NH100 2012

Official Results

Ah yes another year of trying to recap a race that has you just about clinically brain dead via lactic acid about halfway through.  These are always my favorite.  Trying to remember things in order is IMPOSSIBLE.  This year was pretty good for blog fodder.  No lack of adversity and somewhat hilarious incidents, lots of suspense and intrigue and a whole lot of chaffing.  So without further delay I give you a recap of events in no particular order:

I'll start on saturday with some race prep because some of my decisions on that day played a big role the next.  I had some time after doing some stuff around the house saturday to give a good once over to all my gear and make some last second tweaks to the ride.  I went over everything...grease, lube, topped of the Stan's, adjusted the brakes, put my little top tube mounted food carrier on there. GOOD TO GO.  I did not however check or tighten my cleats. *insert Price is Right Fail song* nevermind I'll actually do it, this is the 90's after all.

So after getting all that squared away I hit the road for Greenfield around 5pm or so to camp out down there to save myself some time in the morning.  The plan was to sleep in the Fit.  I had heard from a teammate (Dan Ward) that is was possible and that he had done it in his Fit to great effect.

I have to agree it worked fairly well

I got my race plate and swag (Red Logo on the pint glass this year) and cruised the scene a bit, putting out the 'vibe' and the what not.  Bumped into a few familiar faces and a whole lot of not familiar ones.  Most crowded I had ever seen the campground at this race and tons of RV's of folks who traveled pretty damn far to race.

this doesnt do it justice but there wasn't a good way to capture the whole thing with one pic

The setup and organization was crazy.  I was a little worried that the folks putting this on would struggle a bit with the added attention, etc. that comes with being a race in a pretty big national series.  They proved me wrong 110%.  Stuff was DIALED.  To a fairly ridiculous degree, I was very impressed. Congrats to all the players who made this happen, amazing job.

inflata-banner?! BIG TIME

OK enough of saturday...TO THE RACE!  Lots of hustle and bustle Sunday morning with 400+ racers getting ready for some serious suffering.  I was able to get some pics of the Men's 100mi Open start because they decided to start the 100K SSer's back in wave 5 with the Novices and Clydes again (Guys if by chance you are reading this, Please, Please, Please don't do that again.  We always start with the Experts in XC why not here?? I'd love to hear the reasoning behind the wave 5 choice...)

 Mens Open lineup (w/ Carl in the foreground)

Mens Start with none of the big boys up front...they must know something none of these guys do

Our wave went off maybe 5-10mins later.  They sent us a little bit farther around the track this year and our SS group (that was at least allowed to start on the front of the wave) was already catching the stragglers from the Sport wave before we even took the turn off the track.  The turn was lightly marked and lots of people took it upon themselves to turn well before the tape and I promptly lost track of just about our entire field.  Schweet!

There were Sports everywhere, I was basically just scanning the crowd looking for high cadence.  I found a few and got myself into a small group but I was sure based on attendance that it was not the 'front' group but probably the second and I was ok with that, not much I could do about it anyway at that point.  Things stayed pretty civil early.  The best part of the early miles was having a SSer from Georgia somewhat complaining about how flat the course was at about mile 6.  In a really thick Georgian accent he was yelling about how he was from the mountains of Georgia and that there had better be some climbing or else he wasn't going to do very well.  You could tell he was the type of guy who had fun on his bike no matter what and NEVER shuts up.  Kinda funny for a bit but unfortunately for him he spent the rest of the day disappearing and I don't think he had even finished when I left to go home.

The first climb up Crotched Mtn went just fine except for all the Sport riders I had to weave through.  Don't get me wrong they were all great, very civil and accommodating but in those scenarios you kind of have to take the windows when you get them and the climbing gets real punchy as a result and I was digging a bit deeper than I wanted to at that point.  They added some new singletrack for our decent down Crotched because the last two years someone has nearly killed themselves coming straight down the ski hill that they used to send us down.  I never thought it was that bad, sure there are water bars but its not like they are hidden...whatever, the singletrack was way fun except I was still working my way through the Sport field and I could not believe how bad some of these guys were in semi-technical terrain.  Huge hold up unfortunately.

Middle section of the race was pretty uneventful for the most part.  Hedgehog and the Powerlines hurt like hell but luckily the temps were great this year.  The first feed station that I stopped at (feed #3) was the most organized I have ever seen it.  The volunteers were amazing.  They had us write our racer numbers on the bag and they had them all organized in rows and when you rode up someone would see your number go get your bag tell you to just throw your shit on the ground and they would hand you the new stuff.  Straight up pit crew and it was awesome.  I was in and out of feed 3 in probably less than a minute.

