states

now it's over unless i hit the lottery and go to masters worlds in january in mol, belgium. pretty hectic morning to get down there in time, work till 8, load up and get out in the snow to drive to a cross race too far away to really figure out when we'd arrive. 8 inches on the overnight made the driving more like snow mobiling in a truck. darren drove so i didn't have to worry about that. got there in time to ride a few laps on the b bike in the mud and frozen tundra. the snow they got down there had sort-of melted into a sloppy on top but frozen underneath that made high speeds less than ideal. i started like an idiot, karl and i dropped the field on the first two minutes of the race and we had twenty seconds by the half lap mark, he had already taken advantage of my start pace and attacked me to get a gap, that was about it for the rest of the field. karl and i off alone except i couldn't close him down, his lead grew to about 30 seconds with me riding trying to close it down and not make a mess of the whole thing (like i already thought i had.) starting that hard wasn't necessary, it was going to shake out anyway the way it did, bummer i was dumb. a fast handling course was going to be between me and karl anyway. i had trouble on this downhill flowing chicane, the frozen ground covered with a layer of mud was really slick and i just never found a good line thru it. the front wheel (which i had way too much air in, 50 lbs) slid alot on the turny bits, another mistake i made that cost me. i should have ridden a lap on the race bike to be sure i had the best pressure for the course. the b bike had different tire pressure, dumb. the way they have the pits these days is bad for changing bikes, on road stretches and fast sections that stopping to switch is just too slow. karl was taking advantage of good tire choice and good and good skills to hold his gap. i just maintained the pace i could and tried my hardest to keep karl in sight. i stopped getting splits and was wondering how i screwed up that bad when all of the sudden the gap was 15 seconds nearing the end of the penultimate lap, i pushed hard to get up to him on the road at the bell, sat on for the road stuff, rode thru the first set of barriers and the second road stretch on his wheel, going in to the sand pit barrier section i attacked, remounted and hammered the next 30 seconds as hard as i could to see how well it worked. i heard i had 15 seconds before bunnyhopping the ditch (i'll get pictures soon) karl crashed on the bunnyhop and i had a minute as i crossed the line. season over, i'm state champ. it feels wierd because i only lead the last half lap or so. not the bigger time gaps i had on the other good days this year. i love cross.