We took a much less stupid way back so the drive home was quiet and uneventful. Not a moose to be seen. It was still eighteen hours in the car though, and when I wasn't listening to old mix CDs from high school, eating goat cheese, or guffawing along to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, I thought about the weekend. And concluded that it was kind of the most awesome thing ever.
Friday saw lovely weather and a sprinkling of rain, just like I'd hoped. Suddenly traction everywhere was tacky and ideal. Armed with a map and several sandwiches, we set out from the B&B for a long ride. A bike path, the wonderfully named Marie-Hélène-Prémont Trail, connects the town to the mountain. Once there, we were expecting more of the same thing we had ridden Thursday: tight, loamy, challenging, delicious. Turns out the trail rating system at MSA is a wee bit perplexing. Sometimes "Très Difficile" means tricky singletrack and sometimes it means brutal fire roads that go updownupdownupdown without providing any real sense of accomplishment. Regardless, it was a good ride and left us time to watch some XC and some trials (weirdest discipline ever).
On Saturday the weekend's festivities were amping up. The crowds were huge to watch the elite XC races. As we wandered through the pits we brushed by a veritable bevy of big names in mountain biking. I feigned nonchalance when I saw Melissa Buhl, Aaron Gwin, and Irina Kalentieva, but when Gee passed all I could do was stop and stare. St Marie regretted not wishing Adam Craig and Carl Decker good luck as they stood beside us to watch the ladies blaze through. I probably won't ever be inured to celebrity spottings--it took me hours to recover when Steve Martin stopped by the bakery, and he doesn't even ride bikes!
The women's XC race got me more worked up than anything else, I think. Watching Willow duke it out with the Euros and Pendrel was crazy intense and St Marie had to chase as I sprinted all over the course trying to get the best views. The best part was yelling "North Carolina" at Willow...I got to say hi to her after the race and through the red mist of competition she actually heard the shout-out!
The men's race was a success because Burry got a medal, but the US guys sucked it up, and anyway I was saving my voicebox for the night's 4X race.
Oh. My. God. Most insane awesome bike race ever. Words can't even express. The best part was watching chicks hit the huuuuge doubles, and seeing the Czech edge out Jared Graves in the final stretch to take the win. Then we watched the music from a hillside overlooking the venue as the light show illuminated the low-hanging clouds.
And there was still more. On Sunday we elected to ride the entire XC course to see if it really was that gnarly. And yes, yes it was. At the Rock Garden (which everyone spoke of as if it were capitalized, because it was so ridiculous) I took a hard tumble on the chicken line and struggled with the tech stuff for the rest of the ride. I do not envy the racers. Then we splurged and got lift tickets up to the top so we could scope out the whole DH course. I yelled for Rachel like there was no tomorrow, but the crowd saved its loudest love for Steve Smith, the Canadian who took a surprising second after Sam. Then, suddenly, it was over.
At frequent intervals during the car trip, unable to contain my glee, I would turn to St Marie and say, "That was the coolest thing ever." Pause. "That really was totally awesome. What a good freaking idea." He offered little in the way of disagreement.
And that was the story of my trip to Worlds. Soon to be augmented with pictures.
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