Sunday, June 29, 2008

DV National

We had a good day at Deer Valley yesterday. JoAnn took the day off and joined us for the fun. We raced at 8 am and we hung around to watch the Pro Women and Pro Men race. I was nice just hanging out in the mountains and sun all day.

The race went pretty good for me and not so good for Tanner. I finished 5th against a small field of fast out of towners. I rode as hard as I could and was faster than last year and was satisfied with my effort. I just can't climb with the super fast guys. I had kind of a strange crash. I was overtaking a slower guy on a fast single track section. He moved to the right to let me go, but got off the trail too far and endo'ed. His bike flipped up and my right hand and arm went into his rear wheel. I got a few cuts and was knocked to the ground. It took a few minutes to recover, but I was OK.

Tanner raced in a big field of juniors and had a good start. He was 4th, leading a chase group after the 1st long climb and descent. However, he washed out in a corner and went down pretty hard. Most of the field got around him and it took a while to get it back together. He came back to finish 9th. 5th through 9th was pretty close, so he likely would have made the podium without the crash.

The locals did well. Eric easily won the 30-34 class, Bob won the 40-45, Henniman won the 50-55 (he passed me even though I started 2 minutes ahead), ageless Noeker won the expert single speed and others had wins and podiums as well. In the pro's Alex Grant was a solid 11th.

It's always fun to watch the pro's go. They are just so much faster than us average Joe's. I did 3 laps in 2 hours and 3 minutes. Not super fast, but somewhere in the back-middle of the Expert times. Ryan Trebon won the pro XC in a tight race with Jeremiah Bishop and Kobush by doing FOUR laps in 2 hours and 8 minutes. Pretty cool. It's also fun to see the Pro's on the same course we race on.

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