Hood River Double Cross: Day 1

If I had to pick a phrase that most accurately described my performance this weekend I would be hard pressed to beat "missing the train."  Actually, "A.D.D. emotions" would come pretty close to describing Day 1.

running the sand; so much faster than riding it
photo courtesy of Dave Roth

Driving out to the race I wasn't really psyched about this race for a number of reasons but nothing I haven't dealt with before.  This race is typically the same weekend as the UCI Starcrossed weekend in Seattle but since that isn't UCI C1/C2 this year I'm keeping it local.  I will now continue this post with my train of thoughts for the rest of the day as that's probably the most descriptive.


[pre-ride the course/talk to teammates]
"awesome, another mtn bike course turned into a cx circuit; turns out I don't know how handle my bike"
"holy crap, a todler on a Skuut bike could ride this section faster than I am"
"that's the sixth pinch flat I've seen in this race, what rock garden did I miss on the pre-ride"

[at the startline]
"screw this, I'm just going to take it easy, have fun and work on handling"
"eh, maybe I should try.  NO, cx is supposed to be fun this year"
"yeah, but if you just ride you'll be pissy later"
"stop thinking brain, it'll be what it'll be"
"wait, did I just get the third place callup next to Luelling, Tuckerman, Skerritt, etc?"
"did I do something right or really, really wrong?"
"see, now you actually have to try now.  This is going to be fun and you're going to like it"
"ok, I'm actually going to try now, let's see what we can do"

[get a good start and am probably 5th heading into the single track]
"ok, let's just get through this as fast as we can; just follow the wheel in front of you"
"wait, who just flew through the air up there?"

coming out of the single track
photo courtesy of Dave Roth

[Tuckerman throws his bike off the course with a rolled tire; on into the single track we go]
"crap, I really suck at this"

[punch a tree, lose my rear brake and give a tree a hard shoulder all in the course of 100 yards]
"screw this, I'm not having fun anymore"
"ok, stop trying and just ride.  Don't think, just ride"

And that's exactly what I did.  I finished 9th on the day which isn't terrible, but not what I was capable of either.  I could blame it on any number of reasons from riding 90% of the race without a rear brake or the simple fact that I didn't roll through the single track section as fast as I'm capable of but in the end I had fun.  Some days you just have to know when to pull the plug and yesterday was one of those days.  While it's always fun to fight it out with another racer until the very end are important I believe the days where you can sit back and just enjoy a race without too much pressure are just as important.

A couple more really good pictures from Nick Fochtman can be found HERE and HERE.