Kicking off a much-anticipated race season, the Pagosa Springs DUST2 mountain bike team raced in Leadville, Colo., (10,119 feet) last weekend.
The team races there annually at the end of August. The course consists of a 6.2-mile loop with 620 feet of elevation gain, taking place on the land of the Colorado Mountain College.
Racers pedal through tight singletrack and long doubletrack trails to traverse the course. With much better weather conditions than last year, all of the DUST2 riders were able to complete their races without being stopped by lightning.
Eleven racers rode at the Cloud City Challenge last weekend.
Weston Philips (junior) started off the morning at 8:30 a.m., in the JV boys’ category, clocking a time of 1 hour, three minutes for two laps to place 14th out of 83 participants. He added 442 points to the team total.
Rylie Carr (senior) was the next to start at 9:55 a.m. in the varsity girls’ division. Carr is the first DUST2 female rider to be selected to race varsity, and she timed out after two of the three laps, with a finish of 18th, and logged 455 points for the team.
The next to race were the sophomore boys at 11:35 a.m., racing two laps, with six DUST2 riders.
Jackson Chaney came in first of our team in 17th position with a time of 1:07. Eric Smith came in next in 20th position with a time of 1:09. Justin Sewell came in in 27th position with a time of 1:11. Aaron Sowle was next to come through, in 30th, with a time of 1:12. Van Halterman was 32nd to come through with a time of 1:13. Heath Leentjes came in 47th out of 58 riders with a time of 1:22.
The JV girls’ race was next to start at 12:45 with two DUST2 riders racing two laps. Adelyn Hittle (sophomore) was the first to come in with a time of 1:10, placing fourth and contributing 512 points to the team. Kaylee Hensle (junior) came in shortly after in 11th position with a time of 1:29, and contributed 460 points to the team.
The last race of the day was the freshmen girls. They started at 2 p.m. with four riders being released every 30 seconds. This time trial start was used in order to help them get used to racing before doing a mass start. Gianna Shaeffer was DUST2’s lone rider in this division. Starting in the first line, Shaeffer started well and came in with a time of 1:25 for two laps to place ninth.
She earned 434 more points for the team to bring the team total to 4050 points on the day, putting the team in sixth place in the division.
The rain held off until 4:45 p.m. at the awards to end an amazing day of racing for everyone.
The team is excited to attend the second race of the season in Eagle, Colo., at the Haymaker Classic on Sept. 7.
