Photos by Shelly Magier unless otherwise credited.  

Finally, a CX race weekend in LA! Griffith Park is our home turf and no better place to hold the NABRA and SCNCA district championships. The course was brutal including an uphill hole shot into an even steeper uphill climb. We attacked and then we got up the next day and attacked again coming home with 3 wins, 1 championship jersey, Silver and Bronze state champion medals and some cold hard cash.  

"Target on my Back, More pressure to Defend, or Just more Fuel for my Fire? Whatever it may have been, wearing the Leader’s Jersey for the first time at Anza Cross gave me a sense of pride and accomplishment for all the hard work I’ve put in this past year at improving my cx skills and trying to become an overall stronger cyclist. I got to staging knowing I had to get the Hole Shot and not lose it, knowing I would have to push through the pain, and conquer the dreadful hill each lap if I wanted to have a chance at winning the race. Somehow, the stars were aligned and I had what I felt like my best race yet. Even Greg told me I rode that race better than he’d seen me ride before. I got the hole shot, got in my zone, rode hard and fast…  And got the W! " -Diana Sol

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The rest of the team raced really strong as well with Susie coming in 2nd in both the B and SS races, Arin 5th and Kerstin 7th in the C race, and Lynn 4th in the SS race.  

Photos by Jason Shanney 

What better way to kick off cross season than in the city of glitter, glamour, sin, and excess. In true Vegas fashion the course was over the top with its steep flyovers, an uphill sand pit that felt more like quick sand, and an unforgiving four race laps that made me want to puke after the first lap, and I’m referring to my warm-up lap. I looked out onto the race course and felt excited but that quickly dwindled after my warm-up lap when thoughts of not getting to the top of the way-so-steep flyovers got into my head. I imagined myself getting about a foot from the top and not making it, having to unclip and then slipping down a plywood mountain covered in splinters. A wild imagination at its best!

On the third lap while going into a barrier completely exhausted, I didn’t unclip my left foot in time and completely wiped out on the grass. I got up and felt like my entire left side was paralyzed. Ugh! However, I got back on my bike and finished the race; I finished it completely spent, bruised, sandy, dirty, sweaty, and happy. ​

​What I still picture vividly is when I was standing there about three rows deep at the start line and staring out into the massiveness that is CrossVegas. A course greater and harder than any other course I’d ever ridden, a course that humbled me before I even finished my first lap. I felt like Bodhi in the classic movie Point Break(classic in my book), gazing out onto the monstrous waves that were far greater than anything he’d ever experienced and he knew he had to get out there because you never know when you’ll ever have another opportunity again to experience something so immense.