Lots of Big Ring!

This weekend Dave, Wes and I went to the Land between the Lakes to flex. I showed up at Mesa a little early to pick up my bike. I had a new pair of Mavic Cross Trails UST wheels put on my bike this week, with a set of Avid BB7s. It was the first time I got to check out the upgraded rig. We drove down on Saturday night and stayed in a sweet motel five minutes from the race. On Sunday we awoke at 5:30am to fuel up on bran muffins and some dark coffee. I felt pretty good after logging some major sleep. The warm up consisted of pre-riding a short section of singletrack. I lined up after watching Dave dive into the woods first with Wes not far behind. I always get a little jittery at the last seconds before we start. The officials kept delaying "1 more minute" to wait for some stragglers. First mistake of the day was not being in the big ring to start. It was about 300 yards down hill start on a fire road. The two other guys on the podium were the first into the woods with two others and myself right behind. There was the usual BS banter for the first few minuets of the race. These guys were going hard off of the front and next in line did not line up to work that day. We pulled around him hard and went to work. I worked my way up into the 3rd position pretty quickly, probably the first 4 miles, but only saw the lead group twice before they disappeared for the rest of the race. In looking back, I needed to dig a little deeper at the front of the race to catch these guys. That would have at least made them work a little harder. I know that you cant win them all, but I at least want to make the guy that wins work for it. Any ways, the trails were in pretty good shape, some mud and bogg here and there. The climbing was in the first 5 miles of the loop, with the last 6 miles being rolling and twisty. I was able to big ring 98% of this section on both laps. I really felt like I was doing some hard riding, even if I wasn't competing for the front spot. The new wheels and brakes performed flawlessly. The tubeless tires defiantly increased my confidence on the descents, and the brake wheel combo really let me carve the turns. This is huge for me, as I usually am pretty conservative on when descending. I concentrated hard on proper hydration and nutrition during the race, and felt great during and after the ride. Dave and Wes took 1st and 3rd respectively in the expert race. Congrats to them for a badass finish in a race that approached 3 hours. All in all, the boyz from STL came down to Ky to represent.