I've Been Everywhere Man

So I finished up another week of mountain bike camp. These were hands down the best kids I've ever had. They listened, for the most part. They are kids after all. They rocked the trails too. We covered 70 miles this week. 50 of that was by Wednesday! The final two days we decided to slow them down out of fear that they were too tired and would make mistakes. Really though, these kids got it. I'm not saying we had any Geoff Kabush's, Harlan Price's or any local Joe racers for that matter but we did turn out 12 fine mountain bikers. That the whole point of the program. Chip (trail crew guy) took pictures throughout the week. He then compiled these pictures (and some film) to make all the kids a 3-4 minute dvd of themselves hurtling though the woods. Things like that are what hooks kids into sports like these. It keeps them coming back on their own too.

On to Brownstown...It was another hot day. Temps were close to 90 and the humidity was something like 93% this morning. Yum! At the start line everyone was complaining about the heat so I decided to do a 'cross style start. 100% out of the blocks. This caught a few by surprise but the strong hung tough. After about 3 miles of attacks and backing off I decided I had weeded out the pretenders. As I was catching my breath after a long turn in front, two from Kelly Benefits (along with 4 others) went clear of the group. They put a nice gap on us too seeing as their teammates were sitting on the front blocking the peloton from catching them. Good team tactics. When the road opened up a bit I made an attempt to bridge but I only seceded in pulling another rider within 30 yards of the break before I was spent. I backed off and waited for the peloton to catch back up to me. I drifted to the back of the peloton and rested a bit. On lap three Chad, a rider on Vortex, and I decided that this was the lap to catch the break or it was over. Kelly was playing the race perfect. We waited for the road to open up again and all three of us went. The Vortex rider leading out. He faded, I was on his wheel and pulled through. I started to fade and Chad was launched into the break. A sigh of relief came as I quickly tried to catch my breath again as the peloton caught up to me. I hung on but my job was done, Chad was in the break. I sat in the peloton the rest of the race. The rain was pouring down on us but I didn't care, Chad was in the break. I eventually got a flat and had to bail but I didn't care, Chad was in the break. Haha! Chad is writing up a race report so you will soon have his side of the story.

Next week is Marysville. This is a three day stage race. Night TT, STXC, Hill Climb, and an XC race that is always harder than it looks. We will have five riders and potentially a film crew. It's a fun time.