Mid-October is the traditional time for USA Cycling's final championship of the year: collegiate mountain bike nats. The reason for this late date is the fact that university students don't start the fall semester until right around Labor Day, and the first conference races in all parts of the US take place in early September at best. To race in the national championship contest, students have to qualify regionally, and if they are new, incoming students fresh out of high school, opportunities to get a ticket to go to nats are very limited.
Colorado National Monument National Park, outside of Grand Junction
2025 had been the first of a two-year cycle of holding the National Championships in Grand Junction, CO. Some of my readers may remember the pictures of mud-covered bikes and racers after Grand Junction had been hit by a 100-year rain event. Race courses had to be modified, and much cycling equipment was destroyed thanks to the clayey consistency of the soil at the venue at Powderhorn Resort, about 45 minutes outside of Grand Junction proper.
The original DHI start, which had to be abandoned later when rain forced course changes
Surely such conditions were an abnormality that would—could!—not be repeated. The weather had been perfect in the weeks leading up to the event, and everybody's hopes were high. And indeed, the predictions for the first few days of the competition looked perfect—but toward the weekend, the forecast became more ominous with weather moving into the area.
When Sandy and I arrived last Monday at GJT airport, we were greeted by perfect sunshine and temperatures in the 80s; Powderhorn Resort was somewhat cooler because of its higher elevation (base of around 7,000 ft, or approximately 2,100 m, versus Grand Junction's 4,600 ft/1,400 m) but still plenty pleasant. We picked up our rental van, checked into the DoubleTree to drop our luggage, and then drove up to the mountain for a first look-see.
On the way to Powderhorn resort
Some background is in order: A few months ago, Sandy had embarked on tackling USAC's online commissaire course and passed it with flying colors (even the SafeSport section 😂!!!), and I had been able to secure a spot for her on our crew as an Apprentice to learn in a week what years of studying a rulebook wouldn't teach you. Since USAC had installed me as the Chief Referee (in new USAC parlance, PCP or President of the Commissaires Panel) it had been a fairly easy sell. The only downside was that there's no money for an Apprentice, so Sandy had bought her own airplane ticket. While most of the other officials received $140 per day and overtime after 9 hours, she had the honor of working for free for the entire week. In lockstep with me, she put in 55½ hrs from Tuesday (our first official day on the mountain) to final sign-off on Saturday evening. Well, next time she will be on the payroll.
We arrived two days before the five other commissaires. It gave me a chance to show Sandy the general location and layout of Powderhorn on Monday, and on Tuesday we met with various members of the organizing team, the medical staff, and the director of the ski patrol, among others. For Sandy it was a good way to learn what a CR does in the run-up to such an event. We were able to take a lift ride up to the top, where the downhill would start (elevation about 8,500 feet or a 2,600 meters), showing her what the athletes from flatland colleges were going to face: mild oxygen deprivation.
For races such as this I work up a day-to-day, hourly schedule for each crew member, taking into consideration each individual referee's strengths and personal traits. Two members of our crew were new to me, Dave (from a small town in Illinois) and Nick (hailing from Santa Fe, NM). Over the course of the week and our daily commutes in the van we all bonded. Cath, Cyndi, and Julie were all known entities, and Tobin, the Race/Technical Director of the event, and I go back at least 25 years. No need to mention all the others, from some USAC brass to the timing crew and the announcers—I have worked with practically all of them over the years.
The crew, from left: Dave, moi, Cyndi, Sandy, Nick, and Cath (Julie was taken up with secretarial tasks)
When people hear "mountain bike," they usually think of cross-country or downhill, depending on what they may have encountered in the past. But at nats, we actually offer five different disciplines: the XCO (or Olympic Cross Country), the XCC (or short-track, a type of crit in the dirt that is crazily fast paced and quite likely the biggest crowd magnet), the DHI (a time trial-style individual downhill race on bikes that feature suspension designs with about 8 inches, or around 200 mm, of travel), the DS (or dual slalom that can be compared to the very similar ski event where two racers simultaneously go head-to head on nearly identical courses), and finally the Team Relay, reminiscent of the track-and-field relays that see several racers form a team exchange a baton. So, it's a lot of action, and each discipline has its own rules and intricacies.
