Angelina – DirtFest 2012
This year I decided to go to the Dirt Fest at Rays Town Lake in Pennsylvania. The only reason why I decided to come was for the women specific rides put on by the Gold Rusch Tour by Rebecca Rusch and a couple of other pros, Katie Holden and Sue Haywood. I am an avid mountain biker, riding with my family and racing in the expert classes so I figured the pros would have a lot of knowledge to give out. I decided to talk my mother into coming along for the journey. She is 51 years old and is mainly a road cyclist enjoying recreational mountain biking. We came to this clinic Saturday morning with nothing but an open mind. We were just honored to be in a 10 foot radius of 3 professional mountain bike athletes. After attending the first tour, bringing my mother along, I was instantly hooked left wanting to learn more and have more experience with the pros. While my mother went for a ride on her own, I wanted to go back for round two. Once again I learned so much more and became such a better rider. In the first two clinics we focused on braking, balancing, cornering, and much more. Having so much fun, I brought my mom again to the clinic the next morning. This time the coaches just decided to go for a trail ride and if we saw something we could work on, we would stop on the trail and be taught how to do it correctly. I can honestly say, I learned so much. Just from riding behind Sue on the trail, I would do all that I could to keep up with her using my braking, balancing and cornering. I could tell right away, that I improved so much. My mother told Rebecca how much she had learned from her with the first clinic she attended. The group that came with us to Dirt Fest even commented on how much my mom had improved. Now she isn’t intimidated by rocks and steep downhills, she just wants to have fun and ride her mountain bike. Even though all the pros knew they were amazing at what they did, they were fun to be around and so easy to talk to about any questions or comments that needed to be shared. They adjusted the skills that they were going to teach based on the riders’ skill level. We were split up in a couple different groups based on experience riding, experience with the tour, and your speed. The coaches were open to all skill levels. We enjoyed it so much and we’re extremely excited to return to Dirt Fest next year keeping in mind that Rebecca and her crew will be out there to build on our mountain biking knowledge. In the meantime, we will be using our recently learned mountain biking skills to leave our competition in the dust.
Angelina P.
15 years old
Specialized FATE Expert
Expert Racer
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