Meltdown at Wyco

Summer is in full swing. What better way to spend your Sunday that at the Masons Midsummer Meltdown. 

Good turnout for a first year event with a lot of the local guys showing up to support the event and enjoy a day of riding

Cliff and his family made some cool awards.  All from recycled materials.  Hopefully with form, which is not very good right now, I can earn one of them today.

The Wheel Cyclery and crew were on hand providing food and Heather Jordan was again the official.  The Wheel/Heather so far has officiated and supported the majority of the local MTB events.   They deserve a big Thank You!

Midwest Mountain Bike Patrol ready for the days action.  I would actually pay them a visit later in the day :-).  The patrol are some of the people that support events that never get enough credit.  Without this guys/gals we could not have events

 On Saturday the family headed out to Wyco to pre-ride the course.  Christopher rode the large log on the new section with the 3 foot drop on the other side. On this day he missed the ramp on the other side and crashed really bad.  Luckily he only ended up with a few scraps and a sore neck.  That makes 3 people I know that have crashed on that log.  Call me a candy ass, but maybe that obstacle should be removed or a wider ramp placed on the other side. I would hate to have someone really get hurt and then sue the park/city/Masons. 

Christopher toeing the lined today with his teammate Shane Martin.   There are two classes we need to grow in the sport - Juniors and women. 

Getting ready for the start on the old Mary.  I got her built up with a lot of  Crank Brothers parts including their Colbalt 29er wheelset.  I decided to race the Single Speed class in XC events this year.

Jennifer getting ready to feed a bunch of hungry mountain bikers.

While he has not trained much when Christopher does ride he seems to have fun. That is what riding is all about anyways int he end.

Having fun is great, but winning is even better :-)  Christopher on the top step of the box at the Meltdown.  He mentioned after the race that he wants to race the Marathon class to get in better shape for Hare Scrambles.  That might actually be a good idea.

I had a good and a bad first lap. The good is I got off to fast start and was out front with a nice size lead. About 1/2 into the first lap I was really pushing hard in this fast section and got to spinning to fast - that happens sometimes with a single speed.  My chain derailed and I had to stop.  Lost about a minutes or so putting it back on then I really put in a hard effort to catch back up with the leaders.  This got me outside my planned intensity zone which would come back to bit me on the second lap.

After the hour mark I started to feel the effects of the first lap effort and the heat.  I was still in first but second place was closing in fast on the up hills.  I could see he on the switchbacks.  Picking up the pace was hard for me on the climbs.  I tried to distance myself again on the downhills.  This did not work so well as I clipped a tree.  Could have been those wide bars I have been running on the single speed.  Jeff ended up getting by for the lead.  My hand was numb at this point and I had trouble handing on, but I chased hard the last two miles only to come up 29 seconds short to eventual winner Jeff Wass.

Hand getting some attention.  I thought I might have broken it because it was numb and somewhat painful.  The patrol cleaned it up and we applied ice to it.  In the end just some lost skin and a swollen finger (which is really hard to type with by the way....)

Not the step I wanted, but at least I was up on the box today and earned one of those cool awards.  My derailment on the first lap and a slight meltdown on that last lap cost me but that is racing.