Recap: Jackson Hole Downhill Series, Race One

Last weekend, I raced my first-ever downhill race at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) bike park. I didn’t mean to “get into racing” this summer, but after a fabulous introduction to the genre during the Sturdy Dirty Enduro, I’ve been feeling more inclined to try new things.

Also, the skid in me saw “cash prizes” and secretly stored away the hope that I might go home with a little something-something to fund my bougie-on-a-budget lifestyle.

I’ve lived in the Tetons for a decade now, and have always had a mixed relationship with JHMR. Their lifts provide access to the sports I love - mountain biking and skiing - and so, to some degree, they gatekeep, my joy. But because that access comes at a literal and figurative cost, it feels a little… bleh some days. Passes are expensive, corporate vibes strong (yeah, I know, I know, they’re not Vail, but they’re also no mom-n-pop spot either) and, like most monied entities in the US, they have ties to people and causes I’m not, shall we say, all that thrilled about, as the dirty little hippie commie that I am.

But the thing about being a big fish in a little pond? Behind the aggressive-red branding and top-down policies of JHMR The Company are the people of JHMR The Local Hill. And those were the people who were out building, patrolling, marking and racing the course on last weekend; they’re the friends, ex coworkers, failed-Hinge-dates-turned-riding-buddies, old regulars that have now become the threads holding the fabric of my life in Wydaho together. And because of that, the race on Saturday felt homegrown, a word I use as an absolute and grateful compliment.

To elaborate: My race experience actually started Friday, the day before the actual event. I was cruising solo, sneaking in a few practice laps heading out to meet a friend for another ride at a different trailhead (yeah, I’m that nerd). But then I sliced and diced my front tire in a rock garden about as far from an access road as you could get and made the super fun discovery that my applicator for my CO2 had somehow lost the pointy part that punctures the cartridge.

Thankfully, it was the near the end of the bike park’s hours, so as I danced around trying (unsuccessfully) to ward off an actual cloud of mosquitoes that found me the literal second I stopped moving, a train of folks began to ride past me - first, a bike park employee heading out to finish marking sections of the next day’s course, then, a patroller fulfilling their sweep duties.

The employee lent me his applicator - and then also a cartridge when I wasted my first one not realizing there was a second hole in my tire I hadn’t plugged along with first. Once it seemed like I had enough air in my tire to not to dent my wheel, the patroller gave me a head start and said they’d call a truck up if it didn't last the whole way down. Somehow, by kinda practicing the manual I don't actually have, I successfully limped down to base.

I called my friend I was supposed to be riding with next: “How would you feel about drinking wine at the river instead?” There was no hesitation in her voice. “See you in twenty."

The next morning, I got up early to put a new tire on before the race, which didn’t start till around noon. But because I am me, (see: “Chaotic Aries Energy”), I dropped my valve core in the gravel of my driveway, and spent all the time I’d planned to use for a relaxed arrival back to JHMR looking for a little gray bike part in an endless stretch of little gray rocks. I eventually found it on the tailgate, hiding under the tailgate pad strap.

As I cruised over Teton Pass, in as much of a hurry as one can be in when on a two-lane, major commuter and freight route over a mountain range in the peak of tourist season, I noticed clouds building behind me. By the time I pulled into a parking spot at JHMR, it felt worth checking the radar. And there it was: a dime-sized red storm cell, the only thing visible on the entire map, flawlessly aimed at the resort.

I geared up anyways, pulling on my rarely-used pads that make my knees look like Madonna’s bra and triple-knotting my shoes that love to untie, and then gave my bike one last once-over as a deep, cranky groan of thunder slowly rolled over me. I looked up at the mountain: dark green slopes had suddenly turned white with a downburst of heavy rain. I had about one minute to wonder whether I had time to get to a roof anywhere before it unleashed over me. So I dove into my truck bed camper shell, instead, and spent the next thirty minutes watching horizontally-blowing precip fill the lot into a lake.

By the time it stopped pouring, and I cautiously made my way to the base, we were well past the point when the race was supposed to have started. My co-participants also began emerging. We greeted each other with knowing grins: Th is’ll either calm the dust down and we’ll have heroic dirt, or we’re about to ride the absolute worst slip-n-slide of a trail.

The race organizer, Patrick, gave our motley crew the news: there would still be an hour of practice, and all racers would have their category starts pushed back accordingly. As folks cheered for Patrick and his team’s willingness to roll with the punches, I realized it felt more like I had just showed up at the local watering hole than a competitive sporting event. Not only was no one upset, everyone was having an even better time than had things gone according to plan, and I spotted a few already-cracked cold Coors’ that seemed to prove the point.

My first practice lap was a soggy affair; my riding partners and I came out covered head to toe in mud. The second was a bit better, though the section of course that slalomed through a field of grass (you can put a bike park in a ski resort but you can’t always take the ski resort out of the bike park?) was still slick, as evidenced by the number of bamboo course-marking poles that had been hit and tipped over. We skipped the third lap in favor of a snack and bike wash break.

By the time I made it back up to the mid-mountain start line, on a run called Solitoga, the sun had been out long enough to dry most sections of the course and the Amateur Men’s category was full-steam ahead. My friends and I chatted with and cheered for the other racers and amongst ourselves, and I almost forgot I was going to have to, you know, ride a bike down a mountain soon.

We were cracking up at how much it felt like PSIA had designed the grass section (but seriously) when, suddenly, it was time for Pro Women, and my number was being called up first.

I high-fived my “competition,” two friends with whom I already knew I would be sharing the podium, since we were the only three in our category: Tai, an absolute phenom on the bike who tackles steep, loose chunder with the confidence of a moto racer (which she also is), and Sarah, who I’ve known basically since moving to Jackson in 2014 and who keeps the whole damn JHMR tram operating. (That might be hyperbole but I don’t care: the girl is a boss and the world should know).

As I waited for my count-down, I already knew I would a) probably lose to fast-as-fuck Tai and b) be outclassed by Sarah during the award ceremony because, well, I never know what to do with my hands, and she never seems out of her element. I was not wrong. Tai beat me by six seconds and Sarah showed up on the podium with class, sass and a beverage to toast. Meanwhile, while my tiny Trump paws just… dangled. Awkwardly.

And while it’s kinda nice to have a guaranteed spot in the top three, I’m gonna shoot my chances of winning in the future in the foot by throwing it out there that more women should show up to races . At the very least, it's a fun way to meet and then get to ride with new friends. At most, it's a lovely way to embody the phrase “bikes are for everyone” and take up space in a sport that historically hasn’t created much of it for us on when left to its own devices.

Y’all know it’s “just bikes” just as much as I do. But I gotta say: of all the things I could “just” be doing, biking really does fill me up like nothing else. So as I waited for results to be finalized with my feet stretched deliciously in a grass lawn, hours after we were supposed to be outta there... and then as I accepted my prize, laughing because the kid handing me the goggles was the same kid who’d handed me that much-needed CO2 applicator the day before... and, finally, as I stripped my dirt-splattered, moist (you’re welcome) pants and pads off in the parking lot where I’d hours before watched the apocalypse hit, all I could think about was “how lucky am I that this is my life now and these are my people?”

Maybe it doesn’t hit quite the same unless you’re also a Geriatric Millennial who didn’t get to grow up mountain biking, but for me, race day was a really good reminder about why I do the silly things like bikes that I do. And will keep doing. So I'll be heading back for round two of the series in August, and will be desperately accepting advice on what to do with my hands in the meantime.