Coroner Canyon

As I mentioned before, the race this week was rained out Monday and postponed to a Wednesday night race. Everyone knows Wednesday nights are for short training races, and it was hard to escape this mentality even after lining up with about 15 other pros.

Racing right after work is a hard transition, and we all felt it. Bart spends all day on his feet, working with patients. I spend all day on my, well, anyway, talking with people, in meetings, etc. Sounds restful, but it isn't. Additionally, I hadn't slept well Tuesday night so I felt unusually drained.

The race started fast, as any short race does, and I didn't have the top-end to keep up. I was off the back in about 5 minutes. Or, I thought I was, but then Bp came up behind me. "OH NO!" I said. "Did you drop your chain or something?" "No. My helmet is loose. What is your excuse?" I had no excuse either.

So Bp went by and I followed him up the climb for the next 20 minutes. We did catch and pass one or two riders higher up on that first climb. At one point I think Bp was about 15s ahead, but I caught back up by the top of Clarks and he let me lead the DH.

Mysteriously, I didn't ride the DH very well. I just wasn't "on". I expected the trail to be very fast and tacky, but it was kinda wet-hard with tiny BB's on the surface and it was a bit sketchy. Looking back at some training times, my race DH was not better than a typical recreational ride.

At the bottom of the DH several things happened, not all of which were clear to me. We caught Alex G, who had flatted, just as he was getting going again. He promptly rode away. I caught someone in red whom would I follow through the rollers, and we also passed another guy at the bottom of Clarks. Meanwhile, Bp gave up the ghost in the rollers and decided he'd had his fun for the night.

I passed red guy crossing Mike Weir, and promptly gave the position back when I superman'd at the top of the Golf course. I wasn't seriously hurt, mostly road rash and some hand pain.

So I caught back up to red guy, and we caught some other guy on the traverse at the bottom.

I passed both of them at the end of lap one, and as I finished the first half of the race at the 50 minutes mark I was reminded that this was not going to be a super-short race. 1:40 isn't long, but it isn't short either.

Lap 2 I felt a bit better and actually did the climb about 40 seconds faster than lap one. I passed Shannon, at least one other guy, and caught up to Blake. My second lap DH was even slower than lap 1, and I lost a little time to BZ, but the lapping traffic got thick and I was feeling pretty good and Blake let me go by after I'd followed him a minute. I crashed lapping someone, but BZ didn't go by and we basically rode together to the finish, hoping to catch Quin B, but he was about 45 seconds up and we never got him. I and everyone else lost quite a bit of time behind slow traffic on lap 2.

Near the end I was far enough ahead of BZ that I didn't think he'd come by, but he sprinted past on the line and pushed me back one spot, into 8th. Interestingly, my lap times for both 1 and 2 were exactly the same, to the second.

Reed raced expert and had a good race, finishing 4th. Scott and Ian both raced. Scott had a good race, and Ian rode well despite a completely flat front tire that we aired up near the end of his two laps.

In a way, my 8th place was better than 7th anyway. This year Ed has been choosing a lucky number and if you finish in that position you get a prize, and the lucky number was 8, for which I scored a nice Kuhl beenie hat that will be great in the winter.