ALBUQUERQUE TO THE CHILE CHALLENGE AND THE PAJARITO PUNISHMENT - Team Harmony Travelogs (6/3 - 6/14)
 After the long haul back from the U.S. Open, and having to endure the highly humid-heat in Jersey along with the A/C in the van cutting out halfway through the drive back, we were greeted to a near-record heat in Albuquerque. Being raised in the heat of Tucson, we feel that we are quite capable of handling the heat. This does not mean, however, that we enjoy it or intend to spend any of our time in the heat unless absolutely necessary. We were also supposed to be helping the Mountain States Cup crew set up for the annual Chile Challenge race in Angel Fire, New Mexico. So we hightailed it out of the valley and towards cooler temps in the pines.
The Mountain States Crew was so efficient, they finished setting up Thursday and didn't need our help at all. Since they didn't need our help we rode the crap out of that mountain. We didn't have to do anything but relax and get our bikes set up for the high speeds and chundery rocks always associated with this race. We rode the Supreme DH a couple of times and the World Cup course a few times. Apparently, Angel Fire has finally invested in a full time trail maintenance crew and it shows. The Supreme DH is still tricky and fun but some of the larger gap jumps were smoothed out and made friendlier towards the general public. The World Cup course was given a good grooming and felt like it was running faster than ever. After our practice runs we rode the lift up and walked the World Cup course scoping out all the cool lines.
Dry and dusty trail conditions were pretty consistent throughout the weekend, but the lines were getting blown out a bit due to the number of racers. There was also a very somber tone throughout the pits and on the hill after a freak Friday practice accident where fellow rider Craig Lange sustained injuries leading to his passing on Saturday morning. Our thoughts and prayer are with his family. A moment of silence please...
On a brighter note, this year Jackie was on fire! Jackie has never won the Chile Challenge race at Angel Fire but no one could touch her this year. She surpassed the field by quite a bit and after the race she said, "I am so thrilled to have been as focused as I was from start to finish." Jackie finished with a 20 second lead on the second place rider Jen Wolf. Dante was having a pretty good weekend with a bunch of clean runs in practice and a 20th place qualifier on flawed run. Then a rear flat in the finals put him dead last, but he at least got to watch the rest of the riders come down through the trees before the finish line.
We spent Monday with Gene Hamilton, and his videographers Jamie and Marshall, who were putting together a series of videos for Gene Hamilton’s Better Ride Clinics. We were pretty spent after the long weekend of racing but it was good to work on our skills and have Gene instructing us and helping to get our moves honed.
We had a choice to go back to Albuquerque and deal with the heat, or head up to Gunnison, Colorado for our excellent friend Kain Leonard’s birthday and a chance to ride dirt bikes on the Continental Divide, way up in the Rockies. Again, we chose to head toward the cooler weather. We drove through nearly non-existent towns with lots of run down homes and buildings on our way to Gunnison as well as some really pretty mountains and valleys. It's always so good to see Kain and Stephanie Leonard. They are two of the sweetest people we know. We spent the afternoon riding with Carter at Hartman Rocks and then had dinner with Kain, Stephanie and 2 other couples that were in town for Kain's birthday. Kain managed to find a dirt bike for Jackie to ride since hers is still broken from way earlier in the year. It was a YZ450F, a beast of a bike, but she knew she could handle it. On our previous stop through Gunny, carter had taken it upon himself to urinate on Kain's old Camelbak. This, in turn revealed a much too old sandwich among other rotten trail food. So for his birthday we kicked him down a brand new Camelbak, which had him grinning from ear to ear.
 The following weekend was just as much fun at the Pajarito punishment race near Los Alamos, New Mexico. We ran a few good practice laps and then took Carter out for an XC ride to the top of the Mountain. The ride took us on what we assume to be the XC racecourse. Big props to whoever raced the XC because it was tough! Straight up the mountain on one side and straight down the other. The course was entirely above 9000 feet so the air was a bit on the thin side. The DH course was steeper than any other race we've been to in a long time with barely any pedaling and some really tough rock sections. There was one sizeable step-down jump that took some commitment to hit and it landed into a pretty tight left, off-camber turn. The crowds were great and kept all the riders pumped through the tough sections. Jackie had the women's field dominated again and her reward was a payout comparable to that of the Chile Challenge, with perhaps less than a quarter of the rider turnout. We may never understand the pro payout system, but at least there is a pro payout system. 
After the race we ventured into Sante Fe in search of some legit New Mexican food. Our first choice and one of the best restaurants in town was closed so we asked around and were steered to an ancient little place called Marias, where we had some of the best New Mexican food either of us had tasted in a long time. The drive out of Santa Fe led us towards Hatch, NM where some of the worlds best green chiles grow. We crashed out that night and got up too early to buy any green chile, but we did get my grandma a nice wind chime with some chiles painted on it for her 80th birthday coming up.
All in all, this has to be one of the best trips through New Mexico that either of us had ever been on. Jackie finally won a race at Angel Fire, we got to hang out with all of the great local NM riders, and we managed to sneak in a quick moto trip to Colorado.
Next stop: A very brief and busy mini-tour of Arizona... |
