well my first race of the year is in the bag and I actually feel okay about it. managed to ride a very smart race, followed some good wheels at the right times, and finished 4th in my new I'm-an-old-fart category (exp 35-39), 3min off the leader. 29mi in 2hr flat. a little over 14mph avg for a mtb race is prety quick. i'll have a better understanding when full results are posted so I can check my time against the pro/semi- and top SS'ers. course was the same 7mi loop, actually lots of fun and a true high-desert feel, only 1hr5min from Breck. the 5.5 felt great out there, and I was gapping many people on the few rocky descents. more importantly, it felt great climbing too. I kept the RP23 in ProPedal 2 the whole race, and it was the perfect amount of cush. But don't get me wrong, my 5.5 has almost 6" of travel front and back, so I can't expect to hop out of the saddle and have my bike react instantly. But ever since my knee surgery in '99, that's not my style anyway. spin to win baby. my front fork finally broke in and I finally am getting at least 5" of travel up there. I am sold on the KryTech lube. If you start by applying it to a new or very clean chain, it will reward you with a super quiet drivetrain, without attracting too much dirt. That is the problem with T9. It works well, but is too thin and just sucks up all the dust and dirt around Colorado. The dry waxy film that Krytech encrusts on your chain works super well, and is a 1000x improvement over the White Lightning I tried and didn't like a few years back.
afterward we drove down to Boulder via 285. beautiful drive, and the Front Range is about as lush green as I can ever remember it. Sunday morning I did 4 laps at the speed trap (Betasso Preserve). Super super super buff trails, almost more so than Bailey/Buffalo Creek area. did 4 laps and about 13mi in 59min, and I was in recovery mode the day after the race! Helen, Diana and Mary were down at the Title IX 9K for Mother's Day while I rode. Helen easily defended her Baby Jogger World Championship title. She was 1st out of 111 women with baby joggers, and 8th out of 1296 total joggers. Pretty cool stuff, I am going to go check it out next year.
