SLR and I rolled down to Portland, OR on Friday night and met up with our good friend Mags from MU. She generously served as our host for the weekend showing us around Stumptown and joining us on the journey to Blodgett for the race. On Saturday, we stopped in at a sweet bike shop in Portland that fabricates the most beautiful wooden bike fenders I have ever seen. My mind quickly was processing what kind of bike I could build around those fenders.
Race day was Sunday morning. We got a little lost on our way to the little town due to a lack of adequate directions in the race information. We arrived at Blodgett Elementary where the cars with roof racks lined both sides of the road and we were relegated to parking on a fire road a good distance from the registration area. The number of cars was indicative of the number of racers in the field, many.
The race started with a 2-mile neutral rollout to the base of the first climb. Once there we staged for the start and I was stuck mid-pack. Despite my poor start position, I quickly started passing riders on the steep stair-step climb. The course just kept going up and I just kept passing riders. As it turns out, the race had no shortage of climbing, somewhere between 4000 and 4800 feet of vertical gain depending on who you talk to.
After slogging up the climbs and sliding down the slippery descents, I came through after the first lap in 4th place. I should have ran fenders on my bike because the Mudslinger was living up to its name. SLR and Mags cheered me on and gave me a fresh bottle as I started the climb again and with their encouragement I focused on catching more racers. About a mile into the climb, the skies opened up, first with rain, then with hail. The conditions motivated me even more to charge up the climb. I caught up to the third place rider and quickly moved by before he could muster a counter attack. Again, I descended slow and steady in the mud because I couldn't see and I was doing my best to keep the bike upright.
I dropped onto the road back to the finish line, put it in the big ring, and hammered as hard as I could. I passed the second place rider like he was in the granny. I crested the final climb to the cheers of SLR and Mags. I rolled across the line as the second expert overall in about 2:40. I'm considering it a win, because the winner of the expert category beat the entire semi-pro field and half the pro field in the process. I think I could have shaved some serious time off if I had run some fenders and could see the trail when heading downhill. Hindsight!
Charging to the finish (note the fresh coat of mud on my face):
There was some mud out there:
On the Box:
Bring on Sea Otter because I'm ready to thrown down. Hopefully, there is enough climbing that I can put the hurt on some guys.
Later,
Blue Star
1 comment:
Congrats from the old folks, adios from Vegas
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