Powder Monkey/Gluek RR
I headed into MNSCS#8 in virtual 2nd place. At the gun Horner and Melhus took off. I didn't redline it, but made sure I got as far up as I could before the singletrack. This course is brutal as there really are no flat parts. You're either climbing up short technical rocky sections, negotiating tight downhill curves, bombing down bumpy grassy ski hill, or making the long climb back up Spirit Mountain. The long climb seems to be the easy part here. After lap 1 I was in about 5th place. There was only one rider right behind me, and we made our way through the technical singletrack up top. Somehow, I got bounced off a rock to the left of the trail. My bar end snagged a tree and I ended up getting clotheslined. My throat had a nice bloody scrape and my right knee and thigh smacked into the rocks on impact. I cleared the cobwebs, got back on and made about 2 pedal strokes when I heard all the air come out of my rear tire. Stupidly, I relied on the previously bulletproof tubeless tires and didn't have a tube or CO2 with me. Game over. Matt was on fire and I wouldn't have caught him anyway. Hopefully I can get him at Laddie's this weekend.

Gluek Road Race went about as well. We had 6 guys total for the Cat 3/4 race, and our gameplan was to work for Matt, who is on the verge of winning Rider of the Year for Cat 4. Lap 1 I attacked before turn 2. It didn't stick and I was reeled in immediately. Andy took off right after that and was soon caught. Another Birchwood rider attacked after the start/finish area on Lap 2 and stayed out for a while. The peloton let him dangle and soon caught him (I was too far back to tell who it was). I was on the back going into the climb, but made my way up front at the base of the hill and attacked. I was able to string out the field and Matt and James went by at the top with a couple of other riders. It looked like I gave them a good gap, but it eventually came back together. I got dropped soon after that, and instead of being smart and DNF'ing, I finished the last two laps solo. Just like at Plainview, a giant hay wagon was blocking the entire road, which forced me and 2 other riders to stop and wait. I caught a guy on the hill on the last lap, and we traded pulls to the finish. I stood up to sprint and dropped my chain. I coasted to the finish to come in DFL. Sweet. 3 teammates who started the race with me where there in street clothes to greet me.

Welch Village
It was a pretty muggy morning on race day. That coupled with a nasty intestinal bug made for a pleasant time. I warmed up for about 40 minutes, but couldn't really eat anything solid without fear of getting sick. So, I gulped down an energy gel and lined up for the start. We were doing a prologue and then 2 full laps which would include a new surprise.

This course runs right up a climb from the start, into some singletrack and out into another climb. I made sure I was in the top 10 before the singletrack and held my position up the next climb and into the singletrack up top. We made our way back down the switchbacks and began lap 2. I was beginning to burn out a bit from not eating anything. Still, I held my position and made sure nobody passed me. After the second singletrack section instead of running us right into the next singletrack, they routed us down to the wall climb. It was basically straight up for a few hundred yards. I prerode the course on Saturday with some other guys, and we did this climb thinking it wouldn't be in the Sport race, but we were wrong. I was able to grind it out, passing those who were walking up and entered the next section of singletrack with enough of a gap to recover a bit.

Final lap I began to feel a little better. I tried to maintain a steady pace on the climbs and tried to stay off the brakes in the singletrack. Coming up the wall climb I was able to pass several riders and also hold off Sean (see photo) for the time being. We leapfrogged each other through the next few miles. On the final climb out of the woods I was able to give it a little more gas and passed Sean again. I rode as hard as I could to the final downhill switchbacks, trying to hold him off. He was right behind me going into the downhill, so I went faster than I normally would have, being careful in the corners. I ended up about 20 seconds in front of him, which was good enough for 4th place on the day. Not bad considering I had almost decided not to race at all the way I was feeling beforehand.

Next week is Spirit Mountain, which should be brutal. I think I'm in second place overall now, so hopefully I can have a couple more good finishes and make top 3 at the end of the season.

Photo by skinnyski.com

North Shore
Spent a couple of days camping at Cascade State Park and 3 days at a condo near Hovland, right on Lake Superior.

The first night of camping was probably the tipping point in my campaign to have "Murphy's Law" officially renamed in my honor. We pull into our campsite and (I am not making this up) it starts pouring the exact moment I open the car door. With no sign of a letup I set up the tent in the rain. So instead of sitting around getting soaked, we went to Grand Marais for dinner. It stopped raining for a while, but everything was soaked, so the campfire was not happening and we hit the hay early. That night there were some serious storms. Lots of lightning and the thunder would reverberate up and down the shore, making the ground rumble beneath our sleeping bags.

More to come later.

The photo of Zoe was taken at the mouth of the Cascade River (Lake Superior in background).
The other photo is of Grand Marais harbor at sunset.