My blog chronicling my journey to earn my pro mountain bike license. Also talking about things from the bike shop and stuff that I think is interesting or cool.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Last summer series race

This post is quite belated, but wanted to share how my how my last summer series race went.  Four of us lined up for the start of the expert race.  Went into the woods 2nd behind Justin Brayton, Justin who is very high level pro motor cross racer, who always rides smoothly and chooses really good lines.  So I was very happy to follow him and was riding well.  After 10 minutes or so Justin started to pull away on the technical sections, I continued to ride well.  Unfortunately I hit a rooty step up, and got bumped off my bike, in doing this my chain dropped.  As I was working on my bike next to the trail Justin McLean, who had been slowly catching me, passed me.  Fortunately I was able to get my chain past the chain guide and get back on the bike quickly.  After that the race was pretty uneventful, I wasn't able to close down on either Justin, but also wasn't passed from those behind.  Overall I was pretty happy with the race, my handling and fitness were ok-good.

I surprisingly ended up finishing second overall in the series, behind a very deserving Justin McLean, and in front of Luke Sagur, Luke would have easily beaten me but he skipped a number of races to get ready for other races.  Given my ankle issues I was very happy with this past season, when I was healthy I rode faster than I would have thought possible before the year, and I was able to get back to riding well by the end of the year.