Catch Them If You Can

The Velo Bella-Ellsworth Elite Downhill team has been getting up to all sorts of hijinx over the last few months. First, they built up their all new Ellsworth Dare downhill rigs. Then, they headed off to the races, including the World Cup races at Mont-Sainte-Anne and Bromont. Along the way, Kimber picked up her best ever elite finish in the Super D with a second place at Snowmass. Catch up on all the Downhill adventures in the Summer edition of the Velo Bella-Ellsworth Gravity Team Newsletter. Download it up!

Velo Bella-Ellsworth Gravity Team Newsletter (pdf).

Also, the Velo Bella-Ellsworth women have invaded Twitter. So follow them already!
Kimber G
Connie M
Allie B

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On Fire at Angel Fire

By Connie Misket
Sandy, Utah

Angel Fire is definitely one of my very favorite courses… of course, at the same time it’s also one of the most terrifying courses we ride too.

Practice Makes Perfect

I arrived at Angel Fire on Friday afternoon – too late for practice, but we immediately got the word that the pro course was the same as the DH course last year and that, miracle of miracles… the Super D course was indeed all downhill – AND gnarly technical. Woohoo!

We headed up bright and early Saturday morning for Super D practice and the course was indeed as described. I am in love with that course. There are a few really technical moves that presented a challenge just riding it and I knew they would be serious choke points during the race. My biggest fear was the start – you never know what they’re going to do. But you also can’t prepare for it, so I just kept practicing lines on the trail and looking for good passing areas and we had a great time.

The Super D practice was a great warmup for DH practice. Last year I felt like making it through the rock garden without crashing was something of a miracle. This year I was better prepared… I hoped. And it turned out I really was! On Saturday, I didn’t crash once on the DH course. I stopped a few times and hiked back up to hit things, but rode as clean as I could ever have hoped. I was feeling great… though I was still worried that my arms get so pumped up by the end of the course that I can barely hold on. But the first day’s practice was pretty much perfect.

Super D Day

Of course… that evening it started to rain. We woke up Sunday morning to beautiful sunshine and had DH practice bright and early. Kimber and I headed up to the course, stoked to see the sun because that mile long rock garden is terrifying when it’s wet. Of course…. I just underestimated how much it had rained the night before. I got about 200′ into the rock garden, tapped the brakes and started sliding. I thought I’d just slide out, but my front tire washed into a hole and then I flipped over the bars. Ouch. I could feel a huge hematoma growing on my left quad.

Ugh… I sat there for a minute and started again… same thing.

I tried to stay off the brakes, but it’s so slippery and steep, I’d hit something, drop the front tire and over the bars I went again, this time landing on my head. Kimber sat there with me for a few minutes and then I decided since I was feeling dizzy, I’d just walk down and get off the course so I could go ice my leg, which I had hit again, in a different spot.

Ugh. I spent the rest of the day sitting on the sofa with ice, waiting for the Super D race that evening.

We got to the Super D start and I was feeling stiff and nervous. I’ve had 5 knee surgeries and I don’t run. Like never. Of course, I could immediately see we were doing a running start. Bleh. With some silliness where you had to put an elbow on the tape and one knee on the ground and then get up and run to your bike which was at the start line. After a few minutes scowling about the start… I decided I had better start visualizing myself running uphill fast, picking up my bike, etc. Apparently that helped, because when they started us, I was surprised to find myself somewhere around mid-pack as I grabbed my bike and headed downhill. I was also surprised to find that I couldn’t reach either my front shifter OR my front brake, which had somehow gotten twisted backwards.

Uh-oh.

I had forgotten what it’s like to not have a front brake and skidded like a madwoman around the first few corners. I kept trying to bump it back into place, but that wasn’t possible as we were bouncing down a rock garden. I passed a few people on this initial descent, and then we got to the toughest move on the course. It’s a gnarly right hand turn over some boulders onto more rocky singletrack. The girl in front of me pulled wide and slowed almost to a stop and I cut in to go for it, but then realized I couldn’t slow down and crashed right over it. I jumped back up as fast as I could, trying tou get my brake lever back in a usable place and we took off again. I finally got that working again and then noticed that my handlebars were crooked by about 30 degrees… and there was nothing I could do about that without stopping so I decided to ignore it and keep going.

