Lots of Single Track

Beautiful evening spent on the patio at Divots on Edgewood Golf course up on the north side Saturday evening.  Great way to finish off the day.

Kriston, Matt and I made our way down to Elk River for race #6 of the MNSCS mountain bike series.  Ben was still at the lake with a friend and Kriston was not too excited to go but did anyway and we were glad she was there.  In addition to her excellent sandwiches and overall taking care of us she took ALL of the photos.  I raced the Sport class again mainly because I want to ride with Matt and I like the earlier 11am start.  Over 135 riders total in all classes, I was lucky enough to start in the 2nd wave.Matt was in the 4th wave that put him in back of a lot of traffic.  With Matt's long day at the triathlon yesterday I thought there would be some tired legs and general fatigue although he never complained.
With a short prologue lap that included a gravel road the rest of the race was on seriously buffed out single track.  Lots of short climbs, tight turns and quick descents which fit Matt and my style perfectly.  I always tell Matt that if you can ride Maplelag with confidence you can ride anything.

I know I sound like a broken record, but I really do have to work things out at the start of the race to not be heading into the woods in almost last place.  I end up passing a lot of slower people when I should be racing with the faster guys.  Things spread out quickly which helped, but half way through the first lap I realized that I had to kick it in if I wanted any results at all.  I was able to hook up with some faster groups that worked well together.  I found that I would be faster, would make the pass and in courtesy of letting me go I would have to pin it, stay in front and reach for the next group.  I definitely was quicker on the second lap which makes me happy as I ended up with a negative split.
Heading into the finish shoot.
Matt, Shea and me post race.  Well, here it goes, Matt beat me by 7 seconds today!  Before the results he said he had a fast race but was worried that he did what I did and started too slow.  I am seriously proud to race with Matt, he can beat me any time he wants!  Check the results - click here.
A little drama before the start of the race.  I pulled my bike off the back of Kriston's Honda with a flat tire.  In changing the flat I noticed the side wall of my tire was melted from the exhaust of the car!  The white that you see on the side wall is a Park Tools side wall support patch for just this purpose.  A shout out goes to Matt Johnson for having one in his tool box.  The patch worked for the whole race but it was definitely in the back of my mind when I hit something in the trail...