Georgia State Championship series #1 + TT#1 – Yonah Mountain Trails – Cleveland, Ga  

If you have never been to the Yonah mountain course you are missing out, it is a super fun hilly romp through the woods and for the racers descending on the first round of the GSC series they were treated with two days of this amazing course.

I know we talk a lot about the weather but after all we are an outdoor sport that operates on dirt, so yeah it is on everyones mind the weekend of a race, this weekend was of course no exception. The area has been very dry lately but rain was called for on Saturday at just about the time the Time Trial was scheduled to start and guess what… It actually happed just like predicted (not so common in my experience). Fortunately it wasn’t too heavy and didn’t last too long although it did make for some slippery sections of the 7.4 mile course during the TT but it made for perfect conditions during Sunday’s XC.

The race action started at 3pm on Saturday (wet course remember) with the first of two series time trials and on this day Eric Oleson claimed the fastest time with a 27:47:51 lap time and Ryann Slechta would rise to the top of the women’s times and a very respectabletime.

Sunday the sun came out and it was the youth classes hitting the trails first at 8:30am and then the 9:30am yellow wave took the stage hammering out up to four laps on the full course followed by the white wave at 11:30am. Shannon Himstedt won a hard fought race and laying down the fastest lap of the weekend with a  sub 27 minute on his last lap to win the top men’s spot and Isabella Cianciolo would prove to be the fastest of the women from the women’s junior class.

Many thanks to all of the sponsors and especially the North East Georgia SORBA team who had the course in great shape and also marshaled the course!

Next round of the series is Newnan, Georgia on May 17th!