Race Report: Jackson Hole Downhill Series, Race Two, Jackson, WY

I woke up Sunday morning without any motivation to be vertical. I had driven eight hours from Montana the day before, after a week of testing my bravery and my bike at She Shreds Legacy , a women’s freeride event. Staying horizontal felt like all my tired mind and body wanted.

Especially because the reason my alarm was calmly chiming next to me was that it was race day at the Jackson Hole Bike Park and I was supposed to get back in the saddle, to ride a mountain bike trail called Dirty Hairy with a fairly notorious reputation. "The rock garden from hell,” is how one friend referred to it, for example - though since I hadn’t ridden it more than once, back in 2021 when it was first built, I couldn’t really say if she was exaggerating or not.

Through sheer strength of will, I managed to peel myself off the mattress and made coffee as a place to start. My phone buzzed as I took my first sip and I glanced down. “I took a hard fall yesterday.” It was Jess, my friend, and co-rider on the Hoback Sports Bike Team, responding to my question about if I could expect to see her (for moral support) at the mountain. “I’m not coming. I had a bad crash yesterday.”

Jess is one of those riders who quietly snipes every QOM in her region without fanfare or ego; she just loves mountain biking and is REALLY GOOD at it. The (ever-polarizing) Strava app does a great job of documenting her capacity to go freakishly fast, especially in tech. Race Two in the Jackson Hole Downhills Series was about as perfect a race as could be for her: steep, loose, chonky, and visually intimidating. I had been expecting her to not just be there, but to podium, and likely in first place.

Jess elaborated that she was okay, just a bit battered and managing some whiplash, after clipping a pedal at speed while racing the infamous Carriboo Jack Enduro. “That was my worst crash ever, I think. Full on yard sale. Didn’t know that could happen on a bike. My shit was everywhere.”

For context, the Carriboo Jack is a blind-format race on trails deep in the Big Hole and Palisades ranges outside of Victor, Idaho, where downhills are often so overgrown you can’t see your path, and uphills are more often than not achilles-destroying push-a-bike endeavors.

Jess somehow still managed to finish her race - all twenty nine miles and seven thousand feet of vert of it - and ended our conversation by telling me to keep my eyes out for “a bad ass girl from Salt Lake City who beat me yesterday and is gonna come race with you, so you won’t be alone on the podium.”

With the only friend I’d thought for sure would be there that day out of the running, I wondered just how many emotional support snacks it would take to get me to the start line tape, even with this superstar from Utah supposedly tagging in. Dropping out wasn’t really a question: the race organizer, Pat, had been trying hard to get more women to sign up, and in my recap of the series’ first race back in July, I’d adamantly stated that more women should show up to races. It felt disingenuous to not follow through on my own advice.

So I sent a few Hail Mary messages. “I’m working,” said one buddy. “My ankle was hurting a lot riding yesterday,” said another. “Hahahaha passsssssss,” said a third, Lily, who’d also raced the Carriboo the day before. “But say hi to Lia! She was at Carriboo, too, and I think is racing JHMR today!” This was the second time this gal had been mentioned, so as I packed my truck up, I figured that at the least, I’d get to watch a really good rider have a really good race while I… survived.

Just before I pulled out of my drive, my phone buzzed one last time. It was Pat, the race organizer. I’d let him know my efforts to recruit more gals had been unsuccessful, and that my pre-race jitters were largely due to having no clue what the trail that took up so much scary space in our regional MTB mythology actually looked like.

“They worked on it well, so it’s running smoother than normal,” he replied, I think hoping to help. Our esteemed trails crew had done what they could ahead of race day to rebuild catch-berms and clean up what they could of a trail that is, on its best day, a pile of dust and bottom-bracket-smashing boulders. “That’s kinda a low standard, but I’ll take it,” I typed back to Pat, laughing as I pointed my truck towards Teton Pass.

As fate would have it, I arrived at the registration tent at the base of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) at nearly the same moment at Lia, the gal from Salt Lake City everyone had told me to go find. “Lia!” I exclaimed, maybe a little too eagerly for someone who didn’t know me and certainly didn’t know I knew her name. “I’m Ariel. Jess and Lily from Carriboo told me to say hi.”

Turns out, all my reasons for not considering myself a racer that I expressed in my first race report still stand: I’d rather be sessioning jumps or nerding out about wildflowers when I ride, than scaring myself by toeing that line between being in versus out of control. But after Lia got over her shock at my aggressive friendliness, the two of us decided to go for our pre-ride laps together, and once again found myself feeling glad I had come; as with the only other two races I’ve ever done, I was already coming out ahead when it came to community.

That feeling continued as Lia ran into folks she knew from Salt Lake City, a crew that calls themselves the MFT Riders , who invited us in to share the shade of their pop-up tent in the grass next to the race meeting area. MFT, I soon learned, stands for “Mexican Freeride Team,” though these days their members come from all over. They have “a relaxed, casual vibe built on great homies, good times, and shredding hard“ as their ethos, and, when asked what their goals as a team are, the most common answer was “We’re just here for fun.” The conversation under the tent switched fluidly between English and Spanish, as both jokes and cold beers were cracked between laps and after race runs.

And it culminated when, after the podium ceremonies (Lia and I were the entire women’s field,) she and my new friends from the MFT wouldn’t take no for an answer when I tried to sneak out of their group photo. “I’m not part of the team!” I insisted. “But you raced with us!” was the no-nonsense-tolerated response.

It didn’t matter that my time had been abysmal (I washed out in the last loose corner, after clean practice runs, but even that can't account for the full minute between Lia’s pace and mine), and it didn’t matter that these guys were way more put together when it came to gear, preparation and experience than me. What mattered was that I had shown up, and so had they, and we’d all had a good day on bikes. Pretty simple, and pretty special.

The final race in the three-part Jackson Hole Downhill series is September 7th. Registration is still open - and the course will be technically much less daunting than Dirty Hairy - so folks should absolutely sign up, especially y’all gal pals.

Results: JH Downhill Championships - Race Two, August 18, 2024

Men’s 12-15

1st: Myles Nardi

2nd: Lucien Weisman

3rd: Sawyer Smith

4th: Gus Ludlow

5th: Nick Brindisi

Men’s 16-18:

1st: Tyson Dotson

2nd: Maddox Robison

3rd: Max Sellay

Men’s Vet 40+

1st: Ward Blanch

Men’s Open Amateur:

1st: Duncan Nielander

2nd: Arman Bagdasarov

3rd: Wyatt Hughes

4th: Mallki Lehite

5th: Matt Newton

Women's Pro:

1st: Lia Westermann

2nd: Ariel Kazunas

Men’s Pro:

1st: Malachi Artice

2nd: Triston Merrill

3rd: Chris Canfield

4th: Arden Jacoby

5th: Brooks Curran