Treasure Valley Cycling Club

Today was my first cross race at the Sicx Kuna race. I think I was the only one wearing the Reel kit in the cat 4 race. I finished 16th out of 24 and at the end some BYRDS kid sprinted past me. I figured I'd take him in the switchbacks because I can out maneuver, not realizing that it was the finish lap. Not too bad for a borrowed bike and the fact that my kids and I rode 17 miles to get to the race. It was fun. They found this gnarly mud puddle from the last rains and made us all ride through it. It was awesome to be all muddied up. Mud plus the loose wet grass made for gummed up brakes and slippery corners. The first lap had a lot of slide-outs especially on the sloped hairpins.

I've always like mudding in my suburban and then getting on the highway and flipping the mud off the tires. This bike race was like that with the long fast stretch right after the mud section. The barricades were in the middle of the long straightaway... after muddying the brakes up sufficiently and then taking the two switchbacks in the grass before the path, it became difficult to slow to get off for the barricades. After the half way point when I was near collapse, it didn't really matter because I wasn't going that fast anymore, but that didn't stop me from nearly tripping over the first one as I hit it with the front tire. Great stuff! Fun course.

Thanks to Chris' for the bike. It is too bad I botched the record button on the head cam so there will not be any video footage. There may possibly be some on the tail cam for the first lap until it got mud caked.