Erica's story: Quick n' Dirty Summer Series, Race 8

BaseCamp athlete Erica Ramos shared her experience at the 2026 Quick n' Dirty Series mountain bike race 8 in California.

The Quick n' Dirty Summer Series is a local mountain bike event that is known to be beginner- and gravel-friendly, so I figured I would give it a shot! It's very different from other events that I've done. It's a fast race - the beginner race is 2 laps of the ~5 mile course, but the more advanced groups do more laps so by lap 2, there is a lot going on. I've ridden in this area before and a few weeks before the event did some skills coaching on the route to go through some of the more technical aspects and to figure out what I did and didn't feel comfortable doing. The course has a lot of singletrack, some steep, rocky climbs and "whoops" -- and thankfully, a few alternate routes built in.

I actually participated in race 7 the week before, and I DNFd after one lap. Whether it was nerves or residual fatigue from spending three days at altitude at a gravel training camp, I just felt weak, and my heart rate wouldn't recover for anything. Going into that race, my coach, Lorri Lee Lown, suggested that I could treat it like a recon ride, and that advice came in very helpful when it came to prepping for race 8. I had the experience of being passed by some of the really fast guys, which was something I was anxious about. I also got stuck behind several people when they fell, and that cost me a lot of time, and I got there way too early, so I never really felt warmed up. For this race, I had three goals: give my heart rate a chance to recover, even if it meant stopping for a drink and a deep breath, get a full warm-up in, finishing within 15 minutes of the race start, and don't wait too long to let anyone who falls or is walking go in front of me (safely of course!).

This time I felt like a completely different rider. I felt warmed up and pretty mellow going into the start, paced myself well on the first climb, and kept moving through the technical pieces. I misread one of the course paths, so I added a little more time to my first lap than needed but overall felt great and had a strong first lap time. By the time I was starting the second lap, the fastest riders were starting to lap me. Things went smoothly until a large group of guys was trying to pass me in a very narrow singletrack section and I got bumped and hit the dirt pretty hard. First time that happened, so it took me a minute to collect myself and figure out if everything was still working well, bike and body. :) I got out of that area, took a breath, and even though I felt the sore coming, I figured I would take advantage of the adrenaline and keep going. The second lap was slower, and I didn't get as much power to get up and over a few steep sections, but I kept going and finished second in my women's beginner's age group out of four riders!