Right after the powerlines I had a run in with idiocy that was nearly catastrophic.  There has always been a really steep/fast descent right after the powerlines with really nasty rocky washed out sections.  I know because I've ridden it 3 times prior and I know that the line is on the left.  Turns out I should say knew because for some reason I was FLYING down the right side of the trail.  I realize a bit too late I am barreling right at a completely blown out section of trail full of rocks and tree roots that are still connected to trees.  Lucky for me my idiocy had me going fast enough to do the only option I had which was to air the entire thing.  Somehow barely made it and I spent the next few minutes wondering how the hell that had all just happened and trying to remind myself I still had a lot of racing to do and its not gonna matter how fast I'm going if I break myself in a ditch.

Somewhere after feed three I caught up to Brad B.  I was pretty excited about this because I figured he would probably be towards the front of our field.  He mentioned he thought there were about 3-4 in front of us making us 5-6...not bad.  We spent most of the rest of the day together in one way, shape, or form.  We would ride together for a bit and then one or the other of us would get a gap in terrain that suited us better and then we'd slowly crawl back on and ride together for a bit.  This really started to hurt after a while because we both seemed to want that 'Top 5' as opposed to 6th.  I thought for sure I had put in enough of a dig to have gotten away a few times only to have him quietly roll up behind me.  I also thought he had ditched me for good a few times only for me to eventually see him up ahead.  Thats the nature of racing at that distance you go from feeling good to absolutely horrible back and forth most of the day...surge, die, surge, die.

It was horribly painful business as usual until somewhere between feeds 4 and 5(?) I think...about mile 47 or so.  I was running/walking up a craggy little climb and at the top I go to hop and and my left shoe is feeling really slippery.  Every time I go to clip in it just slips off the pedal and my foot goes flying.  I get really confused for a second (cause my brain is barely working) and then I realize whats happened.  I check both sides of the pedal...nothing, check my shoe...nothing.  Cleat = gone.  I look around for maybe 30 secs and then got really broken mentally.  I was well on pace for sub 7hr at that point and probably closer to 6h30m.  Brad came up shortly after that and got by and I was sure that battle was over and I would never see him again and I would just slowly be bleeding time for the rest of the day getting swept up by the rest of my class and missing out on my goals for the day.

I kept moving in my somewhat bumbling manner but after maybe 3-4 miles I realized that not only was no one catching me, not only just no SSers but no geared riders either, but I was actually still coming up on riders and passing them.  I got a giant mental surge of "F this! if there is anyone that can pull off something as ridiculous as this scenario its going to be me. Use your god damned brain, figure this out and get moving!"  Jake and Mike shred on flats all the time so I should be able to figure out shredding on worse than flats right?  I was actually able to figure out a semi efficient way of climbing by getting my toe spikes jammed in the pedal.  Wasn't ideal but it was working maybe 60% of the time.  Descending I was sliding my foot up and getting the heel lugs jammed up against the pedal and then leaning my foot way back and pushing forward and up.  Again, sketchy as hell but seemed to be working about 60% of the time.

Luckily I did a great job of managing fluids and food this year and never really had to worry about that stuff. I didn't feel awesome a few times during the race but that always went away and any feelings of cramps came and went as well.  And I never ended up really having to pee which is a good thing because my threat to pee myself in order to save time if I had to to make my 7hr goal probably wouldn't have happened.  Not sure I could make myself do that.

I was starting to get 'comfortable' with my left foot free style and I was most assuredly going way too fast on descents again.  One particularly awesome event happened as I was screaming down a dirt road descent.  I know the course fairly well now but some of the little details especially later in the course escape me sometimes.  Like how there was a hairpin right turn into singletrack at the bottom of this road.  As I see the signs I realize I don't really have time to scrub that much speed and I'm going to have to just rail it.  Usually that would be fine but its a right hand turn which means my left foot has to be the platform I rail against and its not connected to anything.  No other choice at this point but to lay it over, start carving and pray.  Unfortunately the ground was not smooth and the first rock/bump I hit dislodged my foot, I lost my platform to push against and I laid it down and flew into the woods going probably 20mph.

