Pierre's Hole Mountain Bike Classic

I’ve never been to America before and when the opportunity arose to race my bike in the US, I couldn’t let it slip by.

My main goal while racing in America is The Breck Epic which is a 6 day ultra endurance mountain bike stage race. The event will take place from the 12^th – 17^th of August in the surrounds of Breckenridge, Colorado. The historic mining town will play host to the event for the 5^th time.

One of the team’s sponsors, Dewet Marais of Squirt chain lube, spends quite a lot of time in America to promote his product there. For the months of June and July he rented a house in the beautiful little ski town of Vail, Colorado and has been so kind as to accommodate me while I am here (17 July – 27 August). Squirt Chain lube is also a proud sponsor of The Breck Epic and other events such as the National Ultra Endurance Series in the US.

With Breckenridge located at an altitude of 2926m above sea level, it is quite important to get used to the high altitude before taking part in the event. Vail provides the perfect preparation location as the town sits at 2484m. The town is surrounded by mountains and pine forests making it the perfect training ground as well as being quite enchanting.

This past weekend I took part in the Pierre’s Hole 50 mile mountain bike event held in Alta, Wyoming.

Grand Targhee Ski Resort played host to the event and is situated at 2258m above sea level to the west of the famous Teton mountain range. The route consisted out of 2 x 25 mile loops and a total of 3090m of climbing.

We started on top of the mountain at The Grand Targhee ski resort. After a winding 8km fresh cut out single track section we descended for around 10km on a very rocky trail to the foot of the mountain. Once at the bottom we had to climb all the way back to the top again.

The endless downhill single track sounds great but with the surface being very rocky and bumpy, it was though on the body and bike, making it a relief to reach the bottom.

Racing at altitude is new to me so I had no expectations going into the race. I completed the 85km race in just over 5 hours and a very satisfied 2^nd place in the ladies category.