Course Open Thursday

Marshall will be open this Thursday, May 30th for anybody wishing to check out the xc course!

We'll be up there at 6 if you have any questions about the Kettlehouse Beer League.

See ya'll out there! 

Kettlehouse Beer League June 5th!

The Beer League races will kick off with a Short Track race on June 5th.  Cat 3 start at 6 and Cat 1/2 start at 6:30.








Course Overview:
The Cat 1/2 will race for 45 minutes. They will ride up the first climb to the top of "Cripple Creek Climb" and descend down the "B" descent and through "Local Glory".

Cat 3 and first time racers will race for 30 minutes and will ride partway up the first climb and descend down the "B" descent and through "Local Glory"

This is a PERFECT race for first time racers! The course will be smooth and fun. Let us know if you're interested in racing but are a little nervous.  We'd love to help you out!

Preregistration is open! Click here to prereg.

For more Beer League info, click here or click "Kettlehouse Beer League" up top.

MT Alpha Jrs - Tuesday Night Ride

Ellie (13) Clara (16) Allison (15) MAMA Jen (38) Skye (13) Baylee (16)

THESE GIRLS RIP!

We all agreed that mountain biking on Tuesday night was better than texting, facebook and netflix. What could be better than getting dirty in the mountains with rad girls?

Mama Jen with Sister's Skye & Baylee. These girls wanted MT ALPHA kits when the ride was over. Watch out, these two are competitors. Baylee is a champion swimmer for Hellgate High school and Baylee is an amazing Soccer player. Both girls rip on ski's too! 

We road up Spring gulch, back down Curry, then up to Sawmill gulch to ride down Ewok twice!

 

Sweet Allison did not get the memo to look tough - However, she kills it on the bike and knows how to ride hard. She is the kind of kid that you don't have to teach inner strength too, she is tough when she needs to be.

*All these girls are AMAZING skiers too. I have found that girls that know how to negotiate tree skiing in the winter have the same "body awareness" on a bike.

• They drop their shoulders naturally on corners
• They keep their eye on where they want to go
• They are aggressive when moving over obstacles
• They feel comfortable moving fast through the trees
• HIGH FIVE!

Only a little carnage - Baylee road her dad's mountain bike with clipless pedals (her first time in clipless). She has a stellar wreck with dirt all over her back, bloody leg and arm.

She was excited to bring home her dad's Specialized MTN Bike with her blood on it. (Seriously - look below)
What a great attitude Bay! She was ready to ride again and got back on the horse (bike).

MT ALPHA Jr Team Members

Ellie and Clara

 

Ellie and Clara always bring their Passion of riding to any trail.

Clara is a scary fast downhiller and Ellie knows how to push her limits. Both girls have great skills in hill climbing, negotiating technical rocky sections and bombing descents.

I LOVE RIDING with them. It is a joy for me to watch them kill it on the trail. Plus, they are super fun to hang out with too.

GRRRRRRRR!

These Girls Mean Business!

Watch out boyz - we like dirt too!

Going to Sun Road | Mothers Day Ride

Mt Alpha girls - Mama Jen and daughter Ellie - Rock on - Staring 17mile ride

For Mothers day I did not want flowers, candy or jewelery. However, I do like a heartfelt note or card, but what I really wanted was an adventure with my kids on bikes!

So, I pulled the "mothers day card" - that means everyone has to do what I want.

 

What did I want?

 

To ride with my family up the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park!

 

This year, the earliest access of the Going-to-the-Sun Road in a car for its entire length is June 21, 2013 - it is open to bikers to ride up it until they each the snow removal. 

 

Plowing the Going-to-the-Sun Road is a monumental challenge each year at Glacier National Park. Unpredictable spring snow storms, avalanches and other weather related madness can stop its progress.

Ellie did so good! - She put in a good 3 hours riding up hill before we turned around.

 

                                                                                   Mt Alpha girls

 



Mt Alphas Race Beacon and Legs in Washington

Mt ALPHA represent!
Kristine took 1st for Womens Cat 1, Jen took 1st for Women's Cat 2 and Claire took 2nd for Women's Cat 1 race!

So excited about my first mountain bike race of the season.  MT ALPHA team members Kristine, Claire, Riley and Mama Jen traveled to Spokane Washington to compete in the Beacon and Legs mountain bike race at Beacon Hill hosted by the Fat Tire Revolution Series in Washington.

The Course: The course came out to just under 7 mile laps with lots of fast, smooth, swoopy singletrack. There was 1000′ of elevation gain per lap, but not really any long killer climbs, it was a great blend of fast flow with a little tech here and there.

Love it! I raced 2 laps for Cat 2 women, and won my division.

Claire & Kristine competed in Cat 1 Women (3laps) and took 1st and 2nd (DAMN!)

*Note of importance - Kristine beat several pro/elite women riders with a 3rd place OVERALL!
Dang girl, that training is paying off!