I passed a few more women and as I got to the swoopy steep switchbacks saw Michelle halfway down them. I rode them as fast as I could and popped out on the fire road right on her rear wheel and started pedalling like crazy to catch her. She can definitely out pedal me, but I pushed as hard as I could (thankfully I’ve been road biking a lot lately to get in better shape), pumped every jump and just tried my best to not get dropped so that I could try to get by her in the corners ahead. But she held the best rideable line through the next several corners and I couldn’t get by.

We dropped into the last swoopy section through the trees and as we aired back on to the road towards the finish, I was pulling along side of her in the air. I landed to the inside and tried to hold the inside of the corner, but accidentally buzzed her rear tire and almost crashed. I recovered, but had lost a good amount of ground in the process. I hit the next two flat corners as best I could and right at the final corner (a nasty off camber 120 degree turn to the uphill finish), Michelle slid wide, put a foot down and I passed her on the inside in a slight drift and sprinted as fast as I could to the finish – sure at any second I’d see her catching me.

But I made it and ended up finishing 2nd! Which is my best finish to date in a Pro/Open Super D at an MSC or National race. Woohoo!

Fast and Smooth Downhill

I was feeling relieved at this point and excited for Monday’s DH race. Monday morning, Kimber, Addie and I headed up to practice and started by just doing a warmup on the Super D course. I decided not to push it and call that my entire warmup and just went onto the DH course for qualifying (since we all qualify, and I was stiff, sore and my head was throbbing from landing on it the day before).

Qualifying was pretty uninspiring. I was worried about the main rock garden, but cleaned it easily… and then proceeded to crash in a spot I hadn’t had issues with before. Just a silly slow speed thing where you end up stuck upside down and it takes forever to get untangled. And then I crashed again, slamming my hip into a rock… I got back up and could hear Addie coming up behind me and just pulled over to let her go… and Jen was only about 50′ behind her. I let them both go and then followed them down the 2nd half of the course to the finish.

Pretty unimpressive, but I was glad to be in one piece. I sat down at the finish and started seeing flashing lights as my migraine got worse… at which point I stumbled back to the house we were renting and took some ibuprofen and iced my head and neck for a few hours. Luckily, the migraine went away and I started feeling normal again.

Of course, at that point it started raining again! We figured we’d head up and do a run on the Super D course to warm up but we got to the lift and it was closed due to lightning. There was talk of cancelling the race if it kept up, and they had started running shuttles to get people to the top. Luckily, right as we were about to get on a shuttle, we got word the lift had opened again. And even luckier – despite the hail and rain, it didn’t rain enough to get the rock garden wet. Phew!

I sat at the start visualizing the course and thinking about staying relaxed and looking ahead, and told myself that where for qualifying I was just going slow and safe, this was fast and smooth, fast and smooth….

I started off and things were feeling really good. As I got to the entrance of the rock garden, I told myself (out loud) that “this is my favorite part!!” Heh – I’m getting good at lying to myself! But it worked and I went into the rock garden with a huge smile on my face. It was beautiful – I just rode nice and clean…. all the way to the point where you think you’re done with it but have to go up and over a big rock… and there is a photographer sitting right there. I slammed my left pedal into the side of the rock and got stuck. Ugh! I stood up on the rock and lifted my bike up and over it to un-jam the pedal, and jumped down to get on my bike – with the photographer flashing in my face the whole time. Thanks…

But I got back going again and rode the rest of the course clean. I still need to get off the dang brakes on the high speed fire road stuff, but I’m always so terrified that I can’t hang on to the bike any more that I brake more, which makes my hands more tired, which makes me more scared, and I brake more…. Ugh.

But I rode clean through the bottom and pulled through the finish line to hear the announcer saying that I had just easily taken over the hot seat. Woohoo! There were plenty more women to come down the course, but I held on for 7th place. Big improvement from last year, as I shaved 40 some seconds off my time and moved from 15th place last year to 7th this year. Plus, I know what I have to work on and how to keep moving on up for next year…

Anyway – we had a fantastic time. It was great to be able to ride with Kimber all weekend and I’m really excited to feel like the training that I’ve been doing has been paying off!

