I'm still no cross-country racer, but I am two for two in the good times department at XC events this year. Fourth today at Swanson and three cats flying War Axe colors in the top five.
After clowning around in the front row waiting for the race to start, the start actually caught a few of us off-guard as we rolled through some of the cyclocross cross to string things out prior to the single track. This time I was sitting around sixth heading into the trails and, considering this was only the second time I had ridden Swanson, I just decided to keep the diesel chugging away.
It was only moments before I realized Brandon Minks and I were together, repeating where we found ourselves during the Musket Loader last month. Throughout the race, I would say, "Brandon, is that still you?" and it always was.
Unfortunately for Brandon, he couldn't keep his bottles on his bike. He lost one on the second climb of the day, then another later on. We kept seeing the first on the climb, but it wasn't really a great place to stop, so B just kept at it.
The course itself was a lot of fun. Roots. Sweeping turns to burn. Power climbs. All the stuff you love. The one portion of the course that did give me problems was the curving lefthand turn across a small creek bed. The far side was a root strewn power up, which I couldn't seem to clean. The last time up, I had to hop off, forcing B to do the same. As we remounted, a rider tried to pass us, giving me an "on your left" when he was nearly beside me. With only a ribbon of trail below us and a tree on my right, I had nowhere to go. I braced myself and unfortunately, the rider clipped me and went down. I hadn't realized he'd gone down though and started talking to the rider behind me, but again it was Brandon so the kept on pushing.
Brandon also got to experience a little bit of the edge that I carry during events. As we powered through the first climb on our last lap, I hit a tree rather hard. Luckily, the thing bent pretty far and I pulled a pseudo track stand to keep riding. Brandon asked me if I was okay and for some reason I responded, "Fuck that tree!!" in a not so friendly tone (as if it was the trees fault). B tried to calm me down a little (thanks, B) but we soon hit the dip mentioned above and that took care of it.
In short, Brandon and I just rolled it start to finish. Apparently though, we need to work on our podium protocol, since we stood in the wrong spots.
Added to the good times was a post-race Mexican seista with
Nate,
MOD, Anne, AlterNate and Sam. We've also got a new flavor of Tiger Gatorade freshly mixed if anyone is interested.
Single Speed PodiumL to R. Me, Sam, Josh Beasley, T-Bone, B. Minks.