Also - we had Reily taking over support! She was ready with water, hammer products and cheers! Thanks Reily!!!!!

Below; Cat One race - MT ALPHA LADIES rock the podium! 

That race was brutal!

 

 

 

 

2013 MT ALPHA SKILLS CLINIC IS FULL!

We are so excited to announce that the registration for the 2013 MT Alpha Skills Clinic is closed! We will be emailing participants with more information in the coming days. Stay tuned for future MT Alpha events!

P.S. We still have a few spots left for Junior girls. Help us get out the message!

Skills Clinic Cap 50 Riders

We want to update everyone that there will be a cap of 50 riders for the MT Alpha Skills Clinic on June 8. This is to comply with the Forrest Service's regulation of small group sizes, as well as to keep a small instructor to rider ratio. 

Ten people are already signed up so be sure to sign up soon! 


Also, check out Sunday's article in the Missoulian about Women's Ride Day, from Big Sky Bikes and Specialized Ambassador Jen Bardsley, with some MT Alpha involvement!

Photo credit - Athanasios Mouratidis of the Missoulian

Clocking in from Cali

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

A few states separated from the center of the universe, I lie on my living room rug eating Nutella from the jar while The Black Keys rumble away in the background. Probably should add a Corona to the mix for a little Mexi celebration. It is my last day of freedom before starting my third semester of PA school. Tomorrow I've gotta get my head back in the game. 

Today though, I think I'll continue to bask vacation glory. I just returned from 7 days of backpacking with my papa in Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. 

I successfully dropped my dad at the Oakland Airport after a wrong turn which led us into the heart of downtown Oakland at 4:30 this morning.....Sometimes I feel like adventuring through the streets of Oakland is like sleeping in Glacier with raw beef as your pillow. As long as my car doesn't break down. After exchanging sleepy goodbyes with my dad I headed an hour north of San Fran to Annandale State Park outside of Santa Rosa for a long mountain bike ride. Here the point of this blog post begins:

For those of you who don't know me, I ducked out of Missoula last August in hope of pursuing an education which would hopefully lead me to a career which would be engaging, fulfilling, support my habits, and leave me with time to play. I began a Master of Physician Assistant program at Samuel Merritt University in September. So far, I have enjoyed the program and am happy with my decision. The Bay Area is a rad place to spend some time.

Road near my house

School keeps me busy but I've also made an effort to explore and have begun to slowly uncover a friendly relationship with road biking. While I am forced to get in my car if I plan to ride legal singletrack, I can exit the door of my apartment for pretty unbelievable road biking. I would rather pedal around in the woods but with the endless hills (and roads in good conditions) near my house to ride on my skinny tires, I can at least get my fill of going up and down hills. Apart from school and the friends I've made in the program, my social life is pretty minimal leaving me plenty of time to ride a bike. Because of this, I decided to help keep me motivated during my summer semester of school, I'd also train for a 100 mile mountain bike race. I picked out the Tahoe-Sierra 100 at the end of August as I am obsessed with the Sierra Nevada mountains and it is over the break between my 3rd and 4th semesters of school. The course should be fun as it follows much of the Western States 100 endurance running race route. That said, I'll need to be held responsible for this absurd trend I've hopped onto, so in effort to do so, I plan to occasionally blog about my training throughout the summer. As many of us Alpha's have taken it upon ourselves to stretch the limits of our bike endurance in the coming months (watch out Butte, MT) perhaps my updates will be of interest by being either helpful for some training ideas or just as mutual suffer camaraderie. 

At this point in time (and with a little discussion with my dad over training ideas as he is well educated in this speciality), Here is a rough weekly plan which will vary based on easy, medium, and hard weeks/how busy I am with school:

• 1 long ride per week 5.5-10hr either mountain or road (depending on how much time I have to drive somewhere to mtb bike): milage and elevation will increase with time and I plan to incorporate some hard efforts into some of these long rides. I also will work on nutrition during these long rides as that plays a huge role in the success of endurance racing 
• 1 semi-long road ride ~3-4 hr with the first 1-2hours ridden at a hard effort. No food during these rides. I plan to come close to bonking in order to train my body to become efficient with using the fuel I've got in storage
• Intervals: 15min+ hill repeats (although on occasion I'll do some shorter ones for improving efficiency, VO2max, and because I like the pain of short intervals). There is a great hill near me which is similar to riding Pattee Canyon. I like to do 4 (one day I hope to do 6) repeats up it maintaing or increasing my speed throughout. It takes me about 15min to climb up. In total, w/4 repeats this workout takes me 2.5hr and is over 4,200ft of climbing and 40 some road miles.
• 1 easy spin/day off
• 2 days of ploys/weights/core exercises, I'll probably also do easy runs on these days as I can't stand riding everyday
• Easy run or ride on the final day
• I also get in about 45 miles of easy commuting on my bike each week. I count it toward training hours...hey I'm carrying a heavy backpack!