Connie in Control: Sea Otter DH

By Connie Misket
Park City, Utah

Connie railin’ the berm

My #1 thing for the season is to really take control of the mental side of racing. I tend to get really nervous and not race as well as I ride when I’m in the zone/relaxed/etc, and let the jitters get the best of me. And in a sub-3:00 race – you don’t have time to recover from that! I’ve done some coaching with Gene Hamilton in the past couple of years and have been reading a few books on this topic and that seems to be helping. I’ve been working on visualization/imaging and creating mental triggers to get me into the best mindset before a race so I’m able to get into the zone on command. Sea Otter always makes me pretty nervous since it’s definitely the biggest and toughest field I race against all season, but I was able to focus well and did a fairly good job with this (not perfect yet, but a big improvement compared to what’s normal for me). I still think I have a lot of room for improvement in getting myself really amped up to sprint hard through pedally sections, but it’s a great feeling to be moving in the right direction with this.

For the skills training portion – I started out this season in February by heading down to Bootleg Canyon in Nevada with one of my teammates and 8 other women to do a women’s DH camp with Gene. This really helped me start things off right. A lot of it is review (which is always good and probably the best way to get back out on my bike for the season), but I definitely learned some new things as well, and Gene gave us a lot of drills and homework to work on to improve. I love working on cornering in particular and he added in a few components I hadn’t thought of before. And Gene’s drills on looking ahead worked wonders for making things easier in rock gardens…. Of course, since there aren’t any rocks at Sea Otter, I guess I didn’t need that part, but I put it to use in that rutted up descent and tried to apply as many of the cornering concepts as possible during the first day or so of practice.

We also discussed race prep in the camp and I decided to try and focus on the little details and technique issues during my early practice runs, but once it got close to race time I worked on just turning my brain off and letting my body do what it knows how to do. Your reaction times aren’t very good if you’re overthinking things, so I made it a point to do several practice runs as well that were top to bottom, with as little “thinking” as possible. Of course this wasn’t 100% during the race – I saw the four whoops right before the finish line and my brain got in the way and threw off my timing, but overall, things went well. I also need to continue working on jumping – I’m at the point now where I need to brake to hit my easier line over the log drop and I think I probably have plenty of speed to just hit the main line… so that’s on the goal list for next year.

I was pretty happy with my fitness level coming out of winter. In Salt Lake City we just don’t have many opportunities for winter riding. So this winter I took up speed skating, which was fun (and a killer leg workout) and I skied, and hit the gym. And then as soon as the weather started getting nice (but our trails are still under snow) I went and bought a road bike and started riding that. I was hoping to lose a few more pounds before the season started, but I think the scale also reflects that I gained more leg muscle this winter… which I’m not complaining about. I still need to work on sprinting harder during races (though that’s getting my mental triggers dialed as much as anything), but I did a LOT of top to bottom runs at Sea Otter (including runs where I pedaled hard all the way through) and was feeling good. I know it’s a short course, but I was happy with that.

My goal for the Sea Otter race was just to show significant improvement from last year by doing the above things – and while my overall result probably doesn’t look that impressive, (I finished 22nd of 26 with a 2:48) I’m pretty happy with it looking at the big picture. Last year I was 31st with a 3:03. That’s a big improvement on a short course and I feel like I improved in all three areas, so I’m pretty happy with that!

Bella At Play: Connie in Whistler and Moab

By Connie Misket
Park City, Utah

Well, I had planned to do one more race this summer, but a solid wreck at Sol Vista in the Super D put me on crutches for a bit and took me off the bike for a month. Luckily, I was healed up just in time for the 7 days of riding we had planned in Whistler! Woohoo! (My new Velo Bella DH jerseys showed up just in time for the trip too, so I was stylin!)

Anyway – we made our first pilgrimage to Whistler last year and just spent 4 days riding. It was just amazing riding in the bike park and we vowed to go back every year. This year we drove (18 hours or so) so we could bring multiple bikes, and we had 7 full days of riding scheduled. Sadly, we didn’t take much in the way of pictures (pathetic, I know…).

Now that we’re back – it’s Moab season! Yay! This past weekend was still a bit hot so we did some trails that started way up in the Mountains and then you ride down into town

I LOVE riding through aspens: (this one is of my friend Traci)

And me again, back down into what you’d recognize as Moab:

Anyway – that’s what I’ve been up to lately. As much as I LOVE racing, there’s also nothing like heading out with your friends to explore new trails and have fun riding your butts off!! I’ve also been learning to speed skate, which is my new addition to XC and alpine skiing as my winter cross training activities. And Kimber and I are going to make an attempt at some cyclocross too. Wish us luck!

