National Mountain Bike Championships Pics from Photo-Cycle.com

The Sol Vista flowers looked a bit prettier in the early morning light than the venue, which looked like most others but with a little more importance.

Holy smokes what a MONTH of bike racing in coloRADo! It started off with the Marathon National Championships on July 4th with the Firecracker 50 and continued inot the Breck Epic that ran from the 5th through the 10th & has finally finished by crowning National Championships at Sol Vista resort the 17th through the 19th. WHEW! Congrats to everyone who turned themselves inside out trying keep pace with the month of July. Our man Photo Eddie didn't take a break either...here is what he saw during the final strech of championship July. Cheers!

The top of the xc course had some pretty views, but Jen Tilley wasn't doing much sight seeing in her race.

Chelsea and Melanie pose for me during a post race chat, good job ladies!
Mike Vigers flexing for the camera would climb onto the second step at the end of the day.
Chad Melis makes his way down the steep techy drop on Wentz's Way.


Local homeboy Sam Powers bounced right back after a nasty crash in the previous days practice to finish 5th in the 4x.
Death from above, Napalm-Shawn Palmer was using the dh race as cross training, and also did some spectating for the 4x racing.
Perhaps the marquee event, the pro 4x was again held under the lights for the biggest group of spectators at any mtn bike race in the US.
The big surprise was the 17 year old darkhorse Mitch Ropelato. Mitch would beat the best 4x racers in the country to win the National Champs jersey.
JHK digs hard to capitalize on Tod Well's mechanical, and win the mens xc race.
Jen G, still recovering from the effort it took to win the Breck Epic, made the best of a very tired body finishing 13th in the SO PRO womens field.

Heather Irmiger passed a cramping Katie Compton late in the race to win her first national championship xc race.

Gavin Hayes also showed up to claim a 2nd place in the(40-49) Super D race.

Ever perenial old schooler, and multi-time national dh, 4x, and ds champion, Eric Carter showed up to have some fun in the Super D race, and even broke the top 5

Some racers didn't exactly make it down this pitch on Wentz's Way.

Adam Craig put in a vicious late race attack to win another short track national championship
Our EC finds some sweet singletrack on top of the course.
Cristina thrashed her Breck Epic weary legs to a 3rd place in the womens singlespeed race.

Christina Begy lead out the singlespeed women.
The DH course was short and full of jumps. Racers had to contend with three back to back moto inspired 40+ feet jumps. It wasn't much of a surprise that Aaron Gwin took the win.
Was also good to see Kyle Strait putting down some solid runs. His moto whips on the big jumps were complete sickness.