Sunday, August 24, 2008

Fort Rock Revenge EFTA # 8

Doing some things the other day on the pc and realized that I haven’t updated this or the Gary Fisher page in over a month! Racing/riding/recovery has run my life a bit this season, been fun and i'll enjoy that before sliding back into real world.
After Mt Snow I did not do much for two full weeks, let that course get to me for no good reason at all. Got over it and started riding again in order to prep for the Fort Rock Revenge EFTA event in NH on 8/3/08.

Fort Rock can be brutal in many aspects, fast sections are plentiful, yet there is more climbing than you realize and it’s so rough overall that you wonder where your hands are at the end. They usually start to go numb second lap from the beating taken in some of the stone infested single track!
Started out fast chasing Matt O’Keefe along with Matt Boobar, O’Keefe took off and was flying even after a horrific crash, as we caught him he just picked up the bike and took off again. That made me a bit nervous as this was ten minutes into a long event and we’re already racing flat out.
Speaking of flats Matt Boobar was out with one halfway through lap one and it was a chase the leader race for two and a half hours. I made up some time and was within a minute going into the last when a root/rock caught my front wheel and I slammed body/head into the ground.
Things did not make sense for a while after that but just kept going and stayed in second crossing the line. No excuse, Matt was pulling away regardless, he had an awesome race. This course did make me realize that full suspension is needed badly for a few select races next season.
Great course, but man did I go home with a headache, and I thought with only half a brain that wouldn’t happen anymore. J

Results:
ELITE MEN PM
1 12 MATTHEW OKEEFE 2:32:44 200
2 7 MICHAEL PATRICK 2:35:59 190
3 8 JON BERNHARD 2:48:38 178
4 4 PAUL SIMOES 2:49:56 164
5 9 TOM SAMPSON 2:56:01 148
6 2 BOB LESMERISES 2:58:43 130
7 6 CHRIS GAGNON 3:04:17 110