Amazingly all I picked up were some superficial scrapes on my arm and hip...clean run through the trees.  A few dudes got a great show and I hopped back on and got back to it.  Shortly after that I roll up on Brad B. fixing a flat.  I'm back in 5th!  He didn't need any tools or tubes so I kept at it.  At this point I got another mental surge.  I was back in top 5, Brad was probably going to take at least another few minutes fixing that flat so if I stay on it I might stay clear, I think there were only 6-8mi or so left at that point.  Checking the clock I also thought there was an off chance I could still get in under 7hrs as well.  It was full blown game on at this point.  I was ready to suffer to a hilarious extent, no cleat and all.

I blew right through the last feed head down and hammering.  The singletrack at the end was interesting one footed.  Had a few close calls but no issues.  I was even still catching a few people here and there so I liked my chances and the clock looked good for me getting in under 7.  I was running/cramping on the hills but staying on it, basically racing at full XC pace and hurting like mad.  I was catching a guy just popping out of the singletrack onto the road at the campground and I took a deep breath...I was in the clear, I had time to make 7hrs and it was an easy haul to the finish...if the arrows had been pointing left like they usually are.  But they weren't.  Now this is probably my fault for being on cruise control heading into the race.  Its my forth year I don't need to go to racers meetings right?

Turns out they needed to add a bit of distance to the 100K course in order to make sure the 100mi version was the full 100mi because they couldn't get that little bit within the reroute they were using.  Turns out the course this year was more like 64mi not 62 and I did not know this.  I had a moment of complete freak out, after thinking I had pulled off the impossible I suddenly realized I could be massively screwed.  I started pushing cross-eyed hard, there was no way I was getting robbed at this point.  Those last two miles are a complete blur.  No idea what was happening, just pain and that clock ticking away on my Garmin.

I finally popped out of the woods onto the road again at about 6h57m.  I still had a chance but it was going to be close and it was going to hurt like hell.  I started spinning my legs up to the clown pace of 120-130rpms, which got pretty funny basically one footed.  I could barely breath but I figured it was ok if I passed out as long as I was over the line.  Looking at the clock I was worried that the parade lap was going to take too long and that I would just miss it.  I was spinning madly coming up to the road crossing, I would love to be privy to what those folks must have been thinking looking at me freaking out like that.  I crossed the road and look up to realize this year we don't have to do a parade lap all we have to do is take a right and ride less than 1/4 of the track to the finish.  It was only 6h58m at that point and I only had about 100yds to go.  That moment right there felt pretty damn good.

Forecast Schmorecast

Sometimes you just have to tell the weatherman to sod off (sorry British/Olympic fever).

We had had this trip to KT on the books for months but coming into the home stretch the forecast wasn't looking all that hot.  The trip unraveled a bit with some having to bail and others not willing to risk the weather.  I was a bit worried that we would indeed get washed out but I rolled the dice and went for it with Adam and Jake confirmed to ride out the storm with me.

Turns out the weatherfolks didn't have this one all that figured out at least for the Burke, VT area.  It did end up raining pretty hard Friday afternoon for about 10mins but other than that we were treated to a pretty decent weekend.  The rain stopped Friday by around 2 or so and we were able to get out riding by 3pm or so.  I actually really like riding in light rain or just after a rain.  It does a number on your gear but the added challenge of slick roots/rocks and corners makes riding real interesting and fun.

We ended up getting almost 13mi in before we called it that evening, ripping around the Darling Hill side getting loose in corners and having a blast.  I even took some video on Troll Stroll, a new one at KT and already one of my favorites.  I tried the helmet mount for the first time.  Don't really like it at all.  Makes my helmet bounce around quite a bit and the angle doesn't show much detail and really flattens trails out (even worse than usual) but it is easy to setup for quick shoots here and there.

Troll Stroll - Kingdom Trails VT from Kevin Orlowski on Vimeo.

I also tried to get some pics in order to make a photo sequence shot on Old Webbs.  But the shots I got didn't quite turn out how I wanted them to.  I underestimated the view I would get with the fisheye and I don't think the end result would have been worth the Photoshop work.  I'll probably try it again at some point though because its easy to attempt and maybe one of these times I'll get something I like.

Saturday was gorgeous.  Forecast was fairly wrong on that one.  We got a morning run on the Burke Mtn side and checked out Lower J-Bar.  Fun stuff but probably more fun on not my bike.  We snagged lunch back at the campsite and then did another afternoon ride over on the Darling Hill side getting some things we missed on Friday.  We decided to call it a bit early Saturday so we could head over and check out the Trout River brewery.  I highly recommend it, cool local operation; the beer is great and even the pizza is pretty good.

