The energy was palpable in the team pit this past weekend at the Devo Six Sigma Superb and NorCal Interscholastic Cycling League Championship races. Riders warmed up on rollers as their teammates, some racing, some just there for moral support and camaraderie, lounged and chatted. Coaches huddled one on one, offering race strategy and advice, reminded racers to hydrate, and made repairs on bikes and sometimes bodies, bandaging abraded knees and elbows.
Parents served up breakfast and a never-ending stream of snacks, and calmed nerves. And then, the Miners raced their last race of the season, taking third place in Northern California. The weather on May 19th and 20th – hot, dry, and dusty – was much like the previous weekend, when the Miners raced at the Six Sigma Slinger in the same location at the Six Sigma Ranch and Winery in Lower Lake.
While the Junior Development (JD) course for the Devo Six Sigma was similar to the Slinger course, with 350 feet of elevation gain over three miles, race organizers took the high school championship course up a notch, with an extra 250 feet of elevation gain for 700 total feet of gain, and an extra three quarters of a mile, making it 4.75 miles per lap. A brutal, slightly uphill finish did not diminish the number of exciting out of the saddle sprints for the finish line.
Teams from Santa Mateo to San Luis Obispo as well as riders from three East Bay counties joined the racers from the Redwood (all counties north of the East Bay) and Rep.
