Driving, Nats, Driving, and Tires

So that's what I have done the last week. Last time you I wrote stuff I was at my buddies in the Albany area. Then I drove. Not far. Just from Wynatskill, NY to West Dover, VT. Backroads all the way. Through the Birkshires and Green Mountain National Forest. It was one of the best hour and a half drives I have ever done.

Mount Snow was an interesting place. A ski resort but without the snow or skiiers. Instead replaced by sweet dirt trails and a few hundred of the faster mountian bikers in the country. My race was Friday. It was Wednesday. I prerode the course on thursday, much like Windham but with a more technical descent. Fun. Very fun. I knew the race would be hard because of the steep walls we would have to climb.

The race itself was really short, only 2 laps of the 5mi course. A little dissappointing, but I lived. We went off at noon and I fell in mid pack for the 1mi prologue loop thingy. Stayed there keeping a close watch on the leader, Duncan. On the main climb I started working up to him. I was behind him after the first steep pitch. Yeah climbing. Caught Gunnar at the end of the first singletrack, which I wasn't expecting. if he starts ahead of me I ususally don't see him. Blame the heavy 29er he was riding for the 3rd time... no good on steep road climbs. continued climbing for about 20 minutes or so. Almost up to the top. Then began droping down the singletrack to the finish. As at Greenbrier, Duncan out-descended me (must work on that). Started the second lap and started to pick it up. I needed to catch him. I came close. made up all but about 30 seconds of what he put on the descent. I saw him on the last pitch before the descending began but couldn't catch him. Damn. Final result: Duncan in 1st at 1:04:58, me in second at 1:06:11, some other guy in 3rd at 1:11 something. Damn... the stars and stripes jersey was just one step up from me.

Next day I watched the expert XC, some of the women's pro (congrats Mary), and left behind the Men's Pro field up the course for a 4hr ish ride. I followed them up and stopped near the bottom of the final descent and watched for 2 laps. They are ridiculously freaking fast... guess that's why they are pros. Congrats go out to Brandon for having a damn good ride for 13th, and to Harlan for killing it in 20th. Pretty impressive to me.

My 4hr ride took me for another lap of the course, then on a 'splorin mission around the area. I rode some roads, both dirt and paved, it rained, and I found some cool singletrack stuff named after Robin Hood characters and places. Rode Robin Hood, Sherwood Forest, Notingham, Maid Merrion, and Friar Tuck. Vermont has some damn nice trails. Fast and flowy with lots of roots and stuff. Big fun, and definitely a good change from the rattle-your-arms-off rocks of Michaux. I had fun even though I only rode a few miles of the trails. Ended up running into Aaron, and Matt and we rode some more road for a while. T'was cool. T'was very cool.

Sunday I messed myself up in the Super-D race. Practice run went greatm reconfirming my belief that Vermont has some cool trails. The race sucked. I crashed (opposite side of my Marysville crash) and scratched up my knee and twisted my stem around. First DNF ever... in a downhill race. Fitting ain't it? Maybe I shouldn't do any more downhill races... until next year.

So that was my week last week... Zach and I left after his 4PM short track and headed home. Stopped at a pizza place in Bennington for dinner. Arrive in Carlisle: abot 1:30AM... took Rt. 209 down through the Pocono's, remembered lots of things that I hadn't remembered in many a year. It was good, and I also remembered how much I love driving late at night. In the rain.

So yeah... also put some new tires on the good old spider. Kenda Small Block 8's, fast as hell. They'll be really good for the Wilderness 101, which is Saturday. I'm looking forward to the long day on the bike. So that's it... prepping for the 101 now... off to do stuff...