Cholla Challenge

Yesterday was the second Intermountain Cup race, and my first since I was sick for St. George. My training was really going well before St. George, so I'd been looking forward to racing. The last month has been more difficult between bad weather, sickness, and work, but I've still gotten some fine riding in and figured I would do all right.

Then along came Friday and the weather was looking...bad.

After some waffling we decided to skip camping and get a hotel, and take our chances on whether the weather would be nice for racing on Saturday. With that resolved, my other issue was getting my bike together. I've been trying to get to it for a week but hadn't been able to find the time. As a result, we arrived in Hurricane too late for a Friday pre-ride, but I did get the bike together.

We passed through several snow storms on the way down. The roads at the race course were muddy and the weather didn't look particularly encouraging when we arrived.

Happily, Saturday morning was a bluebird day and by the time the kids lined up it was warm and nice. The soil there is sandy and usually very dry. The rains made it perfect.

We parked next to Dave and Lynda. It was nice hanging with them and the kids had a great time playing together. Lynda's son Wes won the 9 and under class handily.

Scott and Ian also raced.

As for my race, it was all about Mona Vie-Cannondale. With Bart, Alex, Brian Alders, and Jeremiah Bishop, it was a stacked field. They were probably all tired from their training camp spanning this past week since last week's national, but it didn't make any difference - they were fast and dropped everyone else first lap.

Bishop flatted and I passed him while he was fixing it. Later in the lap I heard someone behind me making audible loud 'pushing' noises, and he came flying by. I briefly thought to jump on his wheel and it was too late before I even made the attempt. One problem with Stan's it is takes a long time to repair a flat, and Bishop never quite caught back up to the lead group.

I had a fine race and enjoyed the new bike. The rear tire went flat in the warm-up. I knew this might happen because I hadn't done any rides on the new Stans job yet, so I'd come prepared. I put in a tube and it was fine.

I've never like the Cholla course, but this year was different. The laps were shorter so more of the time was spent in the hills on single-track rather than just riding around in the flats. The rain packed all the sandy sections down, so they were fast and fun.

My only real complaint had nothing to do with the course...I spent the whole time by myself. About 15 minutes into the race I'd been passed by all the faster guys, and I only caught one of them. Except Bishop with his flat, no one passed me either. It was basically a 2 hr time-trial. We were lapping people by the end of lap 1, so we did have people to pass most of the race. I ended up about 10th, although I didn't bother counting out the tags on the results board. Honestly, I was a bit discouraged to feel pretty good and still end up 10 minutes behind the lead group. Dave pointed out the guys in the front group were working together pretty well, while we were all strung out by ourselves, fighting the wind in the flats. It was a good point - maybe that would have helped us loose less time in the flats.

In the women's pro field, Lynda killed them.

After the race, Kim went for a run. It was a beautiful day, and nice to be outside.