Clifford Park, EFTA # 3

6/24/08

Headed out to Maine to do Clifford Park EFTA # 3 on Saturday for the pre-ride, great course! Just an old time New England setup that is well known for its technical setup. It contains a lot of rocks, ledge, roots along with off camber and just some other insane sections. If you can manage to ride through those crazy ones without touching down it makes you smile.

Oh yeah, $500.00 purse, race promoter Pat is a kick a** dude. :) http://www.cascobaysports.com/

We had a tough Elite/Pro class show up Matt, Drew, Jon, Paul, Chris, Todd, Skip and Chris.
Started out and just hung with the guys as they hammered up the road and passed a couple of guys as we entered single track, rode with Paul and John for bit then made way by as spots opened up in order to go after Matt and Drew.

Hammered along with Drew and passed at a left turn that had a hidden line found the day before while pre-riding, and chased after Matt from there. Got by Matt in a new single track section on second lap and just rode hard trying to make time knowing that traffic would soon be an issue.
Lap three I was working along at a decent but “don’t kill yourself” pace when I heard someone yell for Drew behind me, dumb ass mikey looked back and fell on left side hard. Bars twisted no time to fix just got up and rode with Drew whom had caught up after that brainiac stunt of mine.
We fought through traffic together and after falling again in the same spot on lap four I just got angry and started moving and getting some riders between us before the last climb and open section.

Tactic worked and the people between us held Drew where I wanted him to stay, attacked at the right place also felt stronger at the end, odd.

Great race with Drew, Matt and everyone else, can’t wait to get to Moody Park next week!

Channel 3 country camp Root 66 xc

Channel 3 race is part of the http://root66raceseries.com/ and was a great course this season, just a bit of everything from flat and fast to tight and techy then short and steep climbs just in case you were getting bored. Never stopped pedaling for long on that one and if you did it was usually just to pick up the bike and run up/over something.
Temp was brutal, in the nineties when starting at 2pm so I wore the camelback and pre-hydrated much as possible night before/day of.
Great crew to race against, point leaders Thom Parsons and Aaron Oakes were there along with Mike Joos, Greg Carpenter, John Foley, Nathan, Matt....the list was fast!

Took off at the start and just worked on staying with the pack, even in the heat my old legs take a while to warm up. Thom, Greg and a few others already had a gap at the first big log hop/run over and from there I started to move by a rider or two also.
We hit the first open road section and a few more spots became available as I was warming up quicker than usual due to the temp. Knew Matt O'keefe was having some problems as I passed him on the second climb and as we hit the the top I got the the chills, started drinking my GU 2/0 like a fiend and they passed. Kept drinking steady the next four laps after that, and chills did not return.
Moved into third next lap behind Greg and John, Greg flatted soon after that, John and I rode by knowing he could catch up easily if the repair went well so we picked it up bit. Rode together for most of the lap until I got over the rock/log on the new tight climbing section by just brute force and using chainring for traction. Made a bit of a gap and figured I should attack in case the blow up of legs occur.
Just rode hard rest of race and felt very good as I crossed the line, have not won a pro race in a bit so that was cool.
Nathan Rinquist was second followed by John Foley, Mike Joos and Mike Bartlett. Both Aaron and Thom had bike problems and had to dnf. Got some great thunderstorms afterwards that cooled things off but ended podium photography, check out http://mikejoos.blogspot.com/ he has an interesting sketch on his page.

EFTA # 2, Coyote Hill and more catching up.

EFTA # 2 was interesting this weekend, started off and watched the pack ride away and out of sight. Hour later my legs warmed up so I started riding hard just a tad late for this one, timing and warming up are key this season more than ever.
Still wound up third as some others had issues with course speed and tech sections so no complaints.
Course was fast and open with some tight twisty track thrown in as well, very fast and exactly the type I needed the work on.

Sponsors of this event www.cycleloft.com and http://www.mmfc.org/ medical missions for children, all profits went back to that organization.

Week before was Coyote Hill and another late warm up caused some issues, I was in a pack of riders a few behind Thom Parsons and he escaped just in time. He rode out of site once free of the restraint, that motivated me to work through the tight pack/single track. Only problem was that as I attacked and passed the last rider my focus was to determined on getting by and not paying attention to the ninety degree turn that had to be made.
I took out him, myself and a few from behind ran me over also, too eager first lap huh? Spent six seven minutes fixing the bike after that fiasco so it was just a catch who I could from there. Great workout, wound up fifteenth, thank you Jamie for being so cool about the little take down.

I'll start posting again daily, timing is everything.

Next MRI is 6/17 and all will be well, got the 29er how can anything go wrong? :)