2011 Mountain Bike Race Season Plan

After some careful thinking, planning, and scheduling I think I have found a good season race plan for 2011. It allows me to work my way into a more ultra-endurance specific season while getting out there for some of the best races out there. After looking into all the races available, the hardest part was choosing which ones interested me the most. Thoughts of, do I race to travel more? Do I focus on local races? Do I try to stay away from the mainstream races and head towards the lower-key, all-around fun races that are well managed and work for our trail systems? YES.

Also when I began choosing, I had to be aware how close they were in scheduling so as not to completely burn myself out trying to ride say, three 100 milers in 3 weeks. All in all, I think this season will be the best yet! Interesting races, a good variety of locales, and amazing singletrack on all the courses. This past season I completed 26 races at a total mileage of about 500 miles. Next season will greatly reduce the number of races, however, the mileage more than doubles. Should make things interesting...

Well, here we go: (races in BOLD are definite)

April       23rd - Prairie Fire - Pueblo, CO   Warriors Cycling

May        1st - Rabbit Valley XC (36 miles) - Rabbit Valley, CO   Mountain States Cup
               7th - Battle of the Bear (50 miles) - Denver, CO    Warriors Cycling
             29th - Gunnison Growler (64 miles) - Gunnison, CO    Gunnison Trails

June        4th - Teva Mountain Games (22 miles) - Vail, CO   Vail Valley Partnership
              25th - Fat Tire 40 (40 miles) - Crested Butte, CO   CB Fat Tire Festival

July         4th - Firecracker 50 (50 miles) - Breckenridge, CO   Maverick Sports
              16th - Breck 68, 100 (68 or 100 miles TBD) - Breckenridge, CO   Warriors Cycling

August   14th - Hardscrabble Humper (40 miles) - Eagle, CO   Elgee
               20th - 24 Hours in the Sage (100+ miles, duo) - Gunnison, CO

Sept        3rd - Park City Point to Point (78 miles) - Park City, UT
              17th - USA Cycling Marathon National Championships (50 miles) - Bend, OR

Oct        1st - USA Cycling 24 Hour National Championships (100+ miles) - Colorado Springs, CO

Of course there will be a mix of smaller town series races mixed in on Wednesday nights for fun and hopefully we will see a return of the Dusty Boot Short Track races on Friday nights!