Sunday, April 13, 2008

Rung out at a local

So I finally got my handle bars and stems for my bikes. Friday I threw my new Sunline bars on the slalom bike. Bangert and I headed to some dirt jumps so I could get a little time on my bike. That evening we left for a local race in Santa Barbara. By local I mean small, because it was about a 4 hour drive. We got in late to a beautiful ranch out in the country, we couldn't find where everyone else was camping so we just parked in a huge pasture, unloaded the bikes and slept in the bed of the truck. As usual just before day break I froze. I think no matter what temperature it is I will always be cold just before the sun comes up. So on to the race...Well I was expecting a little bit bigger crowd of racers, the slalom was a small turnout. Cole had went up early to check out the track, when he came back he told me there was a big quad jump up on course. He sounded half joking so I couldn't tell what he really thought. Anyways the track was good, really fast, good berms, jumps and a few flat turns at the finish. The quad he had talked about was 4 rollers meant to be hit as a double double or to be rolled. It was really long and had a tiny lip. After a few runs we decided we should give the quad option a try. I was the test pilot for attempt one. You had to hit two big berms and just pedal as hard as you could. It wasn't exactly pretty but I cleared it and it was pretty fun. Cole hit it up next and came just a little short, he decided it probably wasn't the best idea on his already hurt wrist. Practice was a blast, qualies were a one run format on the red lane. I crashed, but somehow made it to the final round of 5???? Yeah this is where things got interesting. For those of you that don't race, you can't have a round of five, it has to be 4, 8, 16 and so forth. Anyways race promotions were interesting at best. I ended up racing the same guy in both my rounds, crashed hard the second time we raced to find out that we weren't using the usual 1.5 second max advantage. Lets just say whatever I thought I knew about slalom was different at this race. I truly had no idea what you had to do to win. Cole crashed hard in his second round hurting his injured wrist again. Even though he couldn't even finish his run he ended up placing higher than myself in the final standings. Like I said interesting race promotions and I still am not sure what it would of taken to win. It was a great day of riding, I always have fun riding some slalom. I had 3 crashes on the day, two of them being pretty hard slaps. I am bruised and scraped, but hopefully I have all my crashes out of the way before the biggest slalom of the year next Saturday at the Sea Otter Classic. Cole is feeling good the wrist isn't to bad and we are planning an xc ride today on the slalom bikes. More to come on the long drive home last night.

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the long drive cross country

the long drive cross country
somwhere in Utah