Monday, April 03, 2006

Chola Challenge Race Report

Fortunately, on Friday night Eva decided she would sleep in the hotel room, Saturday night was another story. Rosie decided she had been to enough windy mountain bike races so she and Eva hung out at the pool. I drove out to the venue to find absolutely perfect dirt conditions. It seemed to be a good crowd at the race despite the $50 festival fee. What's with the abundance of XL T-shirts? If I am ever a race promoter I will order 20% small, 30% Medium, 40% Large, and 10% XL, I think this better represents the racing crowd. I have yet to see anything but XL's left over and have a closet full of night shirts for my wife. I took off on a partial warm up lap to test my worn out Michelin treads, glad I did because the first rocky downhill I sprung a small leak through a torn-off knob, I scrambled to ride the rim back and get a new Michelin XCR dry mounted up with sealant, good thing the boys from Revolution brought a compressor. I normally wrench on my own bike but on occasion Ryan at revolution does my tinkering.



















Chucky Gibson was still having some issues with his ankle so I taped it up before the race, I guess my tape skills need some work as he only made it 2 laps before the ankle was killing him.
I figured with the good dirt conditions and moderate south wind the course would be fairly fast and I should be able to do it in just under 2 hours. 10 Pros lined up for 3 laps of the 11 mile course. I started fairly fast, it's good practice for the nationals and is in my blood as a crosser. I got a little gap on the parade loop and just settled into my own pace, I felt pretty good but not perfect. My sciatic nerve did well but my hip stiffened up after the race. The course was fun and despite the roughness I really enjoyed the responsiveness of the Raleigh hardtail. My calibrated internal odometer/speedometer was dead on today, I finished in a few minutes under 2 hours. I used 3 bottles of the new SHOT electrolyte drink from Cliff and really savored the apple flavor, also used 3 CLIFF SHOTS to round out my nutrition during the race.

This will be the last time I race this bike with the purple kit as my new Raleigh Factory Team bike and clothes are waiting for me at home. Any buyers?




















Saturday evening we went to Rococos for Rosies grandparents golden wedding anniversary, it's up by the airport with a great view of all the traffic in St. George. I hope Rosie will keep me for 50 years.

Sunday Rosie and I rolled out for a pavement/dirt ride while Rosie's grandma played with Eva, this was a treat as we don't get to ride together much right now, we need to get trailer. We rode over to the Bearclaw Poppy trail and experienced buffed singletrack, that place is like as skate park for mountain bikes, Rosie was "shredding the nar".



















We also did some exploring and ran into some washed out bridges from last years floods, I should have rode that telephone pool.















Eva drove us home and we made it in record time, safe and sound, thanks babe!

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