Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1528606
12 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com Some of it was the date. This part of Spain, this me of year, is always foggy and rainy and gener- ally unpleasant. This is why the promoter pleaded with the FIM to select different dates, to no avail. The promoter may have been a li le overconfident (especially in the day three test loca on), having already hosted an EnduroGP in 2022 and 2023 – of course, forge ng that EnduroGP features maybe 75 of the best riders in Europe, not 400 of the best in the world. Some places, it should have been obvi- ous, due to wind or water or fog, are not places we should have been. The massive tropical storm three days before the event and the cancella on of day three was a stroke of bad luck that caused some transfers to be reused more than was reasonable and a lot of the rest to be moved to asphalt. For what it's worth, everyone involved probably tried their best – promoter, FIM schedulers, riders, work- ers… but ul mately, the result was quite like my unused tle: mediocre but adequate. Now I'm going to try and finish with a few fragment- ed rays of sunshine to li the mood. Because no ma er how unpleasant an experience, the clouds always have a silver lining. …We missed our injured teammate Korie Steede, so Meg Argubright, our Women's Team chase rider, printed off a photo of her face and taped it to a s ck. We took lots of funny pictures with Korie all week … Ava bought us matching colorful plas c ponchos: a red one, a green one, and a blue one. We looked ridiculous and we loved it … At one point, the wind caught the colorful poncho and it sailed through the air like a red Halloween ghost and I had to chase it down … A record 33 Women Trophy Entries, which featured almost every fast female enduro racer in the world for the first me I can ever remember … We have a new team tradi on of playing Uno while doing our team debriefing. My favorite version was "Silent Uno" because Meg was on an important call … The spectacle of the opening ceremonies. Lo ing the trophy overhead on stage, now that I had a good shoulder to do it with, and giving it a "goodbye, see you soon" kiss … I slipped a mini American flag into a French rider's back pocket and got s cker-bombed in retalia on … A former teammate of mine, Britney Gallegos, and I, went on a fun li le adventure to a waterfall and had a pleasantly deep conversa on about racing and life … When out walking the ridge- line test one early morning, the sun broke through the clouds into a transcendentally beau ful sunrise. We said we were grateful to see it, but it might have been be er viewed from the windshield of a car with the heater running … I had a top-secret mission two mornings to meet a team Great Britan rider in the women's bathroom to tape her shoulder. We hid this fact from everyone because helping the compe- on some mes gets you side-eye from teammates. We joked about our secret mee ngs and imagined our respec ve teammates "walking in us and catch- ing us red-handed" … I helped another friend, Italian Francesca Nocerra, by le ng her follow me through the nas est mudholes on the day four transfer. It felt like being out on a trail ride with friends. ISDE transfer does, in its best moments … On day three's gnarly transfer, the rain and the sun alternated so closely I saw at least five rainbows. One me, I looked over my back to catch sight of it and I swear it was close enough to touch … The French women's team taught me their warmup choreography dance, which involved a game of leapfrog, which in French is called "jumping sheep" … When I was stressing during my clutch change I asked for music. Next thing I know I'm listening to American Kids by Kenny Chesney. "a li le messed up but we're all alright" ain't that the truth … The fourth corner of the final moto was a long sweeper, and each lap I was dri ing sideways, slinging mud and feeling like a hero … As is tradi on, swapping jerseys with my compe tors post-race … I love the family reunion atmosphere of seeing friends I've made over nearly a decade of ISDE racing, which came alongside the happy and sad realiza on that this made me the most senior rider on all of Team USA (9 events) … Best of all, standing shoulder to shoulder with my team, world champions yet again… Ul mately, this race was something like that rainbow on Day Three. I always go into ISDE with high hopes. The poten al for enjoyment was bright and shin- ing. As I boarded the plane, it felt so close and real I could almost touch it… a moment of wonder that then slipped out of my grasp like the insubstan al mist that it was. But looking at the results on paper, it was s ll a success. I'm proud of my country and our teams for another successful ISDE. Our World Trophy team placed second, the Juniors came third, our Women's Trophy Team took home another win, two of our club teams (GTBN: J. Dahners, J. Walker, L. Smail; XC Gear: C. Whitmer, C. Jones, H. Smith) were inside the top five and our Women's Club Team (Jocelyn