Kings Valley Race

Daren I am glad to hear you are recovering after your race. Sutt have fun with that one. The divide is a brutal climb. If I did what I did in my race on Saturday I would barely be making it up the hill.

I wanted to give you an update on the race in Kings Valley. I got a little nervous on Friday because it was pouring rain. But race time it stopped raining, but was a little chilly. The guy giving the rules before the race said that we had the maximum number of riders allowed to race on the road in the state of Oregon - I think just over 80 riders. Needless to say it was a huge group. A lot of the race felt like we were sardines packed together in a small single lane road.

The course is a 19.1 mile loop and the cat 4/5's did 2 and 3/4 of a lap for a total of 56 miles. The course has many hills, none to long, but still steep. The first lap had some people trying to break-off. I got in with a group of 8, but two of the guys didn't know what they were doing and slowed us down. The second lap we just cruised along with not much action. In the final lap we took off and started pounding it. It was pretty fast! I was trying to hang out in the front, but with so many people it was hard to move around in the group. We did drop about half the group on the windy flats. The finish is an uphill steep climb, which we dropped another large amount of riders. Before the final climb someone in front of me slipped a peddle and I had to stand up and move quickly to keep up with the pace. Right after this my quad's cramped up and my left calf. It hurt pretty bad, I have never hurt that bad before. But I tried to gut out the final hill and finished 15th. The race took 2:26 with all the hills that was a pretty quick pace. I felt that I tried my best and I had fun doing it. There isn't another race for two weeks, so I will keep you posted.

Good luck on the riding!

Bubba