The Town That I'm From Treated Me Like A Touarist

I haven't really raced too much this year, obviously due to work, and even though I have been able to do the SLO Tuesday Worlds ride, it somehow still doesn't compare to an Expert mtn bike race. So this morning I woke up, packed up the Eg and made my way to Spirit Mountain for the MNSCS race there. 

The morning started out great, cool and a bit of a breeze, so I thought I would be ok. But alas, that was not the case. I got a good warm up with the hilarious Ross Fraboni and even stretched a bit before. Then we lined up for the start and we were off. Right away people were having problems starting at the foot of the climb, missed pedals and such. So I get around a few people and then a guy totally stops right in front of me and I end up doing a track stand waiting for him to get out of the way. He finally gets moving again and then I get around him Ross gets around me and then we crested the hill to get to the single track, and the usual traffic jam happens. We're all waiting to funnel through to actually start racing at that point. 

I was doing ok really, way off the back because of all the start problems, but still having fun. I get going and start passing people when I can, but trying to reserve energy to finish, as the race was two eight mile laps with a lot of climbing. But also trying to stay hydrated because it was so humid out and I was losing a lot of water through sweat. Now I live in California, yes I lived in Duluth, but California doesn't get that humid. So needlessly to say I had to pull the plug after the first lap. I was a bit disappointed, but I still had fun and I was able to ride real singletrack again. Thanks to Bill Schwalbe for doing such a great job as the race director, it's not an easy thing to do. 

The vacation's going good, looking forward to getting out and shooting some pictures and more riding on some new trails that have been built.