The ever-so-popular bike wash
USAC's Collegiate Manager Vanessa in a brief moment of levity
Race/Technical Director Tobin caught smiling
Finish Judge (but also DS and DHI Starter) Cath hamming it up
Most racers specialize on either the endurance events (XCO, XCC, TR) or the gravity events (DHI, DS), but some of them race everything, all in the name of collecting "omnium" (overall) points for their team. The camaraderie is simply amazing: The boys cheer on the girls, the girls scream for the boys, and school rivalries are intense yet friendly. USAC divides schools into "varsity" and "club," generally (but not solely) depending on whether the college or university gives out cycling scholarships or whether the cycling team receives only a token $500 or so, just like the chess, fencing, or lacrosse clubs. For years I had been the faculty adviser of the Texas Tech cycling team (considered a sports "club"), and I know how hard it is for these non school-supported teams to follow their passion. Texas was represented by only two varsity teams: Midwestern State University (MSU) from Wichita Falls and Hardin-Simmons from Abilene both have actual scholarship programs. UT Texas and A&M back mainly road cycling, and I didn't notice any of their riders although Cyndi thought she spotted an Aggie.
Dual slalom and XCO start videos
The powerhouses of collegiate cycling are tiny schools (often fewer than 1,000 enrollees) that most likely you have never heard of before: Flatland colleges such as Brevard, Lees McRae, Lindsey Wilson, Marian, and Union are not exactly household names. Go into the mountain states and there are Colorado School of Mines, UC Boulder, and Fort Lewis, and the West Coast has perennial contenders in Cal Poly and Oregon State. (All these schools have strong mountain bike programs, while others put more emphasis on road or even track cycling.)
Our days on the mountain were long, and they became even longer when the tough decision was made to cancel Sunday's events completely and move them to Friday and Saturday, all in an attempt to avoid the worst impact by the weather that kept creeping closer every day. We'd leave the hotel at the crack of dawn, around 6 a.m., and we didn't make it back until dusk. The usual socializing and having crew dinners didn't happen—Sandy and I got some foodstuffs from Walmart and used my daily Hilton Gold member F&B credit for a daily bottle of wine and tried to rest our tired bodies. It was funny to see how Sandy almost immediately succumbed to "race time," characterized by not really knowing what day it was or how long we had been out in Colorado. I'm not making this up: Multi-day events create a very strange rhythm, and there is an inexplicable time-warp. We all felt it, not being able to easily remember from one day to the next what we had done 24 hours (or was it 48?) earlier.
Working a race like this not only requires a lot of mental stamina but also dealing with physical exhaustion. Be it hiking up and down alongside the XCO feedzone or the DS course, or simply standing in one spot for several hours on uneven ground, recording numbers—it all is hard and cumulative. On Saturday, we were all fairly wiped; Nick, the youngest of the crew at 47, was by far the most dynamic, but the remainder of us, all AARP material, felt the strain. Adding to the stress is the need to make split-second decisions such as determining in the XCC which riders to pull from the course after they have fallen far enough back to possibly impede the leaders on their next lap, or temporarily stop the DS race because sudden rain just caused crashes in each of the past five 30-second runs. As Chief, I am responsible for not only my own actions and decisions but also those of my crew, and sometimes there is improvement possible.
Well, I am happy to say that by the end of the race we were firing on all cylinders, and I couldn't be prouder of my gang.
We finished the final medal event on Saturday afternoon with four truly epic short-track races in horrendous conditions. Imagine 85 varsity men taking off, fighting for the hole-shot to enter the singletrack, turning laps of less than 3 minutes. Do the quick math in your head to imagine how long it takes to have a single line of 85 riders pass by, at full speed! Needless to say, more than half the field did not get to finish the 20-minute race as they were pulled when no longer in contention. These races are not about finishing—they are about winning and the honor of wearing the Stars & Stripes jersey for the next year.
