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Lambert Park
Alpine - May 10, 2014The morning dawned cool, with ominous
low clouds over Lone Peak. The trails were damp and slimy from the rain.
Hazy sunshine broke through, and the trails became just the right type of
grip-damp for a terrific race. UMB has first-place finishes by Hunter
Ransom, Kellye Potter, Richard Ewell, Mitt Stewart, Rick Morris, and
Meghan Sheridan, with second-places by Sally Reynders, Geno Smith, Tim
Wagstaff, Katy Nafus, Jason Cowley, and Bentley Vanderwel.
Left: 8:30 in the mornbing, and the UMB
canopies are ready for the team's arrival to the 9 a.m. first wave of the
race.
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The race was split into four waves. Kids went at 9 am. Beginners, Women
40-plus, and Men 60-plus raced at 9:30. Sport categories raced at 10:30,
with Expert, Pro, and Men 50-plus at 11:30. The UtahMountainBiking team
was out in force for this race, capturing an impressive number of podium
spots.
Left: Ready to start the second wave. Well, the
Clydesdales are on the mountain already, and the Men 60-plus group sneaks
up to the start line. |
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Lap counts varied, with two for beginners, three
for sport, five for expert and men 50-plus, and six for pro. Despite the
short distances, the almost-constant twisting climbing and "working
descents" required a lot of effort. The loop began in the parking lot of the rodeo grounds,
with a cyclocross-style detour behind the rodeo bleachers to let riders
spread out before hitting the singletrack climb on Middle Spring.
Left: There was some slime to dodge in the rodeo
arena area. The detour through the arena, with its hairpin turn, did a
good job of putting riders into single file. |
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The race loop was 2.7 miles per lap with
470 vertical feet of climbing in each lap. Downhills were over quickly
(with a top speed on my Garmin of 23 mph) but the twisty course meant the
descents required a lot of attention. The trees and tricky spots claimed a
few victims, including a shoulder separation and a fractured clavicle (but
not on UMB team members). |
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Middle
Spring is super-twisty with ups and downs, favoring riders who can maintain
momentum in the turns. At the top, the course turned left on Spring and
traversed over to a fast descent. Here, a couple of short segments of slimy water-eroded trail firmed up
after two laps to become hero dirt for the remainder of the day.
Left: Jason leads Mitt up Middle Spring as the
Expert Men 40-plus group hits Middle Spring for the first climb. |
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A little grass detour at the bottom of Spring forced riders to check their
speed before crossing the rodeo grounds road. Spring joins Rodeo Up for a short
distance before turning to the right for the whoop-de-dos of Rodeo Down. At Box
Elder Drive, racers took a grass detour that kept them out of traffic as they
climbed to cross the Bowery road. (The southern 2/3 of the park was not used in
this race, so racers didn't have to hold up traffic on the subdivision
road.)
Left: Bruce finishes off the bottom of Rodeo
before heading across the road to climb Spring. |
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Catching Spring just above the Box Elder
crossing, riders faced the long winding climb up the mountain. At the top,
riders climbed up and
over the water outlet structure, then dropped toward the entry to Upper Rodeo.
Here, they had to navigate the tricky flood-control levees. After the September
floods, Bruce cut a trail path that bumps over one levee, then runs a short
distance down the top of the second levee before dropping to the right into the
singletrack trail of Upper Rodeo. Not smooth, but the best that could be done to
preserve both the trail and the flood-control structure.
Left: Shae hits the bottom of the flood-control
channel. After popping over the sharp hill of the first levee, riders
skated through rock chunk before turning sharply left to run down the
second levee into Upper Rodeo. |
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Upper Rodeo is a
high-speed twisting flight through deep forest along the creek, crossing it 5
times. This descent ended abruptly with a 150-degree turn through a deep rut in
the entry to Rodeo Down, turning uphill for a quick climb to the parking area
and a second lap.
Left: Christian rocks downhill in the maple forest
of Upper Rodeo. |
| Expert and Pro Categories |
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Left: Meghan
Sheridan rolls a turn on Upper
Rodeo on her way to the 1st place spot in
Pro Women.
Right: View north to Chipman Peak
from the
race loop.
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Left: Dallin Hatch
pops up and out of the
creek after crossing a bridge on Upper Rodeo,
finishing with the 8th place spot in the
Expert Men 19-29 group.
Right: The rodeo groups was a little
short
in parking spots, so many racers parked in
the meadow at the beginning of the rodeo
grounds road. In the photo, we're looking
east from the UMB canopy.
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| Bruce, Sally, Rick, and Joe put the team
equipment together. Joe is working on one of our bike-holder stands. |
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Mike pounds a stake into the ground to
anchor the canopy against the inevitable wind. |
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Left: Grinding up the twisty
singletrack of Middle Spring,
Mitt Stewart
fights his way forward to take the 1st place
win in Expert Men 40-plus.Right: Jason
Sparks pivots a turn as he flies down Upper Rodeo,
also taking a podium spot with 3rd place in the category. |
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Left: Steven
Bonney has to stand and grunt
to get his singlespeed up the Spring Trail.
Steve finishes with 3rd place in the Singlespeed
Category.