Mike showed up and we followed up beer and food with more beer and food back at the camp.  Good times were had.  Sunday we all decided that Lake Willoughby was the best way to spend our time so we shot up there to take a dip and admire those epic views.  We salvaged a pretty damn awesome trip from a less than promising forecast and it was pretty good prep for the NH100 to boot.  That's 3 straight weekends in VT with a serious amount of awesome.  Hashtag YOLO.

SSUSA2012 Stowe VT

I don't even know where to jump in on trying to recap this weekend.  What a spectacle.  This race travels around the country with promoters battling for hosting rights after each edition.  George from bike29.com won the rights last year and hosted this years edition in and around Stowe, VT.  This scene isn't for everyone, the race is equal parts party as it is biking and this crowd knows how to take things up a notch.

We rolled into town earlier on Friday and set up shop at Dustin's old ski coach's house right in town.  Awesome spot and Jason is fairly hilarious and will probably feature in a winter trip or two for some shredding.  We hung out for most of the afternoon, had a few beers and then rode our bikes up to the Matterhorn for the pre race shindig and to pick up our number plates.  Two choices...you were either number 69 or 666.

The next day we rode through town to the start at the polo fields.  Lots of lacrosse families were thoroughly confused with the droves of bikers showing up, some of which wearing lingerie or wonder woman costumes (you can get a feel for the debauchery here).  Lots of guys get pretty ridiculous for this thing.  I preferred to stick with our normal race kit, mainly for comfort on a long ride and to get NEMBA's presence known.  But I was able to find some spoke beads on Amazon earlier in the week so we at least had a bit of style points on the bike.

We got going and got straight to climbing, something we ended up doing quite a bit during the day.  Not sure if my Strava data is accurate, 5,000ft in just under 30mi feels a bit tall but I think Shaun's GPS was reading 3500ft at the finish.  At just 3mi into the race at the top of the first climb we had our first rest station stocked with...beer.  The owner of the Alchemist was fully stocked with Heady Topper cans and a keg of some slightly lighter beer.  You can only get Heady Topper in the Stowe area so you know we had to stop and hang out for a bit.  It was cool hanging out with riders from all of the country drinking beer in the middle of nowhere.

After some Heady we got back on the bikes and got busy shredding.  All the good things you hear about the Stowe town loops are all well deserved.  Tons of great singletrack and George and crew put together a great course.  We (and lots of other guys) got a bit confused at one point because we didn't realize there was an out and back portion to the course and we were returning to town on a trail we had ridden in the other direction earlier on the course.  Some of the trail marking arrows were facing the wrong direction and many of us thought we had missed a turn.  So we wasted some time and went back and forth a bit trying to find where we were supposed to go.  Eventually we all just said screw it we'll just go back to town and hit the bar.  Low and behold that is what we were supposed to do...go figure.

The mid-station was right in town stocked with beer, whiskey, tequila, candy, cheese puffs and lots of other non-nutritious foods.  Like I said this scene isn't for everyone but we were having a blast.  We hung out there for awhile, Dustin bit through some beer cans...general merriment was had.

Not sure how long we stayed there total but we figured we should get back to shredding and crossed mountain rd and started climbing the trails on the other side of town.  Awesome stuff in there.  We were shredding right along at a decent pace when all of a sudden we see a guy riding back at us telling us we were lost.  We thought for sure we were still on the course...too much tequila at the rest stop?

We ended up getting turned around for a bit with a small crew trying to figure out where things had gone sideways.  We bushwhacked a bit and eventually found a trail that eventually hooked back up with the course.  No idea how/where we went wrong, but chatting with folks at the finish it sounds like lots of other people ended up doing the exact same thing we did.  The back half of the course was awesome.  Some big switchback climbs and some more sweet singletrack all culminating with a descent down Kimmer's which I think arguably is one of the best trails in New England.  So much shred.  The finish area was just another big party in the woods stocked with, you guessed it, more beer.  They tracked results for the first 30-40 riders and then everyone pretty much stopped caring.  We were out there for a long time and came in toward the back of the pack but had a blast doing it.

