Adrienne’s Race Report: 2014 Snowblast Dual Slalom Race Fundraiser @ Sky Tavern March 29 presented by Black Rock Bikes.
All bicyclists were welcome, from the brand new balloon tire snow bikes to the studded tires or zip tie snow chains on traditional frames. The Snow Dual Slalom was down one of the faces of Sky Tavern Ski Resort (and soon to be bike park) complete with thrills and spills. 100% of the entrance fees went back to the Sky Tavern Mountain Bike Park to create mountain bike trails this summer. The course was designed and sculpted a few days before by the talented Black Rock Bicycle staff including Tom Driggers and Curtis Opperman. The racing was hilarious! The course was crowd-pleasing with so many people stacking in the first corner!
My wonderful husband stayed up for two nights before the event tediously implanting 260 screws into my tires! The most entertaining part was watching him mount them while he navigated around the needle sharp points. Probably better for icy conditions, but still a lot of fun. It was super laid back with around 30 competitors showing up on a wide variety of bikes despite the weather. It was a balmy 26 degrees and steady sideways snow with accumulation of a couple inches during the race.
The Women’s Results: 1st Amanda Richter, 2nd Adrienne Evans, 3rd Gabriella Urbina.
A little bit of trivia to leave you with: the first race was dubbed the Dual Challenge and it went down in 1986. The name was changed to Dual Slalom (Mammoth Mountain) in 1987 and the rest is history.