1st Place XC & Short Track
Pro Men
ROLAND GREEN
TREK/VW

XC RACE REPORT
By Chrissy Redden
SUBARU/GARY FISHER
June 24, 2001

The 8km course starts at 4700ft and heads along rolling ridge-top terrain for
the first mile, eventually reaching the highest part of the course at 4,740ft.
We then start the main descent which is highlighted with classic West
Virginia singletrack punctuated by winding turns and short uphill sections.
The bottom of the course is at 4,160ft were we start our ascent on a fire road
to 4,540 ft and then head downhill before turning onto a winding singletrack
through dense red spruce forest. At about 4,300 ft, we turn onto a rolling
mix of rail grade, singletrack, and fire road, which brings us back to the
start/finish. The women were scheduled for 3 laps and the men, 4 laps.

Day 1, Cross-country
Well, welcome to east coast weather... The entire east coast has been having
severe thunderstorm warnings all week. As of Thursday afternoon, the course
had been clear of huge downpours, but that changed quickly. Thursday late
afternoon brought a quick storm, followed by another during the night. We
woke up Friday to a muddy and challenging course. Us at the SUBARU/Gary Fisher camp were smiling! Hmmm, challenging singletrack...
The women's race started quickly at 11:00 with Mary Grigson (SUBARU/Gary
Fisher), the local favorite, Sue Haywood (Trek/VW) and myself, Chrissy
Redden (SUBARU/Gary Fisher) setting a demanding pace. I politely passed Sue
just before we entered the first bit of singletrack and Mary and I put down
some hurt on the rest of the field. By the time we exited the singletrack at the bottom of the course we already had about a 30sec gap over Sue and Ruthie
Matthes (Trek/VW).

Mary and I worked together for the rest of the lap, but then that's where the team work ended. I'd love to say I blocked for her, but Mary just had the best legs and smooth technique of the day. Mary attacked the next lap, while Ruthie and myself held steady. The order stayed the same for the next and final lap. Mary extended her lead to take a commanding
lead. I held onto 2nd place with Ruthie just behind me. The big news of the
day was fellow Canadian Trish Sinclair (Ford/Devinci) coming up and passing
Sue to take 4th. Sue Haywood rounded out the podium with 5th.

CAITLYN TUEL (Shirk's) 1st Place SPORT Senior Women 18-24

KAREN MINOR 2nd Place SPORT Veteran Women

• UNLUCKY SOCKS by Pro John MacInnis - Sobe/Headshok didn't make it to the start line for the first time in 8 yrs of racing.......

• "SOME DAYS IT'S SUNNY, YOU WISH IT WAS RAINING" by Pro Julian Hine - Gears Racing from Canada
  
  
• All Women
  Grassroots
  TEAM PEGGY UPDATE
  
  
• Gary Fisher Mid-Atlantic mountain bike/running team at 24hrs of Snowshoe

The men started their 4 lap race just after 2pm. The start was delayed 15min because of a tremendous rain storm that blew into the area at about 1:15pm. But the show definitely went on! The lead group of Roland Green (Trek/VW), Pavel Cherkasov, Ryder Hesjedal (both of SUBARU/Gary Fisher) and Paul Rowney (Yeti) entered and exited the first lap single track together. By the end of lap one, Roland had gained a bit of a lead, Pavel chased close behind and
Paul and Ryder chased just behind him. As the race progressed, Roland maintained his lead, Pavel fell back (he had been having trouble all week with a stomach bug), Paul chased Roland and Ryder tried to bridge up to Paul. Meanwhile, there was a string of fellow Canucks bearing down on the final
podium places. The final order was Roland, 1st, Paul, 2nd, Ryder, 3rd, Chad Miles (Roach), 4th and Geoff Kabush (Kona), 5th.