as for the weekend...we had a blast. Max and i drove up friday to Athens, TN and crashed at the nastiest room I've stayed in, in awhile. we woke early and finished the drive.
the Burgers always have a knack of making old course new. and this past weekend at Tasli, NC was no different. the had switched the course all up with lap 1 being 18 miles and lap 2 being 12 miles and a bunch more climbing vs. last year. we only rode the 1st lap for the pre ride..of course we took it easy and keep the effort as low as possible on the climbs and our ride time was 1:35...long!
sunday morning brought the normal race jitters as always but i love those...i think it's one of the reasons i love racn! the start was crucial...only a short sprint up hill to a tight entrance to the trails and then it was ripping fast for 3+miles=no place to pass! luckie i had the start i wanted and entered the woods 5th and we were off..smoking down the trails. a group of about 10 were all together until the first major climb and then it all blew apart and the real racing started. nathen silbley, a super fast dude, blasted off the front and andy chased followed by some dude in a blue jersey then me. sometime shortly we were all joined by Omar. it flew by me and joined the front guys, i was 5th at this point. on this course, i can almost always can pull the :20 seconds i lose on the climbs back on the downhills so i never worry to much about getting gaped on the climbs but these dudes were just as fast so i had to work hard to bridge and it took me several miles to get them even in sight. i did bridge up to the 2nd chase group which was everyone but andy...and he was gone! sibley dropped soon after that due to a leak and as that happened omar took off...i chased him and dropped the dude in the blue. i kept him in sight for a while but he slowly pulled away...and by the end of the last 1st lap he had a minute on me and the dude in the blue had caught back up with me...and i was hurting. dude in the blue would drop me on the 1st big climb and would end up putting 1:40 by the end of the race. i was passing the mid packers of the groups that started before us but i was dragging ass. what should have taken :53+/- minutes took me an hour...i was 8 min down on 1st place...i should have been 2nd! came in 4th.
oh yeah...the new kits came in and i got a tech-T along with them...rock stars baby!