Roots and Rocks

By Connie Misket
Salt Lake City, Utah

Allie pretty much told the tale of missing Super D practice on Thursday – oops. I’d like to say we should have gotten up earlier but good grief. I got 2.5 hours of sleep after getting in to Allie’s house and then getting up at 5am to build my bike…

Anyway – Shannon was a fun driving buddy and we cheered each other up on the longer than expected, somewhat circuitous drive to Mt. Snow. I figured I would just walk the course Thursday and then practice the next two days. I had planned to just race Super D – that’s the only bike I brought. I was looking at an extra $250 each way to bring the DH bike – which just wasn’t happening. So I figured I’ve been doing better in Super D, so I’d just go with that. And Kimber is injured and supposed to be “taking it easy” so she was just going to do the SD too on Allie’s Nomad. Went to register and looked at the practice schedule…. no Super D practice until the race on Sunday. WHAT??? We asked, we complained, we kept complaining until we got to the race director… no luck. Too bad, no practice for you. AND – you can’t buy a lift ticket and ride elsewhere – the mountain is closed except for formal race practice. Well that’s sweet…

So we registered for the DH. We figured at least that way we can ride something, and we’d check it out and if we couldn’t race it, so be it, but at least we’d be out riding, having fun, and getting a feel for the terrain and staying fresh on our bikes. Practice Friday went really well. I was cleaning the DH course no problem on my 6″ trail bike. Not very fast at the top – there are all these weird holes, but I felt good on the rest. The top just flew down the ski run and if you had any speed you’d get air – right into an off camber hole with rocks here and there.. I’m not sure what to compare it to, other than it looked innocent enough to ride slowly, but at speed looked terrifying. And then Friday night it rained… And then I started wrecking my guts out. The ski run stuff was slippery as hell on the wet grass, and then you got into the woods and got to ride all over the wet roots. Most of it was fine but there were 2 sections that had really off camber roots that just wanted to throw you off the side of the trail. And Saturday night it rained more…

Anyway – back to the Super D – that course was looking FUN!!! 3 climbs, which I wasn’t psyched about, but they looked okay except for the last climb which had a steep part at the very end. Bleh, but I’ve held my own on SD courses with 3 climbs before (in Angel Fire). And the rest was rocky, rooty fun and fire road descents with water bar jumps. Anyway – traditional SD – they don’t tell you what the deal is with the start until 10 min before the race. And this one sucked. Like 100 yards of running with your bike straight up the ski run. The other major event ones I’ve done were literally like 20 steps of running, then jump on your bike. This was LONG and steep, through tall weeds and loose rocks. I got smoked at the start. I don’t think I’ve run a step other than for Super D’s in like 5 years with all my knee surgeries. So starting from about last, I start picking people off through the woods. So far, so good. 2nd climb I got passed by 1 person but passed another. Then I got stuck behind 4 girls all trying to pass each other in the woods. No go, and I had to ride that whole section at a crawl, stuck behind the traffic jam – ugh. Passed someone else when it opened up, but got passed once again by 2 people on the 3rd nasty climb. I passed one more person in the woods, and another on the top speed/off camber descent down the ski run to the fire road, which was fun. I got to do that last pass in the air as we hit a water bar and blew by an XC girl just flying, and then nailed the flat gravel road corners as well as I’ve ever imagined I could… and pedaled like hell, but just missed catching Jen Tilley – who totally destroyed me on the climbs 😀 . (We totally need to do a Bella clinic where we can trade some climbing skills for some descending skills, huh? :D)

So anyway – I ended up 11th of 16. With the long running start it wasn’t a DH friendly course by any means, but I had a lot of fun on the course and had a blast racing it (well… not so much as I was running up the hill wanting to puke, but the rest of it was sweet!)

