Dry in Draper

The dry Utah Cross series came to an end yesterday. I had exactly one race in the wet and cold. I'm not sure how I feel about that. The old guy in me kind of liked not being cold and no bike cleanup (I haven't washed my cross bikes in more than 3 weeks). However, the cross racer in me missed the technical and mental challenge of adverse conditions. We'll see what Mother Nature has to offer in Kansas next week. It could be anything.

Pretty good day at the races for us yesterday. My race was typical for this season. I was off to a good start, hung in the lead group of 4 for the first lap, got gaped and couldn't get back, then hang on for 5th. I went hard and was satisfied with the result. Our group was much faster this year. It was good to see Bo Pitkin and Rich move up from the B's. Bo put the hurt on me and finished just ahead of me, while Rich was coming up to me on the last few laps and made me dig deeper than I wanted.

Tanner animated the B race again but got worked over by 3 Cyclesmith guys, again. Tanner was in a no win situation. If he didn't set the pace, one attacked and he would have to chase. So, he decided to dictate the pace for nearly the entire race in an attempt to get rid of them. Unfortunately, they hung on and all three got around him on the finishing hill. That's racing.

Here's a couple pictures of T on the front.





This is evidence that I was actually ahead of Matt on the first lap.

The run-up completely blew me up every lap. (A quick aside. Craig Kidd, ahead of me in this picture, from Idaho can go downhill REALLY fast on a cross bike. I was on his wheel a couple of times on the technical descent and he was impressive.)

I finally got around to downloading pictures from last week's race at Wheeler. Here's some of Tanner.

Tanner getting ready to head out for a Thanksgiving ride.

Our Kansas grand adventure starts Tuesday. Rico was collecting bikes yesterday. There's a lot to do before we leave, but I'm excited to go. I'm much healthier this year and looking forward to mixing it up in a big field. I'll post some updates through out the week.