I should have known how my race would end when I missed the turn off Highway 210 for Curt Gowdy State Park. Or maybe I should have known when the friendly folks working the number pick-up table couldn't find my race number, despite the fact I was "on the list." Or maybe I should have known how the race would end back on April 23 when my pre-ride was cancelled because the trails were covered with snow. These are just a few of the signs as to how my race would end right up to the seconds after the race director yelled "go". However, this post is intended to be more of a race review than the excuses for my 8th place finish in the Advanced Women category. On some level, they do go hand-in-hand.
I left the house very early on May 13 for the drive from Arvada, Colorado to Curt Gowdy State Park in southeastern Wyoming. My race started at 11:01 AM, and I planned to arrive before 10. I was grateful to have left enough of a cushion in my drive time to accommodate the missed turn off highway 210 which added about 30 extra minutes to my drive. The signage within the park directing race traffic was obvious and easy to follow. Because the number of race registrants is limited to just 325, there was ample parking as competitors arrived and departed throughout the day.
This race is self described as a "bare bones" race and as such, there were only a handful of tents setup at the Aspen Grove Trailhead, making it easy to figure out which one was the registration tent. Despite a thorough search, the registration volunteer was unable to locate my number and waiver. The race director quickly got involved and reassigned me to another number. This left me with about an hour to kill before start time. I busied myself with applying sunscreen, suiting up, checking tire pressure, taking in some calories, and a half-hearted warm up on and off the race course. The Advanced Women's race consisted of two loops, one ~5 mile loop, and another ~8 mile loop. The two loops overlapped in part. My goal was to finish the race in under two hours even though I'd never ridden the trails before.
Because the April snow had foiled my plans at a pre-ride, I was very concerned about how I would find my way through the race course. The Gowdy Grinder was quite possibly the best marked mountain bike race I have done. There were signs at every fork in the trail as well as ribbons tied to tree branches. Despite all this great signage, I made a wrong turn during the long loop of my race. (I'd give specifics on exactly where this happened, but I neglected to turn on my Garmin at the start of the race.) I back tracked and found the turn. I'm still scratching my head as to how I missed it given the great signage.
At some point into the second loop I began to recognize the terrain from the previous loop and I knew I didn't have too much further to go. The terrain at Curt Gowdy was an interesting mix of flowy single track and funky rock formations that were incorporated into the trails. It was more technical than I had anticipated, but very fun riding nonetheless. I uncerimoniously crossed the finish line in eighth place of 10 racers and went directly to my car to change.
At the food tent, the race crew actually made sandwiches for participants. Being that I am responsible for the cooking at our house, I was beyond thrilled to have someone build a sandwich for me. It was quite possibly the best turkey sandwich I've ever had! They also had the best macarons west of Paris. These alone would draw me back for the race next year! Thanks Pedalhouse and Laramie Racing for a fantastic experience!
This entry was posted in Race Review and tagged bikes, biking, cycling, Gowdy Grinder, Laramie Racing, mothers, mountain biking, Pedal House, race review, racing, sports, Women, Wyoming. Bookmark the permalink.
Thanks Linda! Let's go ride it sometime before the next race!


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Squid - Sludge (Warp Records)
BelacquaShuah replied to thumbass's topic in New & Upcoming Releases
hmm i'm digging the LP. definitely has some teeth. reminds me of Talking Heads and of all things These Arms Are Snakes, the latter for the sinister yet poppy dance vibes and sometimes aggro vocals. the album cover is great too, reminds me of the creepy fake grass in beetlejuice. not afraid to be funny either. maybe also a little Pere Ubu. i can see comparisons to Black Country, New Road, but i didn't really care much for their debut.
warprecords
BelacquaShuah replied to canzoniere vaticano's topic in New & Upcoming Releases
i wouldn't really call new opn mainstream, though, honestly. none of his albums post-Replica has reached the Billboard Top 200, probably because to most people the music is still too "weird." his newer stuff definitely channels the uncanny in a way that's unsettling even when it's pretty. it's hard to put a finger on. to me a lot of it plays like a "pleasant" scene in a Harmony Korine movie; it becomes loaded with a bunch of different, contradictory signifiers that all kind of settle in a subtle malaise, and you're not sure where to place your judgment. in the album artwork for Magic, the last little piece included is a melting green rectangle that reads, "ocTpaHeHHe," which translates to defamiliarization, estrangement. i think it's fair to say that his new music does evoke and address the mainstream but without ever really assimilating.
