Cheaha Mountain Trails - Anniston, AL

this was the 9th race of the SERC series and is always a very technical and challenging course. It's basically down the mtn, across the bottom, and then back up. It's shorter than most races but just as hard. The laps are only 6 miles but have about 850 ft of climbing each go around.

For me, I wanted two things to happen...stay steady throughout out the race and gain some points on Cesar(dude who is 2nd overall). Mission accomplished! I was able to stay steady on the climbs which is great and then take some time on the descents.

the first lap saw me enter the woods in 4th position. I maintained this until one dude dropped his chain and I slid around him into 3rd. The pace was fast but not hard so this allowed Noah(another guy who is 4th overall) to bridge up to us. On the way up the climb, Nathan(dude who always wins) dropped us. But I could also tell that Cesar wasn't riding as strong as he normally does...and since there was really no where to pass, i just conserved the energy and stayed behind him. It wasn't until we had gone through the transition area and were about to enter the trail that I made my move. I knew I was faster on the way down so I wanted to attack there and try to maintain any gap i got on the climb. And I got a gap...about :30 just on the first half of the DH...the 3rd and 4th lap would stay status quote. I ended up 2nd and was super happy!