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Day 1: River Run Teems With Cyclists
“Assembling the gladiators of mountain biking,” as the Ride Sun Valley Bike Festival announcer proclaimed to spectators, the 2011 USA Cycling Mountain Bike Cross Country National Championships roared out of the starting blocks Thursday. The River Run plaza area at the base of Bald Mountain was teeming with bikes of every variety and countless spectators. Thursday’s amateur warm-up and prologue races—Day 1 and Round 1, the announcer said—took place on the River Run course. It featured a steady wave of Category 3 and 2 men and women cyclists from Idaho and all over the U.S. Above, Randy Christian, from the Texas Southern Elite team, meets the challenge of the River Run ramp Thursday in Men’s 40-49 Cat. 3 action.
One Hailey man, Zach Latham, won the Men’s Masters 30-39 Cat. 3 race with a time of 49:26, and Ketchum’s Ian Sundby was fifth in that class at 1.00:29. The actual national championship races for the Stars-and-Stripes jerseys begin today, July 15, at River Run and continue through Sunday. Photo by David N. Seelig
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