Alex, you just raised in Fayetteville, Arkansas for the pro X CTS, which
for those that don't know, that's the premier cross country Olympic meaning
like 90 ish minute mountain bike races on shorter courses where you do
multiple laps within the 90 minutes.
Uh, that's the premier series in the United States, the pro CTS.
So you recently did that.
Uh, and it was short track and XCO, the courses were totally different
than I think a lot of the courses here in the United States for what
we have, and it was there, there was, uh, there's a whole lot to cover.
So the first thing I want to talk about the courses were technical it
all around North, Northwest Arkansas.
They have professional trail building organizations that build these trails.
And if you go there and he ride there, It will blow your mind.
It's amazing to see how high quality the trails are, how cool they are too.
They have like very creative, like huge, gigantic, almost like burning
man art, but it turns out that that's part of the trail and you ride that.
Uh, that's just like, it's amazing.
And the stuff they create is really cool.
This course is no different.
Um, Alex, they, they had drops big drops.
They had a really like, they were man-made in the sense that
the rocks were laid in, but.
But like technical and rough, like climbing kind of rock gardens, they
had a lot of technical terrain to him.
How did you, because you've mentioned before that you feel like fitness is like,
if you're a video game character, your fitness bars high, but then your technical
bar is the one that you're always investing in to raise higher as well.
And that one is lagging behind, relatively speaking to the Uber
high fitness that you have.
So.
How did you approach that when you show up to the race and suddenly it's
like, Whoa, this is, and also more or less kind of one of your first
races in a really long time too.
You did.
CAC has come before it.
How did you, what was the learning curve like technical terrain?
How did you learn it quickly?
Um, I think the goal wasn't necessarily to learn it quickly.
So actually the first lap, I just went around the course.
Um, I had a coworker out there with me, Sam Benedict.
Who's really good at riding bikes.
So it was nice to have him as well, but I actually just went around the course
and took the beeline and everything.
Just to take a look at everything, like what is the course layout look like?
And then slowly one by one just started checking boxes.
Um, the nice thing, like you said in Arkansas is, is there's a lot of trust in
the trail builders that if you're going trail speed, then you're going to be okay.
Kind of thing.
So there was a couple, you know, gap jumps and stuff like that, but it's,
it kinda takes a piece of fear away from it, knowing that they've designed
it to be at the speed of this trail.
So as long as you're carrying speed and you're riding along at
a normal speed, you're good to go.
Um, they also had really cool.
Um, and I wish this was more common for people learning to do gaps
and stuff is they had their, their usual, like two pieces of rock.
If you're watching on YouTube, I'll, I'll try to explain this.
Um, so like your normal gap jump right.
Would have a gap here, which is like the no go zone.
But what they have in Arkansas is the landing actually has
this metal rounded piece.
So you could almost just roll off the first one and you'd still make it.
And then next time you're like, Oh, I can hear a little more speed.
And then you land a little further until you get to the point that you're
actually not landing on the metal at all.
And you would have been able to do the original double.
So it's kinda like, uh, a tabletop of sorts that kind of helps you learn.
Yeah, no lawyers needed
is no longer
the
podcast.
sorry.
I apologize.
I was terrible.
I deserved
to be punished Alex, carry on.
Yeah.
So I think just, I think the biggest thing for me was probably the drops.
Um, There two different ones.
The first weekend had like the main drop that I feel like everybody's
seen on Instagram and kind of like the, the marquee piece of the course,
that one, it was more just like I walked up to it, saw that one.
And that one I felt like was in my wheelhouse, there was no gap.
It was very confidence inspiring to me in the terms of like the
landing came all the way up to it.
So it's kind of like, you can just, you know, as long as you're not nosediving
off the end, you'll survive kind of thing.
Um, But it was, I don't know, it was a cool highlight of
the mountain bike community.
Like I said, I was riding with Sam and he pulled me off
and I was like, Oh, I got it.
And then.
