The Moe’s SRC #6 Race reports

My Saturday started with a practice DH run. I hiked up to the start since I like to stop and check out some of the sections of the DH course. As I was walking up the hill, I also noticed the Yellow signs with the blue arrows, these are the signs that marked the SuperD course. As I pushed the bike to the top, I noticed that the SuperD course was very similar to the one from the first race, except that it didn’t go through the lower rock garden.

Picture courtesy of Chris Sharky Gattas

There was a snafu and my name was not on the name list, that meant I had to go dead last. I didn’t care, less pressure for me. Unfortunately I had a terrible race, the terrain was rather loose and I lost it in a couple of places. I also got lost twice, luckily, Sharky was there to do traffic enforcement and my team mate David also redirected me to where I was supposed to go.

I had a great time racing SuperD, the KHS Flagstaff 29er was an excellent weapon of choice when the terrain was fast and flowy, my KHS AM2000 served me well when the terrain was a little more challenging and I needed all 6 inches of travel. I ended up taking 4th place on the SuperD overalls, I am more than pleased with those results.

When I woke up Sunday, it was raining hard. I loaded the DH200 and took off to Fontana. Since I did some soil-sampling on Saturday during a practice run, I re-injured my shoulder and I opted to just race and not practice.

Joe and I were tied on points for second place for the overall. I knew that whoever came in first was going to take 2nd overall. Joe and I have really enjoyed racing against each other, this time was no different. I knew that he wanted it as much as I did. I had a near flawless run, the rain really did the trail some good and I felt rather fast. As soon as I crossed the finish line, I started counting, I saw Joe coming in and I counted about 25 seconds, I knew it was going to be really close:

Yup, Joe was faster than me by less than a quarter of a second. Now that’s racing!

I had a great time racing DH, my personal goal was to have fun and not to kill myself, third place overall was just icing on the cake!

I want to thank all my team mates and their family for their support, KHS Bicycles and Vince Calvillo for letting me use the DH200 (review coming soon!) and the Flagstaff 29er, Evomo.com, HossMTB, Pricepoint.com, Ergon, and Serfas.

Next stop: The Nationals!!