It was a great day for racing. Especially since my race was starting at 1:00. It gave me plenty of time to sleep in and round up my gear for the race. A good change of pace from the usual 7 am for a 11:30 race
Mid-Pack Ridercame to pick me at around 10 am and it took a little work to get my bike rack strapped on his car. We stopped for coffee and hit the highway by 10:30. The 75 min drive went quick and we didn't get lost because of Jeff's GPS.
We found a parking spot and it immediately felt like it was gonna be a great day. Being the normal CX nut I am I started hooting and hollering because the the 11:00 race was going on and a couple local Lady riders were grinding away on the course. "Go Leslie Go", "Way to go Alley. You can do it" I hollered.The only crappy part was I forgot my cowbell at home.
So I grabbed my pit bike and went to drop it off and get registered. Almost had a small snag at the registration. I showed my OCA citizens permit but they almost didn't accept it and they were gonna charge me for a 1 day permit. But I got off with a warning. The best part of registering when I did, was I ended up with #69. Woot! Woot! 69! Registration guy says to me in a serious tone " make sure ya don't put it on upside down. because the timers will get mixed up". I mockingly started turning it upside down saying "like this?" But he still didn't get the fact that 69 upside down is still 69. =-)
So I went to get kitted up and do some warming up. First to get the blood moving Jeff and I went on to the course down the long open gravel road with a 180 about 750 meters down it. Not the best for my single speed but it would serve as a good recovery section. We stretched a bit then came back to the main part of the course. The first slope wasn't too bad, but it had a rocky technical section to get back into the parking lot and I was concerned about pinch flat city there.
Next over to the main slope up past the pits. Dang it was steep. About 20 meters straight up at first. Traverse across and into an even steeper 40 meter section. Here's me running up it in the race.
Thanks for the pics Stephen Cheung.After a bit more climbing the course traversed the ski hill cutting through some wetter sections and some deep mud. Must have been from the run off. Into 180 and mostly down hill back across the slopes into some wide fast 180 turns. There was a technical turn under the pines that I went down on in practice so I went back up and did it a few more times. We popped out in the the flats by the Ski Lodge and into a sea of tape and about 400 step in stakes. It was a great spectator area with all hte buzz of the ski swap that was also going on.
On the main slope they were trucking in some snow for a snow board rail jam and the warm temps and sun was melting it, bringing some soupy mud sections into the course.
Damn!I have to go now so I'll post more about the race later.
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