Son, there's a race going on…….. and you ain’t in it.

Today’s race was out in the prairie of Watkins, CO. On the drive out, I entertained the wife by pointing out where a couple of these are. Earlier in the year, I got the opportunity to learn where all the local ones are (you actually can look it up on the web) and I got to go down in one a couple of times. They were only used for a couple of years before being de-commissioned. And you thought today’s gov’t wasted money....

Having heard reports of how rough this course was from individuals who had ridden an earlier race out in the land of Laura Ingalls, I packed up everything I had. The Kona, spare wheels, and just for sport, the 29’er mountain bike (some of the reports bordered in horror stories). Now, about the 29’er…… let’s just say that I did not go all weight weenie when I built it. I focused more on affordability and durability when I was collecting parts. The damn thing must tip the scales at well over 25 lbs. I figured that if the course was really as rough as some were saying, there might be a chance that it would be faster to ride this hard-tail beast. A quick ride of the course proved that this was not the case. Truthfully, I did not think today’s course was that bad. One problem…… the goat-heads were out in full force. So…. I figured that since I went through the effort to bring the 29’er, I might as well throw it in the pits along with my spare wheels just in case things got out of hand in the battle with the goat-heads. I got in a decent warm-up and all seemed well at the start whistle.

One quarter into lap one and I could feel that the rear was soft. Before long, the rear was a dead soldier. Rich decided to forego racing today, but was on hand to cheer and give hand-ups. I dumped the Kona in the two-sided pit and asked Rich if he would be so kind as to replace that flat tire with one that had less of an inflation issue. OK….. it did not really go like that. I was completely gassed from trying to hold my position with the flat. I croaked out something like……"RICH!!! Rear!!!!", dropped the Kona, stumbled over, and grabbed the Mountain Bike. The pit was right before a triple barrier so rather than ride 30 feet and then dismount; I shouldered the black behemoth and ran the barriers. When I tried to set it down to remount, my arm got stuck. In spite of its size and weight, the 29er, with a sloping top tube, has a much smaller center triangle than the Kona. Being the gazelle-like creature that I am, I bent over at the waist to get the 29’er to the ground so that I could get the weight off of my arm and thus rescue it from the jaws of this beast. So…. anyone ever try and run along side a bike with your arm through the center triangle? You know that happens? You fricken crack your face right across the headset, that’s what happens!!! I didn’t Sven Nys myself, but it was hard enough to see stars.

OK…. By now you guys are probably saying something like “Dude, quit your whining about how heavy your 29’er is and ride already!!!” Well, you want to see how heavy my mountain bike is!?!?!?!?! It is this Fricken Heavy!!!



To my surprise, I got back to the pit and only gave up a couple of spots. Rich had the Kona ready to go. I gave the 29’er a serious ghost ride as I dumped it on a full run. I grabbed the Kona from Rich and started trying to make up for lost time. Less than a lap later, when I was about as far away from the pit as you could get, the new rear was low. The battle with the goat-heads was seriously starting to kick my ass. By the time I made it back to the pit, the new rear was long since dead....right along with my thoughts of a decent finish. I did the only thing I could do. I picked up the 29’er, apologized to it profusely for treating it poorly and got back to riding. Since I paid the $25 to be there, I might as well suffer. I quickly figured out that I could peg my heart-rate on the 29’er and still get passed. So I backed off a bit, rode hard tempo and figured that 2 flats in the first 10 minutes of a race was bike racing’s way of telling me that today was just going to be a training day. I said to myself…"Son, there's a race going on….. and you ain’t in it."

And now…. Some Pictures and comments

Dash Riprock was the class of the FMVC today

My day soon devolved into doing stunts like buzzing the camera lady.

There for a while, I tried to challenge myself by

lifting the 29'er over barriers by the seat.

Simon Burney would have my ass for sure for doing this.

It's much faster when you do it correctly

Scotty B. came out to represent.

Scott says the key to his success is

max hang-time off of the barriers.

Dash with his patented move.

The Elephant Water Fountain

"AKA The Horton Spew"

(click on the picture for the full effect)