Get Postin'

I did Fat Tire Fest last weekend, and while it was an excellently run race, I didn't perform quite like I wanted to. I pulled out the Podium for the hill climb on Saturday's hill climb to take second behind Shad Shriner the pro. That was a good feeling, but I probably gave too much. Sunday I chose to ride sport, as the single speed class was stacked with the most riders of any class. I rode the Top Fuel. Initially, I took out fast enough to lead all the sports, but couldn't hold them off very long. I let a couple of the 30-39 age group go by, and one of my age from K-State. I stayed on his wheel until the first technical section, some new stuff before tower hill, where he fobbled and I went around him. The race course has increased to 20 miles of hard single track. I pushed pretty hard, but just didn't seem to have very much energy.

I saw a great performance going down by Steve Dutton out on the course. He went on to have a better time than a ton of the sport class. I ended up second of the age group, but felt that I could and should have done much better. All in all a great weekend of camaraderie and riding. Great to see all the Great Bendites again.

The weekend before that I raced with a college com padre at the Bonebender up at Lake Clinton in Lawrence. I had never been to the trail before and really enjoyed riding the Top Fuel on the rocks and roots. I had some tire trouble and flatted two out of the three laps that I rode, but the first lap I did was fun. I posted a 55 minute lap time on that lap, which was around 10 minutes back from the leaders. Not too shabby on my first lap on a new trail. I feel that I could have done much better without having to change tires and dodge slow riders. One of the best parts of that race was having Lelan there to encourage and cheer the Emporia riders on. He was out with a recently broken collarbone, but decided to be a part of the race anyway.

Lelan took this photo as I was running up the final climb to finish my first lap.

The day before Bonebender, I travelled up to Lincoln, Nebraska for a collegiate road race. It was a 28 mile, two lap course around a lake. I was racing Cat 5 with the beginners and planned to go for the win. How oblivious to road racing am I? I followed every wheel that jumped and by lap two, I didn't have much left in the tank for the attacks. So, when there was a group of 15 that went across the dam (where there is no place to hide in a draft), I was caught out alone. I was then in a desperate attempt to catch them for the remainder of the lap, mostly headwind, and was unable to do so. There was a mechanical that took two out of the group, and two more were dropped that I caught. I ended up ninth, pushing clear till the end trying to catch anybody that sat up. So for beginners, road racers are no slouches. I took ninth out of 27.