Bring on Iron Horse!!

Ok the road races have been pretty slim-pickens in NM lately. FINALLY a regional road race! I will be praying all week for the weather to hold out and give us a DRY Iron Horse road race to Silverton. There is also a Time Trial, and Downtown Criterium to make it a fun Omnium event.

See you there!

Keifer

Mesa Verde 12 Hour MTB Race

This race happened on May 9th. I wasn’t going to race this, due to a business trip to Boston on Sunday, but I couldn’t help myself!!!

I didn’t want to go solo, plus the catagory was filled the week before, so I posted on the 12 Hour of MV forum that I was looking for a Singlespeed Team.

Two days later a guy from Cortez calls, and suddenly I’m on a three man team! Schweet!!

These guys were representing Kokopelli Bike Club (and bike shop) in Cortez, which is where the race is, so I had the local connection going on! The one prerequisite they asked of me is to be the first rider off at 7 am. Matt parked an old travel trailer at the race site, 100 yards from the start. I had it all to myself to sleep in the night before, and be ready to race on Saturday. Very nice! Much better than a tent!

"Old Enough to Know Better" team camp

 The race course uses the Phils World trails, which everyone knows is some of the best singletrack MTB trails in the four corners! 17 miles per lap. My team ended up doing 8 laps total and 132 miles! We ended up third place in the Singlespeed Team category, and received a sweet custom trophy!

The beer was flowing afterwards, and I think James (3D Racing SS Team, 2nd place) need to start bringing beers to these events. He mooched to many of my beers! I wanted one more!

Well, it was probably better anyhow, because I had to drive back to Farmington, and get ready for my trip to Boston the next day. I got home at 11pm, Went to bed about 12:30. Was up at 5:30 to be on the road to Albuquerque Int’l Airport, to catch my plane. With sore legs, the flight SUCKED! I was SOOOO tired when I got to Boston!

BUT IT WAS WORTH IT!!! Yee Hah!

Keifer

Tierra Torture XC SR- Santa Fe

This was an Omnium race this year with a Short Track Saturday, and a XC race Sunday. I had a totally crappy start on Saturday morning in the PRO/1 class. Ending up at the back trying to pass, pass, pass.

By the time I ran out of riders to pass, there was all ready a group of riders off the front! I ended up racing hard and rotating pulls with another Pro rider, Micah, for 6 laps. The race was supposed to be around 30 minutes, but we ended up getting over 45 minutes of full gas riding. The coarse was perfect for short track. ABout 3/4 doubletrack (1/2 of which is really soft, and the other track hard pack), and the rest twisty single track, with tricky turns.

Micah and I ended up in the top 10 overall, and I was second in the Cat 1 30-39 group.

After my warmup Sunday morning, I knew I was in for some pain. The legs were pretty cooked from the Short Track, and the hillclimb I did in Durango on Thursday. Yes, I am training through this race!

The XC course was well marked. Thank goodness, because there was so many turns, climbs, and fast decents, I didn’t know where I was. It took till the 3rd lap to really get a feel for how far away the start/finish area was. This was very important information on that last lap! The legs were really tired on the climbs, and I knew I was loosing time there. I just went as hard as possible. In the end Jay English (Mountain Top) passed me on the last lap to bump me into a 3rd place Cat 1 finish. I was actually surprised I did that well in the results. It is a really fun and challenging XC coarse. I saw many riders with injuries afterward. There are many spots that you can wipe out if your not paying attention. I certainly had a few close calls.

On a side note, John Stadick raced the XC on Sunday also. It was his first MTB race in over 15 years!

Keifer