The competition to host next year, in true New England style, was a maple syrup chugging contest.  Several states put their hats in the ring and battled it out pounding a full pint glass of syrup.  Minnesota came out on top...that dude pounded that syrup in like 2secs, it was impressive.  The crew from Philly was none too pleased but I have a feeling they will come out on top in the not so distant future.

It was a hell of a day...I would definitely consider traveling for this.  Great way to sample the country's gnar and have a few beers while you are at it.  Minnesota in '13?  We'll see.  I'll cross post some pictures and videos as they are posted in the next few days.

The Horror at Harding Hill EFTA NECS 2012 #6

I'd be ok with every race giving out syrup as awards

Ah the Horror.  Not my favorite course but like I've said I keep coming back so there must be something to say about that.  It is well organized for sure, probably some of the most efficient race promoters in the series (more on that later).  They mixed things up a bit this year and ran the course in the opposite direction.  Apparently years ago that was the way they ran it but I've done this race for 4-5 years in the other direction so its been a while.  It changed the feel and dynamic of how it rode quite a bit.  Climbs went from long and gradual to short and steep.  But the chatter remained, no matter what direction you were heading.  If you ride rigid you better be ready to vibrate at the Horror.  Luckily I thought ahead and threw my thudbuster on last week in an effort to help me stay seated and pedaling.

I have no real idea how big our field was, there were 5 pre-reg'd and with the mass starts its hard to tell who's who.  They ended up starting us with the Sports this time around which was...interesting.  Not really sure the reasoning behind that but I guess all told it worked out ok, but we did have to go full gas from the gun to try and get out front to avoid traffic later.  Things got going and Pete M., Taylor C. and myself got out front of the field with Mark not too far behind.  Pete disappeared (per usual) and I had Taylor in sight so I tried to bring things back to a bit more sustainable pace to recover a bit.  I was maybe 25-30ft behind Taylor when he topped out on the big climb early in the lap and by the time I got to the top he was GONE.  I thought I would catch him before long but the descents in that direction did not suit my bike at all.  Long, gradual, super high speed washboard.

I was moving ok but I'm sure a bit slower than anyone else with some squish to soften things out a bit.  Mark caught me about halfway through the first lap after being just a tad too far back in the start and getting caught in some Sport traffic on the climbs.  I continued to hammer expecting to catch Taylor soon, he had mentioned he hadn't been feeling 100% at the start but I think he may have been playing mind games.  Lapping through and he was still out of sight and I was beginning to think he had pulled a fast one on me.  The way this course was running I didn't really have too many spots to use my particular strengths and I was starting to worry that if I couldn't get him by the big early climb he would be able to stay in front on the washboard descents.

Sure enough as I rounded the slight corner on the climb I see Taylor topping out again about the same distance ahead of me as lap 1.  And again as I got to the top he was nowhere to be seen.  I knew I had to catch him in some of the slight climby terrain at the end of the lap to give myself some real estate to put some time into him before the descending started again.  Luckily I finally rolled up on him towards the end of the second lap.  Tried to keep the pressure on as much as I could to get some distance.  Now I just had Pete and Mark in front of me so now it was time to just settle in and keep things moving.  I was still worried about Taylor coming back in the fast chattery stuff though.

3rd lap was pretty uneventful, just more hot and fast suffering.  4th lap I was getting hilarious sloppy.  My ability to hold a stable line was completely gone.  Luckily I was able to keep things upright but I'm sure I was bleeding time that whole lap.  It was lonely out there, because they started us with the Sports we were 5 mins behind everyone else doing 4 laps and everyone we started with stopped at 3.  I have years of DFL practice though so it was no issue.  Stopped the clock at about 1h45m a good 12m clear of Pete and about 6m off Mark for 3rd.  Pretty pumped for a fairly legit podium but I think the one at Pinnacle I missed would have felt a bit better due to the larger field there.  Unfortunately I missed the podium photo op because the promoters were so efficient they did awards probably within 5mins of the last few Expert/Elites coming in.  Apparently I didn't even have enough time to change at my car.  Just as I'm heading back up the hill I see Pete coming down with a huge thing of syrup and a slightly smaller thing of syrup....uh oh.  I guess that's why they invented Photoshop right?

team photo stolen from Mark

Changing gears a bit now.  SSUSA this coming weekend and then nothing official until the 100 in mid August.  Time to start racking up the saddle time.  Also probably going to get back in the gym doing more consistent interval stuff to try and peak again a bit heading into the Fall.  YEEHAA.

