Monday, March 03, 2008

Fun in the Sun

The racing in St. George this weekend was a good time. The weather was outstanding, 70+ and sunshine. It's hard not to have a good time in weather like that. We got in Friday afternoon and did some pre-riding. There were a bunch of people out riding the course and the turnout Saturday was very good.

Tanner turns 16 this year so he moved to the 16 - 18 sport/expert group. He was excited to see how he'd do with his improved fitness. He got off to a good start and pulled away from the other 5 racers to easily win. It was his first "legitimate" MTB win and he was stoked. He was over 30 minutes faster than last year and only a few minutes off my 2 lap time (he did two laps and I did three). Pretty cool.

The 40+ expert was a good group with lots of new guys. The good news is I was 3 minutes faster than my winning time last year. The bad news is I was 4th this year. 6 of us got off the front early and three gaped me, http://stupidbike.blogspot.com (Bob) and Carl and we battled for the first lap before Carl took a spill on his borrowed $10,000 frame http://delta7sports.com/. He fortunately didn't damage the frame but didn't get back to us. Bob and I had a good battle the rest of the way and I managed to stay in front to the finish. For the first time ever, I didn't get passed by any single speed racers who start behind us. A good sign this early in the season. The desert courses are good for me and I'm looking forward to Hurricane.

The team faired well. Michelle won the women's expert while Dave and Eric held their own in a really good Pro field. Dave was riding a MTB for the second time in about 3 years and was in the top 10 most of the race. My friend Reed Topham, who joined us on the trip, was a solid 5th in the 40+ expert. He's been racing less than a year and has made great progress. Mike W also had a solid finish in the single speeds (get some gears!).

The drive home in the snow Saturday night was more exciting than I would have liked, but we make it OK. Here's some photo's from Zazoosh. I'll post more pictures later. I think the redesigned ktis this year look good with more red.







2 comments:

Bubba said...

Congrats to both of you! That is great to hear you are both doing well so early in the season.

Mike said...

Great job to both of you on the race! I need to get on your training program! It seems to be working!