within 3 points of each other in the Women's A's battle for 2nd, and Karen Hogan is nipping at them too...

To make things more interesting in these tight races, we're awarding 5 points (and jelly beans) to everyone who shows up in costume next week, and 40 points to the best costume in each category. The question is - how should we vote on best costume? Pre-race voting by audience cheers? Maybe post-race to not cut into your warmup?

Design those costumes, and get pumped to celebrate another great short track season!

Course Change for 8/7

James Moro brought up a good point about sand mixing with suspension, so we're scrapping the sand pit. Instead we're running a hilly course tonight -- supposing the weather holds. Check here and Facebook for updates based on weather.

Also, last week's results should be coming shortly.

Already August!

Only two weeks left in the Short Track Series this summer. Our last race was another success, with more than 120 racers. A big thanks to Margell for helping score, allowing me to jump on my bike for a race.

I'm through part one of my travel, just unpacked. And now repacking for trip #2, catching a flight early tomorrow morning. I'll hopefully get back early enough Tuesday night to have results up before Wednesday's race. Thanks for your patience with that.

Since we didn't run this course on the 24th, we're thinking this week will be up the corkscrew and through the sand pit.


 See you Wednesday!