StL MtB

I went over to the other side of Misery for my first straight up MTB race of the year this weekend. After a burner of a day at the bike shop it was a nice sigh to hop in the backseat with a couple of buddies, I got laugh, relax, and get ready to race. The course was at Linwood College outside of St. Charles somewhere. It was a fast course with little singletrack, but the trail that was part of the course was extremely fun. We started with a few miles down a dirt road, the expert field was 20 or so strong and we were kicking up a good pace along the gravel. You made a long steep plunge down to the start finish line and then went into the 9+ mile loop. Climbing up away from the finish line I moved to the front of the group and kept a steady pace into the first singletrack section. I got a little gap on Mike Best and a strong chase group just behind him, not really knowing what the course was like I just decided it was best to stick to the age old MTB adage, "when in doubt gas it." I continued grabbing a second here and there, and looked back a couple of times to see Mike Best was joined by one other chaser, Chris Ploch raging on a singlespeed. After the climb back up the hill to start lap 2 I looked once more and they had not made up ground on me, I was feeling pretty steady and just rode consistently until I got into lap three and started opening it up once again. At the finish line Mike was still real close I think within a minute and Chris had spun himself mad into 3rd place.

After the race we all sat around in the grass laughing and enjoying the beautiful weather. After the awards we went and ate at the Tavern in Defiance, MO. In another stroke of luck the waitress brought us a extra gonzo burger. It was a good day