cross

cross

Sunday, November 15, 2009

USGP Mercer Cup, Day 2

Today the rain stopped falling and the sun actually came out. On top of that it had to be at least 60 degrees when we walked outside in the morning. Good news considering the muddy course. Not much help for Chris and I in the earlier races but it was going to be fast later.

I raced first and I have to give a big thank you to the crew from SRAM. I handed them a mangled rear der and they handed me a new one for free. Then I had to scramble to get my bike fixed in time for my race. Got it done with just enough time to ride around the outside of the course and check out the changes. Today Bill got me set up with a neutral support bike from SRAM that had my spare pedals on it, no riding with bmx pedals today if I had a mechanical.

Yesterday I got a great start and came off the pavement 3rd, today I came off the pavement in the top 15 but after throwing a few elbows, and jamming up the inside of a few turns I found myself in the top 3. We started to pull away from the group and and soon it was down to 2 of us. I could tell I was faster in quite a few places but the other guy was riding a few parts of the course where I was running. We were trading the lead back and forth up until the last lap where I got a little gap that I held until the finish. Hopefully I'll have some photos later.

Chris was up next. He got a good start and was running in the top 5 until a course stake grabbed his handlebars and down he went. That put him way back in 8th with a huge gap to close. He rode hard to get back up to fifth by the end. He's definitely back on track, he was going as fast as the guys up front.

Logan and Joe were next in the Elite race. Bill decide to help in the pits today as we just wern't sure what was going to happen after all the pit action we had yesterday. Turned out that the course was mushy but pretty darn fast. It looked a lot like the nationals course last year. Both of our guys didn't have the best of races, they rode hard but it just wasn't their day.

I'm beat, back home tomorrow............next week Lincoln for cross!

2 comments:

JB said...

very cool TP! Congratulations!

Coach said...

Well done my man!