These four races were insanely intense, and the crowd went, well, apeshit! Mud was flying, racers were sliding out and crashing, and somehow the winner and the podium riders made it all look easy. Everybody who raced on that Saturday will never forget it, regardless of individual performance.
With our schedule change and Sunday cancelled, Sandy and I had the entire day for ourselves. Some of the crew had been able to reschedule their departures and so we owned the van. The weather continued to be April-like, with hard rain one minute and brilliant sunshine the next. We decided on an excursion to Colorado National Monument, a national park just a few minutes southwest of the DoubleTree. (Nick had hiked there early Sunday morning before leaving by car for Santa Fe, and while we were still at breakfast he had stopped by our table and gushed about how beautiful the monument is.)
Let's put it this way: Sandy was totally floored by the canyons and walls and vistas. She had never seen anything comparable in her life. We drove the road that crosses the entire park, Rimrock Drive, stopping at pull-off after pull-off. The tempestuous weather only added to the drama of the scenery, and when it started to rain and the sun vanished, we just took a 15-minute nap and continued when visibility and sunshine were restored. What a wonderful day, and I am so glad that we decided on this excursion, which was a true bonus for the volunteer from Lubbock.
On the way back to the DoubleTree we stopped in the small town of Fruita, known by mountain bikers as one of the top locations to ride in the US. The streets are clean, there's artwork everywhere, pizza carton recycling bins and what are known as Little Free Libraries can be found on the street corners. Sandy repeated her oft-used refrain of "why don't we live here?" Using Zillow to check on how much houses cost and talking to a local about the general affordability index quickly made clear that this is no Lubbock. We are so spoiled by low prices here that it comes as a shock to see what a home comparable to ours' would cost, or what the property taxes and grocery and fuel prices are. Reality check completed—we ain't moving.
Before I close this post, I'd like to mention two major highlights of the week that came in the form of seeing a couple of old friends. The first encounter was the totally unexpected appearance of the legend of all Legends, the venerable Dean Crandall, who is pretty much considered the father (or grandfather) of mountain bike racing. Back in the 1980s, Dean literally wrote (together with one of my other mentors, Freddie Seemann from Canada) the first serious mountain bike rulebook. I remember racing the Desert Challenge in Lajitas just outside of Big Bend NP in the late '80s and Dean being the official; later I worked races under him as CR; and maybe my greatest honor was to be his Chief at one of the Crankworx extravaganzas in Colorado years later.
The Legend himself, Dean with mentee Cyndi and youngster Nick
Earlier in the year I had been informed that my long-time friend Leslie would have to bow out of this year's championships in Powderhorn because of personal issues. Leslie had been the Race Secretary for multiple national events that I had headed over the past decade or more, and I was elated to hear that she would be able to come by for a short visit. Leslie and her husband live in the Frisco/Breckenridge area, working for different ski resorts, and they were going to drop off their travel trailer for the winter season in Palisade, just down the mountain from Powderhorn. It was good reconnecting with her, and there were lots of hugs from all the crew members who know Leslie and her infectious smile as well as her amazing secretarial skills. Together we rode the lift up to the DHI start, and Sandy got a chance to meet her as I had talked about Leslie often during the past few months.
Time to close this entry. I apologize for the rather rambling sequence of photos, mixing race and landscape. However, with my upcoming brief trip to Paris in almost exactly 72 hours, that's the best I could do.
When Sandy and I arrived last Monday at GJT airport, we were greeted by perfect sunshine and temperatures in the 80s; Powderhorn Resort was somewhat cooler because of its higher elevation (base of around 7,000 ft, or approximately 2,100 m, versus Grand Junction's 4,600 ft/1,400 m) but still plenty pleasant. We picked up our rental van, checked into the DoubleTree to drop our luggage, and then drove up to the mountain for a first look-see.