So then it was time to move on to the DH. The thunderstorms were lurking in the distance, but it held off for the race, which was great. I was really nervous about the top of the course, as on Saturday when it was wet I was wrecking left and right and ended up just walking a whole slippery off camber section up top that I just couldn’t stay upright on when it was wet. Luckily qualifying was at 11am and that’s when our practice had ended the day before so I had my fingers crossed that it dried out a bit. And it did – at least somewhat. I went slow, but made it down the top totally clean…. and then I slid out on the corner before you get into the woods. Got up and wrecked again. And got into the woods, which had been totally fun the previous two days, but I think I was trying to go too fast and just kept on wrecking. I think there were a total of 6 wrecks in my qualifying run. Good God. Luckily my bike suffered no damage (bent derailleur hanger that our mechanic fixed – OMG do I love having a team mechanic!!!) and I just wound up with a good bruise on my calf and a jammed index finger. No big deal. I qualified 13th (of 15).

Went back up for the race run and tried to tell myself to go slower and ride clean. Which totally worked…. for 3/4 of the course. And then I hit those dang off camber roots and flipped over my bike. That one hurt. Jammed my saddle into my inner thigh. Got up as fast as I could and kept going. Slid off a second time and I could hear the whistle of a rider coming behind me as I got on my bike so I pulled off to one side of the course to let her go. But just as I was expecting her to pass, she wrecked along side me, so I took off and rode as fast as I could to get out of the trees to give her space in the open in case she needed to pass again. The bottom of the course was clean – I was flying through the rocky section (wow do I love rocks compared to wet roots) and stayed loose and smooth through the mud bog (not a straight line in sight – all the ruts dead ended into roots and rocks criscrossing this field of mud). Actually – I was really pleased with that section – it’s so counter-intuitive to let off the brakes, totally relax and quit trying to steer and just let the bike find it’s own line through that kind of stuff. I know that’s what I need to do in my head and I didn’t let fear get the best of me and just did it – and what do you know, it worked every time. Anyway – I got through that and then pedalled my butt off to the finish line for a 14th place finish.

Well, it was a moral victory, if nothing else. It’s not like I expected to do well on a 6″ trail bike. I was only 3 seconds away from 13th place. And I had a blast riding and racing, and walked away with my bike and body intact (well minus some spectacular bruises on my legs). And then we got to watch Allie completely kill it on the DH course and it was so great to be there and celebrate her amazing finish.

Anyway – we all had a really great time – and not just with the riding – with the awesome host housing, swimming in the river, unbelievably good food… I’d love to do more riding on the East Coast. And I’m gradually getting the hang of this riding wet slimy stuff…

Lessons learned:

1. I just love to ride. Period. Right bike, wrong bike, wet roots, slimy off camber grass… I love it. And while I was nervous about how poor my results would be on the smaller bike – I made the decision to just go for it and have fun and it all worked out fine. But having the right bike would have been a LOT better! And speaking of having the right bike, I think I’ll be looking at getting more of a FS XC race bike for Super D’s for next year… That would probably help too when it comes to improving the climbing.

2. I really need to be even more careful about picking lines and not braking through those wet, off angle roots. I wish we had more of those to practice on around here, but wow do those suckers get you fast…

3. I need to work on longer running starts and sprinting up climbs. You get so stuck on mass start Super D courses when you can’t get out front first. So Kimber and I are going to try some cyclocross this winter to see if it helps with all of that.

Connie Finds Fun in the Super D

By Connie Misket

So to give you some background, I’ve been considering myself something of a Super D specialist lately. My strengths are in cornering and going fast through flowy technical trails, and probably as a result of injury and age, my common sense has kicked in a bit and I’m hesitant to push myself on bigger drops and really gnarly stuff. As a result, I’ve been working harder and harder at developing better riding skills (and mental racing skills) so I can ride better, but stay safer at the same time. (Heh – we were shuttling in my car the other day and one of my friends laughed that I’m the only person they know who would keep Brian Lopes “Mountain Biking Skills” and Dr. Loehr’s “Mental Toughness Training for Sports” in my car…)

I used to push myself to “just go for it” and jump off of things or try to ride lines I wasn’t confident on, thinking it was more about conquering fear… and well, maybe it’s just the wuss in me talking, but I’m feeling like it’s turned out to be more about skill after all (and occasionally learning to just say “no”), seeing as how I rarely pick up new skills when I’m sitting on the sofa recuperating.

