Rock Bridge

Beautiful day today and damn good conditions for July in Missouri. The high was mid-80s, no rain in the past few days, and a good turn out made for an awesome day of racing here in Columbia. I had a pretty mellow week riding-wise so I felt well rested and ready to go.

The single speed category had 6 guys, including fast-man Fuhrmann, some KC dudes, a dude I didn't know, and my friend cock puncher from team seagal. The race got off to a quick start and I managed to be second wheel heading into the trees. To my surprise, myself and the dude I didn't know slowly pulled away from the field...and I felt like we were going at a brisk pace (perhaps 60-70% effort) but nothing too crazy. The lap was an 8 mile loop with a little bit of everything included and to my advantage, I know those trails very well. I ended up pulling around the lead guy somewhere around 3-4 miles in and didn't look back. During the first lap I was feelin great. I was starting to ride my way into the expert class again so was super psyched. I knew that the 29er crew dude Fuhrman was somewhere behind me but I felt like my pace was solid. About 1.5 miles in to my second lap murphy's law came into effect and I flatted on my rear tire. Damn. My rear wheel is bolted on and uses a nifty ENO eccentric hub, which is great but also a serious bitch to deal with when changing a flat. So I've always told myself that if I flatted on the rear during a race, I'd call it quits. Shit. I was curious about where I was so I hit my stop watch and watched until Fuhrmann came by. To my chagrin saw that I at least a minute and 20 seconds on him. Damn.

Oh well. That's bike racing.

Maggie on the other hand, rocked it today. She was one of 3 of the 6 beginner women who got 2 laps in and managed to ride her way into second! After her first lap there was some poor communication about how many she had left so she stood around for about 5 minutes...so if that wouldn't have happened she might have won.

We both had a blast and are psyched for next sunday!

Awesome week leading to a non-race

This past week marked the return of my board scores, which ended up leading to a couple of days of celebration. The weekend that capped off the week had in store 3 great days of riding. Friday morning, I headed out for about an hour-ish of tempo-paced riding at Rhett's run. Saturday, was riding at Castlewood with Maggie and then Sunday was an awesome event hosted by our friends team Seagal.

The story with the Seagal event was that everyone would meet at Chubb trail then ride as a group to a few of the many difficult sections of the trail. Each rider had 2 attempts to ride the section for points, then at the end of the day the points would be tallied....and then something about a winner.

Anyway, the whole day brought back a lot of memories, as Chubb was a place I hadn't been too in 10 years, although most of my riding there was over 15 years ago, back when I was in the 7th grade. My mom used to drop off me and a friend at the Lone Elk side and we'd ride our rigid Trek 800s for anywhere from 2-5hours (depending upon the epic factor for the day). Seeing the trail again today and realizing how seriously technical the place is, I had to laugh imagining other mountain bikers seeing me and my buddy back in the day.

As for the event today, Maggie and I both rode and had an absolute blast. I think I only cleanly rode 2 of the 10 sections and am left hungry for more, wanting to head back to Chubb as soon as I can. The team Seagal guys had a fantastic idea organizing the event, followed through with an awesome day, then served up some great brats, burgers, and of course cold PBR. The whole day basically epitomizes one of the the reasons I love mountain biking...everyone there was so psyched for each other when someone rode a hard section of trail.

I definitely can't wait for more non-races and was thinking of some ideas for similar events to host in Columbia.-Cassidy was diggin the spoke card on the way home

Training and racing wise, I'm looking forward to the Rock bridge race next weekend. After that, there are basically 2 things on my radar. The most of important of which: cross season. The other: single speed world championships in Durango. I have a little altimeter on my handle bars that I'll use to train for the sswc, I'm trying to work my up to doing some serious climbing each week. Right now, I average around 3,000-5,000 of vertical feet per week. I don't know what all the course for sswc has in store, but I imagine I'll get at least a week or two of climbing in...at altitude.

Castlewood race

Maggie and I both did the race at castlewood on saturday. Overall, there isn't too much to say except that we both had fun but were dissapointed with the turn out. The course was great in my opinion. 1 fast and flowy section and 1 hard and technical section that I used to ride like 10 years ago pretty frequently.

The single speed category had only 2 racers. Oh well, I suppose that with the Thursday night crit and sunday's race a lot of people were recovering...or working. I ended up feeling the best I have on a bike in a long time so ended up riding into the expert group and staying away from the sport riders (barely) until the end. Unfortunately, because there were only 2 riders in the single speed category, I didn't get the state jersey but I did manage to pull a nifty Surly flask from the loot as a prize.

Maggie was the only racer in her age category for the beginners so ended up with a medal as well. Not bad for her first race ever.