Right: The flowers are in bloom. The
yellow
flowers are balsamroot, and the purple are a
(poisonous) relative of peas called sweetvetch.
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Left: Sally Reynders rolls
over a hump
left behind by last year's flood as she
climbs Middle Spring, taking 2nd place
in Women 40-plus.Right:
There were great views of the mountains
and valleys. Seen behind Katy as she climbs
the Spring Trail is Traverse Ridge. |
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Left: Geno Smith
is firing on all cylinders as he cranks up
Middle Spring, grabbing his podium spot with the 2nd place
finish in Men 50-plus. Right:
Phil
Blair rockets over one of the few rooty spots
on Upper Rodeo as he takes 5th place in the category.
The men 50-plus rode five brutal laps in the fourth-wave
race. |
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Left: Cranking up some
additional speed on Upper Rodeo,
Rick Morris gets a hard-fought 1st
place win in the
Men 60-plus race. Right: Joel Quinn climbs
through the maples as he nails
the 4th place spot in the old-guy category. |
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Bruce Argyle rails a turn on
Upper Rodeo
as he grabs the 5th
place finish. |
Joe Benson drops down to a
bridge as
he descends the mountain to 6th place. |
Gene
Poncelet flies downhhill on his last
of three laps, taking the 7th place spot. |
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| Most of us "sucked up" the
handlebars as we hit the flood dike, so we could keep those wheels on the
ground. This rider is looking awesome as he goes goes airborne... |
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...but it does not end well. The rough
cobble in the flood channel drops him. Our photographer Wildflower stops
snapping photos to help the injured rider. |
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Left: Richard Ewell rolls
down Upper Rodeo
on the way to 1st place in the Clydesdale
Category in the second-wave race.Right: Adam
finds the trail perfect for railing
the turns on the downhill. |
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Left: Christian Burrell
tilts the bike into a high-speed
turn as he nears the bottom of Upper Rodeo which will
complete another lap. Christian wins the 5th place
position in Sport Men 30-39. Right:
Steven Weaver pivots the bike at the top of the second
flood-control levee to aim at Upper Rodeo, taking the 6th
spot in the category. |
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| Shae pops the bike into the air on a bridge
of Upper Rodeo, enjoying the awesome day of riding. |
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Mike came to support the team and didn't
race. But he couldn't resist hitting the trails. |
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Left: Tim Wagstaff dips
across a bridge on Upper rodeo,
racing to the 2nd place podium spot in Sport Men 40-plus.Right:
Zipping downhill through the maple forest, Shae
Chatlin
gets the 7th place position in this competitive category. |
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Left: John Twitchell drops
into Upper Rodeo as he rides
to 12th
place.Right: Moving up to the
Sport class, Corey
Spencer
rails a turn on the downhill on the way to 15th place. |
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Left: Katy Nafus hits
the second levee of
the flood channel as she nails her podium
spot with 2nd place in Sport Women
19-34. Right: Phil rockets around a turn in the
maple forest. Beautiful riding. |
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Left: Hunter Ransom
hits the bottom of
Rodeo before approaching the long climb
on the Spring Trail, taking 1st
place in
Junior Men 13-15.Right:
So much fun trail! Dallin takes the
outside line as he turns into a creek crossing
on Upper Rodeo. |
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Jason Cowley grabs his first
podium with
the 2nd place finish in Beginner Men. |
Also on the podium is Quinton Wall,
descending Upper Rodeo to 3rd place.
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Bogdan Balasa isn't far behind as
he
grabs
the 4th position in the category. |
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Brian Vanderwel descends Upper Rodeo
on the way to the 5th place spot. |
Adam Reynders gets his two
laps done
with the 6th position in Beginner Men.
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Cody Dabb heads down Upper Rodeo
as he rides to the 8th place finish. |
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Left: New to the team with the
Lambert
Park race, Kellye Potter grabs the 1st place
finish in Beginner Women. Right: Almost
done! Descending on his last
of five laps, Mitt indicates he's in the front
of his group and about to win. |
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Left: In the Junior 10-12 group, Bentley Vanderwel grabs
a spot on the podium with 2nd place. Right: Hattie
Ransom looks very pink over her UMB race team
jersey as she also takes podium with 3rd place in the category.
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| Post-race picnic. Ham and turkey sandwiches. |
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Plus plenty of delicious side dishes. |
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| Bentley and Hattie get on the podium in
Junior 10-12. |
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Jason and Quinton enjoy their winning
moment. |
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| Rick has the top spot in Men 60-plus, |
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while Meghan is on top of the podium in
Pro Women. |
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Lambert Park was a great race. The trails were in great
shape and the riding was fun. But it was a lot of work, without a minute
of let-up. There was no "sit-back-and-cruise." See you at the
Draper race on Memorial Day. More pictures:
Bruce
and Richard Ewell photos
Kay's
photos
GPX track of Lambert
2014 course
Lambert Trail Page on
UtahMountainBiking.com
Left: Couldn't resist adding this photo of incredible hulk Rick
with his blue ribbon and medallion. Very nice bling, BTW. Thanks, ICup!
Something to shoot for.
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