It wasn't the tires

Nah. It is wrong for me to have blamed the tires that served me so faithfully last year. They did their job. They didn't roll off the rim. It was me.

I just got caught with some wicked understeer and a patch of the course on the off camber with no grass. 10 cm higher up the hill was some nice turf for those side knobs to hold on to, 10 cm lower and again, nice grippy grassy rhizomes and what not... in the middle? no so grippy soil... whoops...

So to blame the tires? It would be flat wrong for me to heap such negativity upon these little bits of rubber. It would like saying if i was riding some scandium and carbon belgium goodness that, well, i would be fast.

Again though. All that goofy getting on and off and on and off has certainly paid off. At least i don't think peanut will have the same feeling of fingernails on the chalk board watching me trying to get back on the bike that my form elicited last year. (did that make sense?) (whatever)

Oh yeah... the consistent opinion about the whole weather at nats "thread" on the NE cx list? Fahking HYSTERICAL. Good. It was supposed to be.

And i was very close to buying that Wellens Kickboxing academy T-shirt. But, you know, i got enough T-shirts and well... it was flat out amazing. SBX shirts were cool too. I hope everyone bought up all the stock they had.

I can't help but wonder how my wussy 276 watt average for 47 minutes compared to what Adam found on his SRM, unless he was just riding the cranks and not collecting data during the race. The guy drilling it at the front of the 3/4 race didn't look very smooth or fast through the barrier section but he was certainly lighting it up on the flats. Cause. Yeah. Serious flat course. Flat flat flat. Felt bad for Anna. saw her line up front row, they took off... i walked over to the sand pits, waited for them to go through next to Paul slick corner Weiss... they went through "where the hell is Anna" so i started walking back... well... here she came, not looking so happy either... WAY down... Like minutes. Made my stupid little crash gap look rather insignificant. And she was reeling em in when i left. The 3/4 race also seemed to give the Auburn FD medics some practice. One of the HUP boys was strapped down to a backboard and everything... He crashed in the EXACT same spot i did... I guess i was lucky to only have been slightly scraped up...

Henry already has some video goodness up from the barriers on lap 1 and 2 of the Elite men's race. Curtis leading em out of the barriers. GO CURT! CTodd bring up the rear. Except where is Ctodd on lap 2????

I was gonna just let it slide but take a look. The fastest and best guys all take lots of steps after the barriers... Set the bike down. Stabilize it and do your 1, 2, 3 or variation of it. The slowest through the barriers in the 3/4 race for example were the guys trying to get right on immediately after the barrier.

Just an observation. what you do. up to you. how you run your bars? Up to you. And if ya got stubbie lacking flat bars like Mega... well... ya can't tell if they are parallel to the ground or not. Yall run what ya want. Egg beaters or SPDs or Times... it ain't about the equipment. It is about fun.

Despite being mentally just not there after the crash, it was fun. Great race Justin and Jack. And chalk this one up as a good family location as well. Killer play structure right by the sand pit! good viewing spot for the family.

I am curious to see the results. I have no idea how many starters there were in the field. Did my 30th placing mean anything? Well. I DID finish in front of Bauer (barely).

-G