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After Shenandoah I met up with Kelly Klett and traveled to their home in North Carolina. They were super hosts and took good care of me all week. We even ventured out to ride some of their local goodness and had a great BBQ dinner Thursday night in downtown Raleigh. We headed south Friday for Dahlonega Georgia for the NUE Series finals. Read more »

Watch more video of 2012 Shenandoah Mountain 100 NUE on cyclingdirt.org

I headed east for the Shenandoah 100, but the best made travel plans were laid to waste by a hurricane named Isaac. After a late arrival into Baltimore, I got to bed after 2am. We got up and made it to the venue in time for a few showers to roll through. It seems like nearly every trip I make east for racing ends up a muddy mess! Read more »

A couple weeks ago the newest, youngest, and likely brightest member of our team came down to race some short track and spend a day riding trails here in the home range. Ian is a senior at Rex Putnam High School in Portland and has a great passion for MTB as well as photography and video production. Thank goodness he brought some of his toys along so we could document a great summer evening on bikes!

When Evan asked if I wanted to carpool down to Jacksonville for the OBRA State XC MTB race I was pretty stoked. It was a new race to try out so we packed up my Subaru and drove to Medford where we stayed the night before the race. Trying to get enough sleep, we woke up last minute and showed up to the venue just about 10 minutes before the race started. I didn’t manage to get much of a warm-up in, but felt great as we took off on the steep gravel road which spread all of the racers out by at least 20 seconds. I had studied the course map online and remembered seeing that my race was supposed to be about 20 miles with over 3,000ft of elevation gain so I made sure to save enough energy so the climbing wouldn’t wipe me out. I ended up missing one of the first turns and didn’t realize it until I was over a mile past it and had climbed an extra 500ft. After turning around and getting back to the race course, I rode about four miles of downhill singletrack along a steep hillside and was real shocked when I heard bells and saw the finish line, as my Garmin only showed 12 miles, two of those being off the course! I asked the promoter about the mileage and he explained that he wanted it to be suitable to all ages and levels which is why he chose to the truncate the course. I was a little disappointed since I would have stepped up my pace substantially if I had known this ahead of time. Evan won the Pro category capturing his fourth OBRA XC title, and I finished 2nd in Juniors. I’m not sure yet if I’ll plan to race next year in Jacksonville again or not.

Ian Mastenbrook

Yeah, I just raced up and around that mountain!

One of last season’s most disappointing races for me was the Single Speed XC Nationals in Sun Valley. With the two year venue cycle, I got another stab at it this year and finished a big geography loop of racing/riding with a stop at Mt. Baldy. The course had been altered significantly (thank goodness) and we rode one big loop circumnavigating the mountain climbing Cold Springs and descending Warm Springs before returning to the venue via the River Run Trail. As we began the long climb to the top of Baldy, Cameron Chambers put the hammer down and never looked back riding his fully suspended SS weapon away from us like a billy goat. I didn’t have the best legs but managed to begin the descent in fourth and moved up from there to finish second. While it wasn’t the win I had dreamed about it was the best I could do. I had been bested by a better man that day and that was still a much better outcome than last year!