OPN
What Video Games Are You Currently Playing
BelacquaShuah replied to Joyrex's topic in General Banter
Resident Evil 8 is a great time so far, one of my favorites in the franchise. it's more action than 7, but it's not all-out action like like RE4-RE5-RE6. it leans more into camp than 7 but still remains scary, especially on hardcore mode where ammunition gets used faster. lot of enemy and gameplay variety. i'm enjoying taking my time.
fuck EA
fuck Activision
Spirit of the Beehive - Entertainment, Death
BelacquaShuah replied to BelacquaShuah's topic in New & Upcoming Releases
there's a bunch of little melodic nugs everywhere, and in general a lot of the complexities and nuances don't immediately jump out at you, such as the subtly shifting tonal center of GIVE UP YOUR LIFE. also i found this recent interview on youtube with Tim Heidecker. pretty funny.
this leaked today, and i couldn't resist. very happy about this album. it sounds just as much sound collage as it does "live" performance. the music shifts and contorts in and out of catchy jagged shapes, extrapolates on patterns to go to a lot of unexpected places. intricately detailed, immersive album. listened three times now 😵
Godspeed You! Black Emperor — G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END! — April 2, 2021
BelacquaShuah replied to jules's topic in New & Upcoming Releases
i love that pathetic high-pitched whining violin sound, i'm not sure how to describe it, it sounds almost irradiated. it's in a lot of Yanqui U.X.O. and i'm hearing it a lot on this album too (on second song i believe). that texture gets across a deeply melancholic, slightly paranoid feeling very effectively. never gets old. i didn't latch onto the last couple GYBE albums but i'm really digging this so far. the harmonies are heavenly.
Same. i love this game but i've been stuck also low key scary game. and damn it gets literally dark. recently started a new game of Prey. Arkane games are among my favorites for sure. Dishonored 2 😍
The Mars Volta - La Realidad de los Suenos (18LP Boxset)
BelacquaShuah replied to Richie Sombrero's topic in New & Upcoming Releases
i used to be on the umbi and the comatorium back in the day. Frances is my favorite followed by De-loused and Tremulant EP. recently listened to Frances after a long time and damn it does hit hard. love Omar's style which could get pretty wild, like the end of L'Via.
BelacquaShuah posted a topic in New & Upcoming Releases
Three singles released so far have me super excited for this album. Post-punk, experimental vibes. The videos are top-notch, too. Thought I'd share to anybody who might be interested. 🙂
BelacquaShuah replied to Herr Jan's topic in General Banter
RIP SOPHIE i was ready for a long and fruitful career. thanks for what you did give us. let us know if it's cold in the water 😪
just absolutely stunned by this album, i feel like a little kid with a new toy. i'm really curious about the dichotomy in the track sequencing. i wonder if there's another scheme here, not unlike Neu! . . . i've noticed certain sounds on one side of the album also on the other side. like that hammer dulcimer sound halfway thru Whether Channel, that appears in Tales From the Trash Stratum, i think, in that gorgeous chord resolving the first section. 😵 apparently the vocals, the "bass," and the "guitar" in the song I Don't Love Me Anymore are all in different keys? saw someone complaining about that lol
Autechre - PLUS 20.11.20
BelacquaShuah replied to Blir's topic in Autechre
SIGN was great before, but with PLUS it is even better i think. ecol4 kinda reminded me of the brooding pace of a lot of songs on Gas' Narkopop
i was very surprised by the second half. the placement of overly airbrushed track No Nightmares at the end of the first half of the album feels ironic and makes sense now, given the harsher textures and more erratic structures that follow. there are some genuinely funny moments, like the end of Imago, with the looped bitcrushed sample archly enveloping tender waves of midi chamber music. you can practically hear Lopatin laughing in the background. he's quite the droll the second half, especially in relation to the first, sounds like the seedy underbelly of a subtly unbalanced consciousness pretending "normality." coming off a big Lynch binge, i'm keen on this narrative conceit. 🙂
Actress - Karma & Desire
BelacquaShuah replied to auxien's topic in New & Upcoming Releases
excellent new album. reminds me of RIP, which used to be my favorite of his.
album No7
digging the new tracks. there's a strong emotional core that's complex and dynamic, with the music erring sometimes on the side of counterpoint and rich harmony and other times on the side of drones and loops. there's a baroque sensibility to it all that i love, it's so elaborately and lovingly crafted, yet at the same time it sounds honed and sleek. cheese has always been part of OPN's image, that post-ironic emotional manipulation is his trade, he distorts narratives and makes new ones from the distortion. for me it works really damn well. there's no other artist that can transport me to the weird, funny, breathtaking, sad places that he does. there's a strange humor and warmth in his alternate universes, a candidness beneath the "digital gloss," because his music doesn't think twice before stepping outside what is conventionally "tasteful" according to the zeitgeist. it sounds beautiful and that's enough. it's not a revolutionary idea at all, the mishmash of anachronistic genres/ideas/narratives, but he executes it masterfully. so stoked for the second half of the album. /gushing
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