Last weekend was the Norcal High School Mountain Bike Championship race at Boggs Mountain in Cobb, California. This was my favorite race of the season for a few reasons. One being that this was one of my best race results this season. I finished 13th which puts me in 14th place overall in my division of about 60 racers. The second reason being that it was a totally fun weekend. Boggs Mountain State Forest is a beautiful venue so most people camp when they are there. It was awesome to camp and hang out with my team all weekend. Not to mention the riding was epic! One of my favorite trails there is called “Creek Trail”. Like every trail at Bogg’s, Creek Trail is littered with rocks, is fast, and flows very well. The race course was also my favorite of the series, which is what I will be talking about below.

To start off, most courses in the Norcal High School series are very underwhelming. This is because the courses have to tailor to every rider, ranging from the first time freshman racer to the varsity rider who rides professionally at world cup events. For this reason the courses are not very technically challenging. They put an emphasis on fitness rather than skill. There is nothing wrong with this, but I feel like a race course should have a good mix of both fitness and technical skills.Photo by Mary DiNapoliI am probably a bit biased because my team practices on some very technical trails. Here in Santa Cruz we have some of the best trails in California. Many of those being very challenging. I would also consider myself an above average rider. I attribute this to the fact that I learned how to ride on a hardtail. I tackled some pretty gnarly stuff on my Specialized RockHopper before moving up to a full suspension bike. Due to this, I can ride some trails that most people would not even consider doing on a hardtail with a raised seat wearing Lycra.

Ok, enough with the bragging. I love Boggs so much because it was a technically challenging course. The challenging course is the one course that most reminds me of home. There are steep climbs, both in the short and long variety, and steep, flowy singletrack which is littered with rock gardens. Not to mention, the trails were super dry loose this year. However, I had zero traction problems thanks to my Specialized Ground Control tires. Check out the video below of my favorite parts of the course!