NORBA Mountain Bike Races

This weekend there was a big series of bikes races over at Deer Valley. The races included cross country, downhill, short track, and a few others. Around a thousand competitors were here ranging from ametuers to full-time pros. We didn't catch much of it. We went over Sunday afternoon, right as things were coming to a close.


The most exciting event is the downhill. These people huck themselves down a STEEP mountainside in something barely looking like control. They are flying. Unfortunately, we got there right at the end of this even and I was having a serious fight with my camera. I only ended up with this one photo, but you can at least get a sense of what they were doing.



The event we saw a lot of was the short track. There was a fairly small loop, maybe half a mile. They raced around it for 20 minutes, plus 3 laps. Odd. A lot of the people competing had also been in some brutal, long races the day before. You could tell they were racing hard, but drained.





Now that I had won the fight with my camera and could take pictures easily, the women's pro race had started. The nasty part was the dust. In some pictures it is more obvious than others, but we really don't have rain here in the summer and going around quickly in a circle with 30-40 competitors makes for a choking cloud to ride in. I guess it isn't bad enough that you are racing hard at 7200 feet.



The beginning of the race was between these two women. They chased each other for a few laps.



Then the Team Luna woman (blue) took off out front and several other women caught up with the woman in red.



This woman ended up kicking everyone's butts and two of her teammates got second and third. Team Luna was quite happy with the sweep.



Dust, dust everywhere....



The men's pros were next, but we had to head home.