My ride in Annandale was super fun today. The trails were in perfect condition. Not wet or dusty. It was overcast and cool out. I like Annandale because there are about 40miles of trail ranging from supper buff and flowy to rocky and technical. It is not as straight up and down as the Missoula trails are. Rather, from the lowest points to the highest involve about 40min climbs but there is a lot of up and down throughout. Today I rode from a little over 5.5 hours. I thought the duo loop would take me 6hrs but I was feeling better then I thought and as I said before, the conditions were perf. I think I rode 60 some miles and 7000ft+ in elevation although I really don't have any idea. I met three biker boys and tagged along with them for a bit as we were headed in the same direction. It was rad to be riding with people again, especially locals who rip the trail and I can just follow their lines. It made me miss all the amazing people I have to ride with in Missoula (like all ya'll). Anyway, we exchanged contact info so I hope to meet up with them again. I felt good after riding so I probably should have ridden farther (as my race covers over 17,000ft in elevation) however I had stuff to catch up on at home (this post for instance:)). Ah well. 

Anyway, you probably got bored by this point by my long post and won't even have read this sentence as you stopped a few paragraphs ago. Oh well. 

Catch ya on the flipside,

Heidi G

"Mountain biking" in the hills above my house one evening

MT Alpha Cycling Skills Clinic Open for Registration

Registration is simple:

1. Click on the link to go to MT Alpha Skills Clinic Registration page at the USA Cycling.

2. Login to your USAC account or create an account.

3. Select the skill level appropriate for you.

4. Check out and secure your spot for the 2013 Skills Clinic Event

Please note that a one-day USA Cycling license fee of $5.00 will be added upon purchase of the skills clinic event. If you are a USAC annual license holder, you will not be charged this additional fee.

Which skill level should you apply for?

Juniors: Girls ages 9 and up. This group is for girls interested in learning some basic trail skills and gaining confidence in a fun supportive environment.

Beginner: Limited experience riding a bike on dirt trails and roads. You have a basic understanding of braking, shifting, and steering and can handle riding smooth dirt paths with few rocks, roots, and technical areas. This group is for women interested in tackling terrain beyond an beginner level.

Intermediate: You are a rider with experience riding single track. You have some experience riding rocks, roots, and uneven terrain though you may not feel entirely comfortable while riding technical sections of trail and while cornering on switchbacks. This group is for a competent rider that is looking to ride more aggressively and proficiently through technical terrain.

Advanced: You are an experienced and proficient rider interested in refining downhill and descending skills with speed as well as increasing efficiency while climbing. You have spent a significant amount of time riding trail and enjoy riding technical sections of trails.

We welcome anyone to attend regardless of skill level and previous experience. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you are unsure which skill level would be right for you!

How much does the clinic cost?

Women: $40 clinic fee + $5 USAC fee = $45 

Juniors: $30 clinic fee + $5 USAC fee = $35

What does your entry fee include?

• Pre-clinic breakfast pastries and coffee

• Full day of skills training with talented and professional bikers from across Montana

• Energy/nutritional products

• Lunch time demonstrations including proper bike fit, trailside maintenance/repair, bike care

Please join us for a post-clinic wine tasing, BBQ, and live music event at Ten Spoon Vineyard and Winery. The BBQ will be open to friends and family. Please note that the cost of the post-clinic event is NOT included with the registration fee and will be an additional $15 for a glass of Ten Spoon wine and catered BBQ dinner. Please email RSVP or select the purchase dinner option on the USAC registration site.

What type of skills will we cover?

Our instructors will work with participants to develop a core set of mountain bike skills including:

•     Correct Body Position
•     Balanced Weight Placement
•     Bike Fit for Optimal Riding and Control
•     Advanced Cornering Technique
•     Effective Braking
•     Correct Technique for Uphill and Downhill Switchbacks
•     Advanced Climbing Techniques
•     Clearing Large Obstacles and Bunny Hopping
•     Reading the Trail and Looking Ahead

What is the schedule for the day?
In short, the day will look like this: breakfast and coffee, registration, skills drills, brown bag lunch (not  provided, bring one along!) and demonstrations, afternoon trail rides, more demonstrations, evening wine tasting and BBQ with live music. We will be releasing a more detailed schedule in the near future!


What other important information should you know?
Prior to the clinic, please make sure your bike is in safe and working order. In addition, all ladies MUST bring and wear a helmet during the clinic.

This event will take place rain or shine so please be prepared with appropriate clothing. Please feel free to pack extra clothing as the weather conditions may change over the course of the day.

MT Alpha Cycling will provide water and energy supplements over the course of the day. Please bring a water bottle to fill. Lunch will not be provided, but pack a lunch as we will have a designated lunch break.

Please contact us at sarah.c.castle@gmail.com with questions concerning online registration.
Please contact at rogotzke@gmail.com with general questions about the MT Alpha Skills Clinic event.