Then, like, I heard stories over the whole weekend where it's just
kinda like, you pass that on, right?
Like someone leads you in and then you lead someone else in.
Um, there was one of the juniors from the bear team looking at it and
she's like, that doesn't look so bad.
Like kind of under her breath, like talking yourself up.
And, uh, I was like, no, it's not so bad.
Like I explained to her, like, there's no gap.
You just have to carry a speed.
She's like, you're gonna hit it again.
And I was like, I can like say, Oh yeah, will you, will you tell me in
and man, the feeling of like, when you go off and you hear behind you.
Yeah.
It's just like so sick.
So it's like now, you know, she's hitting it in, in training and
she'll pass that on to somebody else that is also needing help.
And it's kinda like, I don't know.
I really like that.
Um, Sense of community where everybody just wants to see people succeed.
I did a post on it on you instead, but it's just like the second one
got me because there's a gap to it.
So it's like, there's like a, a failure, right?
So it's like for that one, it was, I rolled up to it.
A bunch of times I had a buddy Noah Hayes lead me into it.
A couple of times I just kept pulling the parachute and actually just.
It actually helped me on this one, not to have someone in front of
me cause it was a blind landing.
So as soon as I could see the landing, when I was rolling up to
it, I was like, okay, I got this.
And it was the same thing.
As soon as I hit that one, someone saw me hit it and was like, Oh,
would you mind pulling me in?
And I was like, no, not at all.
And then, you know, you kind of pass that on.
So I feel like, of course, like this just makes us better at ECC because
I feel like there's that attitude of like you come to it and maybe you
didn't feel like you could ride these features and then you go and ride them.
I was trying to explain, I feel like there's three different levels
of like mastery on these features.
There's one where it's like, no, that's just over my head.
You know, like, I'm not going to try this, I'm going to do the beeline
and I'm gonna commit to that.
And I was trying to make it clear to everybody.
Like I've been there, you know, like I used to take the beeline at Missoula,
you know, like I've committed to it and it's just like, it's the jump was
just over my skillset at the time.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
And then the second level is like, I can do it in training when I'm fresh
and you know, cognitively all there, but I'm going to decide to take the beeline
in the race because when I'm redlined, I'm not confident in those skills.
And then there's level three, which is like complete mastery.
I can do this when I'm pinned, when I'm fresh.
I mean, anywhere in between.
And it's kind of trying to identify where you are on that spectrum
because there is a lot of power into hitting it in training.
And even not racing it, but just knowing, okay.
That's in my skill level.
What I need to work on now is being able to do it and make it
second nature when I'm cross out.
John, do you remember the, sorry, go ahead, Pete.
I was going to say, do you remember the big rock drop at
the beginning of, um, Vietnam?
Uh, that, uh, Lee took us to, and then made us do over and over and
practice right at the end, we kind of like skirted around and practiced.
And that was another one where I could do it over and over.
In with Lee there and you there and us talking about it.
And then in the rapists, I pointed at it and I was like, Nope, I can't do it.
And B line just, I mean, it was very clear in the, in the race
scenario that, that wasn't going to fly, even though I could do it.
I did it 10 times in a row in
practice.
Yeah.
There are differences between when you have that super high cognitive
load and fatigue, like your, your body doesn't function as well.
First of all, like it's, it's distracted and fatigued.
And then on top of that, You, you do have to.
I think that you, you, you reach a point, like you said, Alex of mastery,
where you can have as much cognitive load as you need, but you know that
you can do it and you still do it.
But even then, no matter what your body is still not.
Performing at its optimal level to be able to handle that obstacle.
Right.
So it, it does change.
And you see this, like with BMX racers and they come into mountain biking in
particular or road riding or anything else, anybody that comes from a really
highly technical high-speed discipline and they come into something else
and that cognitive load is lower.
So it's like they have like, uh, A bonus, you know, they've liked their
Mario with the mushrooms, so to speak.
Uh, they're, they're able to go through everything just with a
little bit more of a margin of error.
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