Race report by Johanne Albrigtsen – Beti Bike Bash

I arrived at Bear Creek Reservoir at 8:00 with my mom and brother. I picked up my race plate, t-shirt and swag bag then got dressed to warm up. I found the hill that the TJ team warmed up on together for the Battle the Bear race and did my warm up. Then I stopped by my car, took off my extra layers and headed to the start line. There were 5 other girls in my category which is the most girls I’ve raced against this season. It was mainly Durango Devo girls and then Bella from the BJC Devo team. We started after all of the beginner women so I was expecting that I would be doing a lot of passing. My initial start wasn’t too good but I ended up first just before the start of the single track. I had to do three laps of the 4 mile loop (the first half of the Battle the Bear course). I felt pretty strong the first lap and was first until just before the second lap. I stayed close with the Durango girl in front of me for most of the 2nd lap but then I didn’t pass enough of the older women on one of the climbs and got stuck behind a slower woman on the downhill with no opportunity to pass so the girl in first gained some time on me. The third lap was good but after the race I felt like I should have pushed myself more and I maybe could have caught the Durango girl who beat me. I ran into Ksenia after my race and watched her start out looking really strong. It was cool to see how many girls and women came out to race and all the people who volunteered and came to support the racers. It was an awesome race atmosphere and lots of fun to watch Erin and Katie from the TJ’s pro team and the surprising amount of 8 – 12 year old girls having a blast racing.