Sweet, mountain bike racing inside my own city limits! Totally rad idea to have summer evening races at the Oregon State Fairgrounds. Thanks to the Buy Local Team and our folks from Capitol Velo, we got this awesome opportunity!

Even though I despise short tracks and generally have to race a least two hours before I ever have a chance of winning, I decided to stamp some Plews authority on the local scene.

I crushed the first three out of four races in decisive fashion and it was in the bag. I even came and did some parade laps during the final event just because I could. Actually that was the only part I regretted since the fair was on, it was half dark, there were people (?) and objects entering the course, and the whole place generally had exhaust and greasy fair food fume over-saturation. I think was was asphyxiated several times over!

Anyway, it was fun, I won, and best of all: this blog just got postive again!

Thanks for reading…

Today is my birthday and negativity of this rant is making me feel old!

Uh-oh–more to come. Maybe it is the life of a so-called “pro” mountain bike racer. Kind of a dismally futile experience! Sorry, now I digress…

I am not really sure why I started this race. Maybe it was redemption for the Cream Puff or most likely the fact that I got a free entry. In any case, it wasn’t such a brilliant endevour–but is riding 100 miles on a mountain bike going to ever be smart?

I was also wondering why my saddle was pointed straight up. Stopped to fix that only to discover that both tires were going flat. Stopped at the first feedzone and pumped them up and started digging myself out of the hole. Or maybe that was into a hole since most of the first fifty or so miles resembled a sandbox or the beach or something similar.

Reached the second feedzone and had began to cut my losses under 10 minutes to Chris Sheppard (Santa Cruz) and was now comfortably in second place. After some more smooth riding the gap was down to 6 minutes and I thought “Wow, this might turn out alright”–WRONG. Wrong as in wrong turn and 5 miles of joyriding through central Oregon singletrack before a decided there was no way the course could possibly be this FUN!

I was right, well wrong as it were and completely off course. Proving MY navigational skills are superb, I rode back to start with only a compass!

Another busted effort but nice to know my form is returning and I can still ride a bike fast.

Thanks for standing with me!

I will preface this very short post with this: I have never raced either of these events before because I thought it would be a drag… and guess what? IT WAS!!!

I have done a few criteriums (riding in circles) before but always as part of a stage race. Under these conditions crits are generally just a waste of time and you just ride around and get a time so I thought the Championships would be harder and therefore better. Wrong.

Heres the deal, road dudes are pretty rad when you are talking continental teams and protour. However, around here they are basically a bunch of strong pedalers–not much else going on. This was evidenced by the ridiculous sprinting and subsequently ludicrous braking out of and into every turn. After a few laps of this I was near the back wonder how I would ever make it to the front with such an energy waste going on.

Then it got better–a bunch of them started wiping out due to the silly brake checking and their hypoxic mental condition and I was split off the back. Enough–time to have some dinner and relax!

The Hillclimb wasn’t a lot better. I got greedy and decided to do the masters race first which essentially only caused me to get bored and do crappy. I finished a couple seconds off winning and then proceed to totally blow off the CAT 1 race and wasn’t even in the top five. My performance was so lame it isn’t really even worth mentioning but the point is… The Hillclimb took less than a half hour and wasn’t every more much more than a five percent grade.

So, really it was a prologue TT with a net elevation gain. Not my gig!