Photos

Two of Dana's photos from Saturday. Gotta say, I think she should be the official series photographer. Her shots are great and she moves around the course to get different perspectives. Dana's shots really capture the spirit of the events and she posts monster resolution, non-watermarked files for FREE! Go Dana!
Check them out here.

MNSCS#10, Jail Trail

Season finale in St. Cloud. It was a weird race for me, as I really didn't have much to race for points-wise, and I pretty much just came to ride.

Race starts and I get my best jump off the line of the year. I was where I wanted to be towards the end of the prologue, but soon realized it didn't matter as there was a waiting line to go into the singletrack. We came back through the start/finish to start the first lap, and Jamison was right behind me. My goal was to pace him into the singletrack and let him get around me. He went by and I let off the gas a bit to recover.

I was riding much better than I had the week before when we came to preride, but it didn't matter as several singlespeeders and a few others wouldn't yield the trail. Pretty much the rest of my race consisted of being stuck behind someone in the singletrack, working like a dog to pass them in the doubletrack only to get stuck behind the next guy. I'd have paid an extra $32 for one big, nasty climb just to have a place to drop some people. Flat and twisty is not my thing.

Last lap I'm still feeling pretty good, but in the expert section a guy goes down right in front of me and jams me up. 5 guys go around us and I'm screwed. (Not blaming the dude, it's a super tight corner with a handlebar width to fit through, I didn't make it the first time through either.) I fly as fast as I can through the final loop and try to finish strong. I can hear someone right on me so I gun it. I took a corner way too hot but somehow pulled it back before nailing a tree, and got a "Nice save!" from the guy behind me. I was able to hold him off at the finish, but it really didn't matter. 15th place. 8 places separated by 30 seconds (traffic jams killed me). Jamison had a nice race, I think he got 6th.

So, I think I'll end up 5th overall for the second year in a row. Congrats to Brian and Jason for killing us all year and to Kevin for coming on strong at the end. Despite just missing out on my goal of top 3, it was a fun year. Looking forward to 2008.

Shanghaied

Top design is mine (view of 2 one-liter boots + insert), bottom is a recently-discovered Chinese knock-off in a 2-liter size. Nice.

Theo Wirth

Rode Theo Wirth yesterday for the first time. It's definitely a single-speeder's course. No climbing and nothing really technical (at least on the "A" loop, I didn't hit the "B" loop). There's a rock section (photo above from MORC) and a few other little rocks and log piles, but it's mostly tight, twisty singletrack. It's fast and pretty fun. If I lived closer I'd probably ride it more, but if I'm going to drive somewhere to ride (which I have to do no matter what) I think I'd probably go to Leb, Battle Creek or Elk River instead. If you need a place to go crank out laps and work on cornering (my main reason for checking it out, based on Jamison's advice), or don't have time to drive to one of the "destination" trails in the Metro, Wirth is good place to get a quick ride in. MORC did a nice job, as usual.

B to the ONK

Rode from Woodbury, through Afton to Prescott, back to Battle Creek and Woodbury. 50 miles. Felt great climbing the Coulee, then started feeling bad. From Prescott the rest of the way back I was in major crisis mode. I just had no energy whatsoever. I could spin and for some reason I could still pace on the climbs but I had no acceleration or tempo. I felt decent at Lebanon Hills on Saturday (other than bouncing off the rocks), so who knows. It turned into a death march for me. I inhaled a Clif Bar and bottle of Endurox in about 30 seconds once I got back to the car, so I'm going to chalk it up to not eating enough. Two chicken mole enchilladas, beans, mountain of ice cream and liters of water later, I feel better. We'll see how this week's rides progress.

Bees

Racing is hard enough without being attacked by bees. Left ankle is so swollen I can't bend it. Right one is gaining on it. Lot's of people got stung, some of us multiple times. I've got several. They must like the taste of Accelerade and PowerGel. Ray Nickles got nailed. Check out the Mickey Mouse hand here.

MNSCS#9, Laddie's Loppet

Most technical course in the series, hands down. Top and bottom photos are from the infamous "Lakeside Drops". It doesn't look like much from a photo, but it's about a 12-15 foot drop that goes straight down to the edge of the lake and takes a 90 degree left. If you manage to not go over the bars before the bottom, you've still got to make that turn or you go into the drink. Naturally, it's the number one spectator spot on the course. The vultures are out in full-force, waiting for the endo. Personally, I think this is the easiest drop on the whole course. It gets a whole lot scarier back in the woods, with steep, twisty drops between trees and over roots and rocks. Fortunately I made it through the paparazzi both laps. I didn't fare so well on some of the other sections. I went sailing over the bars once but managed to grab a tree to keep from killing myself. I spun out on a couple of technical climbs and I got off and ran 2 incredibly technical drops on the backside of the course both laps. There are no style points, so I'd rather run instead of crash.

It's a tough course, did I mention that? Guys were flying, falling and flailing everywhere. I finally got into as much of a groove as I could and got a gap. The lead group was gone, but I didn't have anyone right on my ass, so I could relax a bit on tactics and focus more on riding. It seemed to help as my second lap was much better. I cleared pretty much everything I tried to ride and knew where I was better off doing some cyclocross. I had some issues with my pedals, which cost me some time but at this point the podium was gone anyway. Somebody must have kicked up a beehive, because I got stung at least three times on both legs. Feeling the burn had a whole new meaning. It actually woke me up a bit. I let one guy pass since I knew I'd hold him up but other than that, I held my ground. I was able to finish strong and somehow wound up 5th.

Not bad considering how poorly I felt and rode the day before. I was 90% sure I was going to drive back home on Saturday, I just wasn't feeling it. I got maybe an hour or two of very interrupted sleep in the tent on Saturday night. To make matters worse, there was a power outage in the buildings and the Xcel Energy trucks were out digging and working in the campground at 4:00am. The only reason I even lined up was because I had already paid for it. My plan was to stay upright on Lap 1 and see if I had anything in the tank for Lap 2. Adrenaline is a powerful drug. One race to go, and since Kevin won today, I'm now in 4th. If Ryan shows up at St. Cloud, I'm pretty much looking at 5th for the season. Oh well.

Kudos to the Richards family and Maplelag Resort for the best event of the season. The course is masochistic, but the hospitality is unbeatable. Getting a call-up to the starting line was pretty sweet, too. Thanks to Skinnyski.com for the photos. That otb shot is an instant classic. Glad it wasn't me getting posterized.