The Intense Factory XC Team had a fantastic weekend in Phoenix for the first USA Cycling National of the year! The First national of the year and a true test for the Intense XC squad. Phoenix was gearing up to be a super togh event. The weather was super hot, the courses and distances were longer than ever. Our team was untested as a unit and factory level riders. My expectations were high and the anticipation was stressful. We have been working hard to get to this point. When we showed up on thursday I just wanted everyone to have a good experience and represent our sponsors well. What happened in Phoenix was beyond any expectatins! Our first racer to test his fitness was Semi Pro Robert Herber. He was the only Intense rider to compete in the overall placings for the Omnium. Thursday proved to be his coming out. The TT course was super fun but full of cactus and technical challenge. All I told Robert was to have fun and leave it on the trail! He did this and more. This years semi pro field was stacked. The best in the country were here to do battle. At the end of the day Robert came away with 8th place out of 76 riders. A great start! The accolades really started early with our 2 female pros tearing up the long anaerobic Super D. Chrissy Bono just 14 seconds back took 2nd place in her first super D ever. While Heather Ranoa our first year pro took 9th. This was an amazing accomplishment considering this was the largest pro field ever at the Phoenix national. So far everyone was wondering ' Where did Intense get this team from'. It was great to see our girls set with the best in the world. That afternoon our Semi pro Robert Herber took eighth in the semi pro Super D. Robert was less than 20 seconds off the lead and competed against over 76 other racers. After the race all Robert said was ' I think I shoulda went faster ' !!. Saturday night I took the team to a pasta feast and a movie. The movie we saw was '300' the story of the Spartans fighting huge odds for survival and glory. I think this was a good move seeing how the team was on fire and ready to take on the world by the end of the movie! I think if we would have raced right after the movie some of our competition could have seriously been hurt! HAHAHAHAHA Sunday was a huge day for Intense XC Cycling. The day started with our only prospective expert racer Stuart Gonzalez taking a 5th place podium spot in the expert xc. Stuart is really an impressive rider and should be moving up the classes soon. He is very determined and super fast. Our next xc race was the semi pro xc. This is the only place we had bad luck. By the time these guys went the temperature was well above 85 and dry. racers were dropping left and right. We had our first casulty of the event. semi pro Denton Bowers who started in the back of the pack, somehow found him self in the lead pack after only the 2nd lap. By the way the semi pros had to do 4 laps equaling 40 plus miles in the heat. Denton was on fire. on the 3 rd lap as the pack came through Rober Herber also crept up into the lead pack but Denton was nowhere to be seen. turns out Denton tore his sidewall on his tire and was barley able to limp in. But true to form Rober Herber picked up the slack and finished in 8th place. which put Robert placed in 5th place overall in the semi pro omnium! Robert had a fantastic weekend! Later in the day with the temps creeping up above 90 the girls lined up with an all star field. At the line was a whos who in womens pro mountain biking. Chrissy Bono lined up in the mid pack and Heather Ranoa got stuck in the back. I truly was not expecting much. This field was stacked. more than 75 pros deep. After the first lap my jaw dropped and almost fell off as Chrissy Bono came around the feedzone in the top 10. She looked at me and I just gave her the green light to rock and roll. a few minutes later Heather Ranoa came rolling through up to mid pack. This was an awesome effort. for her. Being the newest pro in the field she started in the the very last position. Which meant she had to pass in the singletrack. Which in the desert can be very tricky. Cactus and the heat was taking its toll on the field and a lot of women were dropping. As the ladies came around for thier second lap Chrissy had dropped back a bit but was fighting hard. The Luna Chicks were teaming up and making a serious run. Chrissy came on strong for the third lap and finished 15th. While Heather clawed her way up to 40th place out of 76 pro women. Over all I am very happy with the effort from our team for this past weekend. They are an awesome group of racers and gave a 110% this weekend! Up next we have Sea Otter in 2 weeks. I am hoping to continue the success and really establish The Intense Team as a force in the Mountain Bike world!