winter park series race #2: mountain circuit

talk about late-a$$ start times...how's about 12:20? kenny suggested we upgrade our category to expert in order to race early and leave early. i wanted to defend my g.c. and win the schrader valve inner tube when the series is over, so i suggested we just chill and race our respective sport categories. i raced expert once in texas because i missed the sport start time. came in dead last. his suggestion brought up some painful memories. anyhoo, since we (we being kenny, his niece amber, and moi) were there ugly early we looked at some of the single-track we were going to encounter. it was gnarly. whoever picked the course must've had an evil streak. not really, it was quite an exquisite piece of single track. it contained: off camber uphill and downhill switchbacks, tree roots, super pointy, angular rocks, tree roots, berms, mud boggy sections, tree roots, super-tight single track, 800 or so feet of climbing per lap (we did two), tree roots, bridges, fire roads, altitude starting at 9K feet and getting close to 10K feet, and did i mention tree roots? it was awesome. the only complaint i had was a corner marshall zoning out and i missed a turn whereby two people passed me. the downhills were sick! i got passed twice on the downhills by hardtails, that's how skillful and fit my competition is (mens sport 40-44). there were about 40 or so in my class today and it began with an uphill start. just like last week, it's fast and i'm redlining 15 minutes into it. if i just hold on, i know the profile plateaus so i suck it up 'til then. the closest thing to describing it is like apex park's enchanted forest except ramped up to an expert's only terrain, stretched out over 8 (x2) miles. it was awesome. the only drag were people dabbing i.e. people who couldn't clean the uphill technical sections resulting in log jams (because we were drafting each other super close). i came in 13th, six seconds (in 13th place) slower than my homeboy and teammate kenny who raced it on his all-mountain rig weighing close to thirty pounds. my overall g.c. remains unchanged at 5th overall. on the way back, i-70 eastbound was shutdown because a tractor trailer rig crashed near the hidden valley exit and fell onto a honda element. i called c-dot and they said in addition to the crash, that a flight for life helicopter was on its way. scary. if you look closely at the picture, right above the roofline of the sheriff's car you'll notice the upside down element with its wheels in the air. nutty huh?
the quote of the day was from my complicitor kenny who said on our way home, "jeez mike did you smell that mud? that was some stinky ass mud!" to be honest, i didn't notice that stinky mud, but it did get all over my kit and my beautiful yeti. yessir, i noticed that...