So occasionally that means I back out of a DH race that’s on a course I just don’t feel comfortable on. Good or bad, this year I’ve stayed safe (well minus several dozen scrapes and bruises), gotten faster, and been steadily improving with my race results. Luckily, I’ve never seen a Super D course that scared me (well… there are some climbs that scare me, but that’s a whole different story!) – hence, I’ve been starting to think that’s my strongest event.

The NCS Course (the Pro/Expert DH course that they use for National races) has always been a challenge for me. In some ways, I like it. I’ve cleaned Barney Rubble (the rock garden). And I even cleaned the nasty new section above Barney Rubble when we went out to practice before the race… of course I couldn’t get Barney Rubble after it and put the two together. Ugh. I love Psycho Spin… even when it’s scary and blown out – it’s technical steep corners are exhilarating and fun. And at least there’s a go-around for the Waterfall and Bedrock drop, which I have no intention of doing – they’re just too risky and high consequence for my tastes. And I’ve landed the finish line drop in the past… but the last time was super sketchy. It’s one of those things where I’ve managed to ride it in bits and pieces with varying success rates on each obstacle. But thinking about trying to actually race it about makes me sick. Watching friends get hurt on this course every year – ranging from season ending to career ending injuries doesn’t help either. And so I decided to put all my focus on the Super D this year instead.

The Deer Valley Super D courses are always fun. Fast, flowy singletrack, moderately technical rocky sections, fun roots and berms… no matter what course they choose, I’ve loved all of them. This year was no exception. The top was the same as last year, but where it turned onto Deer Crest, this year it cut back across the mountain with a steep and nasty but thankfully short climb, and then merged onto a bit of the sport/beginner DH course, and then over to Tour de Homes for some fun bermed turns. Then it cut back to a fast fire road descent jumping back onto some singletrack at speed and then a flat (slightly uphill) sprint across the ski run towards the finish – which consisted of two tricky, off camber turns to the finish line.

I was feeling pretty confident on the course, but the competition was stiff. And then they added in a crazy cyclocross style start. You had to run 100 feet or so up a hill with your bike, and then jump on the bike after crossing a second line. Um… that doesn’t sound too hard, but I’d never actually jumped on my bike while running before. And my bad knees (5 surgeries) don’t even like running in the first place, let alone running and trying to jump on a moving bike… I tried a few practice attempts in the start area, but my start was still nothing short of comical. I think I might as well have just stopped and gotten on my bike instead of tripping and stutter stepping as I was getting on my bike and then missing the pedals before finally getting going. Oh well… I pedaled as hard as I could down the fire road and across the first flat. I came into the first two loose corners a little hot and slid around one and lost too much speed, but stayed on the bike.

Down through the rocks and across the fun flowy part under Barney Rubble, and I remembered to raise my seatpost (that Joplin sure comes in handy) and started to shift into an easier gear well before the climb. The part right before it was too rough to do anything but hang on… I tried to stay off the brakes and keep as much momentum as possible up the climb, but the loose gravel and steep grade had me at a slow chug before I knew it. And my bike, so nice on the rough descent gets a lot of bob when I get into that type of pedaling. UGH. But I crested the top of the climb, and pedaled it out heading down the fire road again. Dropped my seatpost and changed into a big gear and charged into the Devo singletrack. Yay.

I bobbled a bit on a rock but pumped through the rolling terrain and kept on going. Once I was in the turns I somehow got off track on a very loose gravel section and was just going too fast to adjust and ran right off the trail into the bushes. Noooo…. The bushes slowed me to a stop. I was only about 2 feet off trail, but lost all my momentum. Got back on and hit the bottom berms as fast as I could. Just barely managed to stay upright on the last flat fire road corner and bombed down to the flat pedal at the end and pushed it as hard as I could to the finish.

I had started 2^nd and had no idea how my time would hold up. I ended up in 3^rd place, behind Joanna Petterson and Amy Laird (who finished 1^st and 4^th in the DH, respectively, and are such incredible riders it’s an honor to be on the podium with them at all) and was really happy with that result. I also headed to my local bike shop and picked up an air shock for my trail bike to try and help out with the bobbing issues when I’m climbing. And apparently I really need to work on the cyclocross style starts too. You never know what they’re going to throw in there for Super D starting line antics!

Photos by Christopher See. Used with permission, all rights reserved. Clicky for more Photos from the Deer Valley National. Mille Grazie!