First Race as a Semi-pro

First mountain bike race of the season is under the belt, and I'm glad. Our field included 33 finishers, one of them being non-other than Georgia Gould (she's fast!) and likely to be representing the stars/stripes in Beijing. The race was held in Nathop, Colo., roughly two hours west of Denver, just north of Salida. The gun (or loud voice, I wasn't paying attention) goes off and the vicious pedaling began. Once things settled I found myself in the company of friends - teammate Derek and all-around racing pal Alan. Hopefully it was the warm weather or training week prior, but I felt terribly flat. Somewhere on the third lap Derek and Alan decided to start resting for Angel Fire so I ended up a few seconds in front of each of them. In the end I ended up 17th, the only saving grace is that my time would have 'won' my old Expert division and I would have managed to finish in front of seven/eight 'pros'. Post race a bunch of us hit up Amica's Pizza & Microbrews in Salida. I must plug their fine fair and even finer micros, their IPA is uber bueno. Full bellies and growlers in hand, we headed to Doody's A-frame at the base of Monarch. Sunday morning we headed back to the venue to ready ourselves for the STXC battle which looked to be on a super-fun course. Unfortunately there was a scheduling snafu and our race was moved from around noon, to nearly 6:00 p.m., putting us home around 9:00 p.m. That didn't work for most of us so we loaded up and headed to Buffalo Creek to ride those sweet trails. All-in-all it was a great way to start the season off. Next up is Battle the Bear then Angel Fire over Memorial Day weekend, hooray. In Floyd We Trust - Lemond is a Tool. Peace, B