USGP Fort Collins Action

USGP weekend number 2 in the books. Not as successful here in Fort Collins as last year, but still an awesome weekend with some great people. Shannon has done an amazing job with the Stan's NoTubes CX team and I feel so lucky to be a part of the team and being able to ride such great gear.

Finally got to try out the Ridley X-Fire disc in a little mud this weekend....though definitely not as much as last year or as much as on the island (looks like it was a good weekend to get away!). Some nasty rain moved in Friday night and Saturday morning and it was looking like it would be a near carbon copy of last years mudfest, but as I was warming up the sun started peaking through and I really can't believe how fast things started drying up! Race conditions were perfect, corners tacky and a little bit of mud to make things exciting. I was hoping to have a better call up, but I keep forgetting its based on UCI points not series points, but manages to grab the last 2nd row position.

I had a great race but just didn't have the oomph to stick with the wheels I needed to. Thinking back I have some doubts as to if I could have squeaked a little more out of my legs and stuck with this wheel or that wheel it could have been a lot different. The next 5 spots in front of my hard fought 9th all seemed to slow the same as me....I just happened to do it a little sooner.

Photo credit © Dave McElwaine

With this in mind I headed into day 2 with the main goal of challenging myself to stay with that wheel. However my body seemed to have different ideas. Things were going great, found myself in a good spot, moving up through the field on Pepper's wheel (who had an amazing weekend of races), but when she made the move around Caroline Mani and I couldn't due to ....insert excuse of corner into barriers....by the time I passed Caroline I had a lot of work to catch back up.

Photo credit © Dave McElwaine

Entering that red very red zone can happen only a couple of times in a race, but throw in some good altitude and you can enter that zone even less. I hit that zone and didn't manage to make contact finding myself panting painfully in no mans land for a little too long. A strong roadie wheel passed me (very fast course today...ave 21.7km/h) and I manages to keep myself in the mix for a little longer. The final lap 6 came and I was swarmed by 4 women in a heart beat. Just dangling off the back of this group for the last lap I couldn't muster the pop to catch anyone's wheel....but managed to hold off Amanda Carey who was just a head of me Saturday and hold on for 14th place.

Photo credit © Dave McElwaine

No worthy excuses...though I could come up with a lot :). But I'm hoping it turns into a good learning weekend for me. Teammate Kenny Wehn who had an awesome weekend in the Master 35+ gave me an awesome workout to do....here I come Wednesday.

It was the first weekend to have the whole team together, it's pretty near being a part of a team that travels and works well together. Had a lot of fun this weekend...thank you Regan for the pre-trip complete overhaul, thank you Chris and Kenny for dialling my bike on for race day, and huge thank you to our host housing Randy!! As usual I loved the Stan's Iron Cross wheels, working flawlessly at my new 24/25 psi....yes, I'm coming to enjoy running lower pressure!!!

Photo credit © Dave McElwaine

Back home for 3 days work, then straight down to Spooky Cross in LA. Really excited about this race!!!!