Darkhorse UCI - 10/10

Dave Steiner and I made the trip down to the Cinci area for the triple UCI weekend. First stop was Burlington KY for the Darkhorse CX race. The course was very technical and super dry. Course Description is here.

We got there in time to do a couple of laps before the first race went off. Way better than Gary did... he arrived with Rick and Sadie for his race with 5 minutes to spare for signup... just enough to to register and jump into the start corrall. I tried to give him a heads up on the course... but it was an adventure for him. He did well finishing 8th.

Dave did the Cat 3 race next, had a pretty poor start, but raced well to get 19th out of about 35(I think)

I lined up for the Master's 1/2/3 race with 35 or so. I start on the fourth row... looked at my front wheel when I got the call up and realized I had rolled the Tufo tubie-clincher. Nice way to start my race. I got a nice start even so... and took the corners gingerly to get to the pits. A ladie was there who grabbed my spare wheel and helped me get the bike back together, and I went off in pursuit of some places. Of course, I totally screwed up the first technical turn after the pits and dropped myself on the ground... but then forced my self to relax or I wasn't going to get anywhere.

I probably should have just called it a race, and saved myself for the next two days. I felt good, and raced hard... but it seemed everytime I picked somone off, they would sit up and call it a race.

With 2 to go I had one guy in my sites. I decided I better treat this as the last lap... or it very well would be if I got caught by the leaders. I worked it trying to catch the guy, but he must have thought the same thing. Turns out he caught two more guys ahead of him, and I couldn't catch any of them. I did avoid getting lapped, I don't think I was even the last guy on the lead lap.

As I started the last lap, I looked at my rear tire, and noticed I had rolled that one too. So I pretty much just took it relatively easy around the corners to the finish. I still didn't understand why I couldn't close the gaps though until I also found my rear wheel was out of true enough to rub the brakes hard every lap....

It was very frustrating to mechanical on this race, but I didn't get lapped... I raced hard, and finished 28th our of 34 finishers... with 4 more DNFs.

We hung out to watch the elite races... Georgia Gould gave Kati Compton some competition in the women's race until 1 to go, when Katie took off. Then J-Pow, Barry Wicks, Jeramiah Bishop and Jonathon Baker animated the men's race. Powers eventually dropped everyone for the V. We though Shawn Adams was going to be the last guy caught, but Jeremy sat up to let Shawn cross the line to be last guy on the lead lap. Ernesto rocked the course from a back of the pack start to finish 20th on the day. No UCI points, but he did make some money since they paid to 25 deep. Rock on!

Plenty more racing this weekend though, so no time for dissapointment. I just went to eating and drinking to try to recover well for the Java Johnny race on Saturday.