Some background is in order: A few months ago, Sandy had embarked on tackling USAC's online commissaire course and passed it with flying colors (even the SafeSport section 😂!!!), and I had been able to secure a spot for her on our crew as an Apprentice to learn in a week what years of studying a rulebook wouldn't teach you. Since USAC had installed me as the Chief Referee (in new USAC parlance, PCP or President of the Commissaires Panel) it had been a fairly easy sell. The only downside was that there's no money for an Apprentice, so Sandy had bought her own airplane ticket. While most of the other officials received $140 per day and overtime after 9 hours, she had the honor of working for free for the entire week. In lockstep with me, she put in 55½ hrs from Tuesday (our first official day on the mountain) to final sign-off on Saturday evening. Well, next time she will be on the payroll.
We arrived two days before the five other commissaires. It gave me a chance to show Sandy the general location and layout of Powderhorn on Monday, and on Tuesday we met with various members of the organizing team, the medical staff, and the director of the ski patrol, among others. For Sandy it was a good way to learn what a CR does in the run-up to such an event. We were able to take a lift ride up to the top, where the downhill would start (elevation about 8,500 feet or a 2,600 meters), showing her what the athletes from flatland colleges were going to face: mild oxygen deprivation.
Working a race like this not only requires a lot of mental stamina but also dealing with physical exhaustion. Be it hiking up and down alongside the XCO feedzone or the DS course, or simply standing in one spot for several hours on uneven ground, recording numbers—it all is hard and cumulative. On Saturday, we were all fairly wiped; Nick, the youngest of the crew at 47, was by far the most dynamic, but the remainder of us, all AARP material, felt the strain. Adding to the stress is the need to make split-second decisions such as determining in the XCC which riders to pull from the course after they have fallen far enough back to possibly impede the leaders on their next lap, or temporarily stop the DS race because sudden rain just caused crashes in each of the past five 30-second runs. As Chief, I am responsible for not only my own actions and decisions but also those of my crew, and sometimes there is improvement possible.
With our schedule change and Sunday cancelled, Sandy and I had the entire day for ourselves. Some of the crew had been able to reschedule their departures and so we owned the van. The weather continued to be April-like, with hard rain one minute and brilliant sunshine the next. We decided on an excursion to Colorado National Monument, a national park just a few minutes southwest of the DoubleTree. (Nick had hiked there early Sunday morning before leaving by car for Santa Fe, and while we were still at breakfast he had stopped by our table and gushed about how beautiful the monument is.)
Let's put it this way: Sandy was totally floored by the canyons and walls and vistas. She had never seen anything comparable in her life. We drove the road that crosses the entire park, Rimrock Drive, stopping at pull-off after pull-off. The tempestuous weather only added to the drama of the scenery, and when it started to rain and the sun vanished, we just took a 15-minute nap and continued when visibility and sunshine were restored. What a wonderful day, and I am so glad that we decided on this excursion, which was a true bonus for the volunteer from Lubbock.
On the way back to the DoubleTree we stopped in the small town of Fruita, known by mountain bikers as one of the top locations to ride in the US. The streets are clean, there's artwork everywhere, pizza carton recycling bins and what are known as Little Free Libraries can be found on the street corners. Sandy repeated her oft-used refrain of "why don't we live here?" Using Zillow to check on how much houses cost and talking to a local about the general affordability index quickly made clear that this is no Lubbock. We are so spoiled by low prices here that it comes as a shock to see what a home comparable to ours' would cost, or what the property taxes and grocery and fuel prices are. Reality check completed—we ain't moving.
Before I close this post, I'd like to mention two major highlights of the week that came in the form of seeing a couple of old friends. The first encounter was the totally unexpected appearance of the legend of all Legends, the venerable Dean Crandall, who is pretty much considered the father (or grandfather) of mountain bike racing. Back in the 1980s, Dean literally wrote (together with one of my other mentors, Freddie Seemann from Canada) the first serious mountain bike rulebook. I remember racing the Desert Challenge in Lajitas just outside of Big Bend NP in the late '80s and Dean being the official; later I worked races under him as CR; and maybe my greatest honor was to be his Chief at one of the Crankworx extravaganzas in Colorado years later. 
