I Belong To A Family Of Winners

Who knew?

Despite shitty weather, the mountain bike race was actually really fun. I won the Clydesdale division (go fatty!), Franz won the 45-49 division, and Max won the kids race!

My starting wave consisted of men 30-39 and Clydesdales. The race started with about half a mile of grass riding before we hit the trail. I got in with the front group of 5, and when I realized that none of them were big enough to be in the Clydesdale division, I decided I would just ride wheels and have some fun.

I was a little disappointed with the way some people raced. One guy who was in front of me was an awful bike handler, but refused to let anyone pass. Since the course was pretty slick and muddy, he went down in several of the hairpin turns. He would then spring to his feet and hold his bike sideways across the trail while he remounted in order to keep anyone from passing. The problem was, he had decent fitness and would drop the hammer every time the trail opened up, so it was really hard to get by him.

I finally got tired of trying and just decided to let him lead, since there was no one within visual distance behind us. The three riders in front of us were out of sight and figured knew they wouldn't be seen again. At this point we started catching a lot of the slower riders from the previous wave, who also didn't want to move over, and I finally found a chance to get around the dude.

OK, enough bitching.

After a few minutes I caught another rider from my wave and rode his wheel the final couple miles to the finish, where I was nearly outsprinted when I tried to take the inside line out of the woods and my rear tire lost traction.

Franz was the first finisher in his wave, and came in a couple minutes after me to win his age group.

He's like a real-life anatomy lesson.

Later in the day, I brought Max and Addi back for the kids race, which was about 1/4 mile on the grass trail. All the kids got T-shirts, medals, and swag from Shimano, which they thought was really cool.

Max won the race, and Addi rode pretty damn well for a 4-year-old. I'll post pics of them when I find my damn camera.

I honestly don't remember having this much FUN at a cycling even in several years. There were medals for every itty-bitty division, people on the microphone that kept the spectators engaged, a fantastic atmosphere, and fun stuff for family members to do. Even the Elite competitors seemed really laid-back and friendly.

I'm also quite enamored with the Clydesdale division.

Major props to Kris, Kyia, Ben, and the rest of the Mid MN Cycling Club for all the work they put in to make it a successful weekend.

I went to spectate at the cyclocross race on Sunday, and it looked like an awful lot of work. Those dudes are nuts. I did this race a couple years ago. Ouch.

Now I need to get my muddy-ass bike cleaned up for the Monday Night MTB Ride tonight...if my lights showed up yet (grrrrrrr).