Wednesday, April 22, 2009

MSC #1, New Belgium STXC #2, and random life adventures

Been slacking lately on here, but I've been crazy busy. Last weekend I headed back to Fruita for the MSC #1 - Rabbit Valley Ralley and some cross country action. I had planned on racing the TT on Saturday, but the storm that hit the front range on Friday changed those plans. I don't think my little go-cart of a car would of done so well in the mountains with 3+ feet of new snow in spots. Late Friday, the DOT closed I-70 so I made the right choice....see mom, I do make smart choices every once in awhile. Also, I spoke with someone at the race who drove a Winnebago over the passes earlier on Friday, and at one point he looked in the rear view to see a semi coming at him sideways....that'll make ya pucker up! Luckily it was empty and didn't cause too much damage to anyone. Ok, so back to the race, I raced cat 2 (good thing about not having a USAC license the last few years) so my race was super short....I think 1:11 something, which was good enough for 2nd (41 sec off first). Overall I was happy with how I raced considering it was so dang short. My ave HR for the race was 185 which tells me I was goin' hard.

Part of the XC course from pre-riding on Sat.

More of the course

After the race I still felt like getting a bit more riding in, so I cruised on up to 18 road and rolled a few laps on kessel run. It had been awhile since I'd ridden there, but as expected, it didn't disappoint.

Carvin' some berms

When I finished, I rolled back to my car to find a flat tire...crap...no biggie, I've got a spare....take 15 min MAX to change. Although I quickly ran into a snag - the wheel had a security lug on it and the previous owner (I've had the car for less than a month) didn't include the key in the tool kit.....crap. So now I have a perfectly good spare, but no way of getting the flat off. Well, after 30 min of attempting the "farmer method" of jamming all of my misc bike tools in to see if I can bust it loose I saddled back up and rode into town.....15ish miles into town, after already riding/racing all day. Well, it was after 5 on a Sunday...in Fruita...not much open. So, I picked up a bunch of fix-a-flat and rode back out the the car, temp patched it, and filled it full of fix-a-flat. I limped it back to town, put some more air in it an then limped all the way to Glenwood Springs to the nearest VW dealer. When they opened in the morning I had them take off all the stupid security nuts and I was home free. I finally made it back home at about 2 PM on Monday. Not quite what I had planned but, hey - whatever.

Unofficial use # 347 for an Ergon BD2 - carying large amounts of Fix-a-flat and tire patches comfortably

Last night was week number 2 for the New Belgium STXC series. I raced the open and did..... so-so....only racing for 30 min is not fun....I can tell it's helping with my power, but I still prefer to race all day. Hop on over to the Group Ride site for some pics and vids.

I think some night riding is in order this evening...

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