It's the bike, stupid

Sometimes a little laziness cancels out a lot of effort.

Preparation for racing includes hours on the bike, entry fees, packing up the family, unpacking the family, etc. etc. People spend literally thousands of dollars to shave off 2.5 minutes from their race.

Saturday I showed up to Sundance feeling fine and ready to race. Oooooh, check tire pressure? Too much work. Carry CO2, tube, and lever? Uncomfortable in the jersey. Besides, when was my last flat in a race? It was like 20 I-Cup races ago and Sundance isn't rough like 5 Mile.

It was a great day for a race, and everyone started really, really fast. Guess they all wanted the single-track. Part way into lap 1 I broke a spoke in the rear wheel. I could hear the clinking, but I couldn't see it. Anyway, it didn't matter.

During lap 2 I was feeling good and was descending a lot better than last week. I had put a nice gap into Art OConner when my bike suddenly got really loose on braking. The front tire was down to about 10 psi or something (Stans plugged whatever was leaking).

At that point I figured I was out of the race, but I coasted down to the bottom and rode back to the start-finish. Some guy ran to his car and saved me with a floor-pump. I was back in the race, and surprisingly only lost a little more than 2 minutes, but I never quite caught Art again.

At least I didn't have to worry about loosing points to Chad.