I pride myself on being a proficient technical rider in the grand scheme of female racers - there are girls who go bigger, go faster, are smoother - but generally I don't suck and am rarely the last one down a descent.  I have my weak points - long rock faces, loose, marble laden shoots that make even the best brakes useless, and generally I like at least one, preferably two wheels on the ground.  I have my strengths too - tough, working, rolling singletrack that challenges the "spin it to win it" riders and curvy, flowing, eye-watering descents.  Proficient I am, gnarly I am not.

This weekend was gnarly.

Day 1: North Shore Bikefest Ryder's Eyewear Prologue - 1.5 minutes of fast double-track to 8 minutes of f'ing hard, slick, singletrack climbing, followed by 30 seconds of rocky descending, and another 2.5 minutes of rolling doubletrack.  In the pre ride I thought I'd forgotten how to climb singletrack until the last of 5 pre-ride climbs, then my skill started to come back.  In the race, I sprinted to get some momentum, and then calmed the body down and realized that the less I worried about speed, the faster I went (not very intuitive, but productive!).  I won the day with a 1:10 to spare over Megan Rose - I was pleasantly surprised (read : completely shocked).

Day 2: North Shore Bikefest Return of the Ripper - I don't actually know how to describe this course - doubletrack, to the slippery technical climb from the prologue, to flat, rooty, slippery, muddy single-ish track, to fast flat doubletrack, to road, to a fun technical descent, to doubletrack, to rolling, to more technical descending, to the classic bridal path climb, down Severed D (a gnarly cold-sweat inducing trail that would require a DH bike anywhere else in the world, but on the Shore is considered an XC trail, to more trail, back to some of the original double track - it must be just about over....right? to a double track climb that looks like a wall (really, I have to go up this?) to open doubletrack that paralleled a road, and then into the trees to the finish line....but wait, just for good measure, back up the the singletrack climb from the prologue (seriously?  I have to race up this a 3rd time in under 24 hours?).  Back onto the last stretch of double track and across the finish line.

Going into the Ripper I was nervous.  Years ago I spent a summer commuting to the North Shore on weekends and riding Mt Seymour every chance I got.  That was my first summer owning a proper mountain bike - a chromolly Cove Handjob that I thought was the coolest thing ever (at 27 lbs for an XC hardtail, the lightest thing it was not).  Since then I've returned to ride (not race) the North Shore every couple years - and each time it is like going home to your mom's house - everything is the same, except different.  You open up a cupboard (or set up for a steep, rocky drop) and the bowls are where the coffee mugs used to be to find that they have been moved to the next cupboard.  I did, however, manage to stay on my bike in the XC to finish up 2nd after a long day.  

After a quick visit with friends over brunch in downtown Van on Sunday we hopped onto the ferry and into the work week.  I headed up to the Comox Valley for 3 days and got in two awesome rides - one on lower trails near the Pipeline and one "shuttle" (the boys shuttled, I did intervals up the road) up Forbidden Plateau where I had my best ride of the year - the perfect day where everything clicked and (even though the boy's suspension outmeasured mine by at least 3 inches in the front and 6 inches in the rear) I held on for dear life and kept up on the downhills....not bad for an xc weenie.

Next up, Test of Metal - one of my favourite races of the year and then off to Novato, CA for Marin meetings and then Vail, Colorado for Shimano meetings to finish off the month!