Riding next to the gates of hell…

This weekend was my second attempt at SSAZ and this year it was SSUSA.  What a blast.  I had a great start since I positioned my bike way past everyone.  We had a lemans start with our front wheel in hand.  Fuzzy led out and I sat in.  Mike M from Georgia and Dax Massey took off and were up 5 minutes on me the whole day.

After going through the first feed, my full bottle came out.  I rode for over an hour with half a bottle of water.  I didn’t eat anything for 2 hours.  I was still able to outclimb Fuzzy and Tim Allen….both on SICK carbon Niners.  After exiting Chiva Falls, I was able to fill a bottle and finally eat.  I dumped some rocks out of my shoe on the fly and hurried back up to the main feed.  I grabbed 2 more bottles from Jen, but finished them before I got to Milagrosa.  Ouch.  Milagrosa has a bit of climbing and it was hot.  I felt like I was being pulled into hell as I was getting dry and fighting cramps.

Anyway…I held off the chasers and finished 3rd.  I was super stoked on my fitness……especially my climbing.  Watching my diet is paying off already.  The Superfly 100 rocked with the Yess tensioner.  Scott Morris rode a similar setup on his Lenz and finished not far behind me.  We were the only two FSers in the entire group.

I got knocked out of the lowspeed no dab derby on a borrowed bike when I changed direction and let up.   Then Beto and I got hosed in a tug-of-war since for some reason I thought we would be alright pulling up hill in the gravel.  Stupid is as stupid does.