All out in Moody Park EFTA NECS 2012 #4

Remember that time the Sox won the series after they hadn't for like 4000 years?  Well this is kinda like that except Moody hasn't had a race that wasn't a mud fest for at least the last two times they've hosted a race but I think we are clear of the curse and today was exquisite.

A dry Moody Park is on par with the Pinnacle; great mix of terrain, decent amount of climbing, full gas, suffer/awesome'fest.

I arrived early to 'put out the vibe' and watch our Novice and Sport riders head out.  Eric and Nate were looking for another 1-2 sweep of Novice Junior and were only kept at bay by a strong slightly older rider.  They came in for 2nd and 3rd.  I didn't get to catch up with some of our other riders, the starts were a bit closer than some of the other races so I was busy with battle prep.

 future of the sport

Our SS class ballooned a bit with day-of registrations which was nice.  I was worried it was just going to be the 5 of us, but I think we got up to about 12.  Unfortunately some of the guys rolling in were of the 'silly fast' ilk.  Like Dejay Birch fast.  Literally.  And he was escorted to Claremont by none other than Thom P. AKA BigBikesMedia.  Pete M. showed, Brad B., Taylor C...it was gonna be a good old time.

Everything was nice and civil until around when the gun went off.  Probably the fastest start I've been a part of this season.  Usually I'm right up in the top 1/3 of the field but I was pretty quickly relegated to about 9th or 10th of 12 right out of the gate.  We did our parade lap and got to railing a super fast, super fun descent.  It was me and Mark again, trying to work our way up.  We made a few passes within the first mile or two and were up working on mid-pack.  We caught Brad B. heading into the climb right after the first pass through the Cavity and we were sitting 4-5 behind the silly fast 3 of Dejay, Thom and Pete.

Not long after that we rolled up on Pete on the tail end of fixing a flat.  He was just jumping back on as I came up.  I asked since he was back here if he would mind towing me up to Dejay, he was very cordial and responded with a "Sure, hop on!".  He then promptly dropped me like I was standing still.  I still had Mark in my sights about 10-15ft up and we basically lapped through together.  I was able to keep the gap around there through the descent and the initial techy meandering climbing but as soon as we hit that middle fire road descent section he got away with his slightly bigger gear and that was it.

Luckily about a mile or two later Carl caught me and we got to NEMBA two-man TT'ing for a bit.  We actually stayed together off and on for a bit.  He would get away a tad and then have some bobble or issue and I would catch back on for a tad.  Definitely is nice to ride with teammates when the opportunity arises, but he eventually got away for good en route to a 3rd in Vet I.  The third lap ended up being fairly brutal for some reason.  Maybe it was because I was isolated and got a bit lazy or because the first two laps were such a slug fest but I was definitely cognitive of a pretty significant slowing of my legs and general forward progress.  Cramps were starting to tweak my calves here and there and the heat was not exactly enjoyable.

Unfortunately my lap 3 slow down led to getting caught at the top of the climb before the lap point by a Boloco rider in the SS class.  I believe his name was Andrew L.(?) he was a new face to me in SS, I was able to latch on as he went by and we lapped through together.  He offered to let me come by because "he was not very good in the turns" which was nice because he didn't have to offer that and it was much more enjoyable to take some serious risks trying to get away from him without him in front of me.

I took that descent like a maniac, probably my fastest attempt at that section all day but ultimately it wasn't enough as he creeped back to my wheel after the next climby section.  We yo-yo'd in some of the undulating techy stuff but as soon as we kicked out onto the smoother gradual climb to the Cavity I knew he was going to push it.  He had about 10 more watts than I did...I was able to hang for a bit but I could feel that it wasn't sustainable.  He slowly started opening a gap and I decided to dial it back a bit hoping he would bonk or have an issue in some technical terrain and I was going to save my last few matches for the final climb.

My strategy didn't work out and he ended up besting me by about a minute or so I think...Mark was another minute in front of him.  I don't regret it though, it was the only workable strategy I had at the time.  And even though 6th is kind of one of my old standard placings this field was stacked.  I rode clean and had a blast so I'm plenty happy with the day.  Just think 4-6 years ago I was finishing 15-30mins behind just the local fast-ish guy and now I'm coming in 15mins behind professional SS'ers.

Podium

I really hope the word gets out on this course and it returns to what it once was.  It's a great venue and super gnar.  I'll be looking forward to coming back next year after I find those 10W I was missing...