Laura's story: Brown County DINO Race

BaseCamp athlete Laura Felicetti shared her experience at the 2026 Brown County DINO cross-country mountain bike race in Indiana.

This is our local XC bike race. I did it as a training race to try to help me get better at starting hard, recovering, and then continuing hard. I had no expectations as far as a podium. There is no age group for women. Most of the racers were in their teens/20s/30s. There was one woman in her 40s. With the exception of one racer, I had no idea who any of them were. The racer I did know was 17. My goal was to be close to her. I did this race last year, and she beat me by a couple of minutes. My other goals were to start hard and keep going. While I'm in better shape this year than last year, I didn't have a time goal in mind. This was not an "A" race. I rode 60 miles the day before it. And I've lost fitness over the past few weeks (by design) to give my body a chance to reset before some more big races later this summer. Also, my allergies were killing me.

At the start, I went as hard as I could, which wasn't all that hard, given everyone shot away from me. We went up the steep pitch. Ouch. It leveled off, and I passed a couple riders and caught another rider's wheel. We went up again. I tried to pass the woman, but she had more power. She got ahead of me onto the trail.

On the descent, I focused on breathing and recovering. The woman was pushing hard. We passed some men and women. Eventually, I sat up a bit. She was going too hard for me. I caught some more men and could see her and some other women ahead of me.

On the next climb, I caught the group of women, but no one was letting anyone around. When we got to the descent the woman ahead of me fell off the other two women. I relaxed. Nothing I could do.

Before the next climb, I got around her. And I finally started to feel okay! The first 45-60 minutes were rough! I wanted to quit. But I got through it and passed three or four women on the climb, including the one who was ripping my legs off at the beginning.

On the next downhill, I flew. No one caught me! On the next couple of trails, I caught a bunch of people who weren't in my race. Eventually, I caught one more woman. I got 4th, which I'm happy with! The young woman who got third was the racer I hoped I could pace with. Also, even after riding 60 miles the day before the race and being tired the day of the race, I took six minutes off last year's time!

Thanks, Maia and BaseCamp. :) You've helped me so much with the physical and mental aspects of training and racing.