Ahh man I really love the fact that the Beaver High School's mascot is the Beaver. Honestly Beaver Beaver's just never gets old. I need a T for sure.
On to the race. After 2 hours of sleep the night before the race I knew I had most likely already been crushed, but the rain falling in the morning brought some excitement to my tired old self. From the start I kept at the front and wanted to stay with the lead group. Just before the dirt as the road starts to kick up I couldnt hang. I figured I would keep my own pace and catch up on the DH.
Well funny thing about that DH...its a long way away and its over before you know it. I did blow past a big chunk of CX bikes on my way down, but a few would find there way back to me before the final climbzzz. That is plural for climb. The Col de Crush, as its known, is not the last climb and having a KOM at the top is just cruel. I started feeling really good during the last part of the climb and all the way into the finish...except for the last road grunt which is just the rotten icing on the cake.
I missed my goal of 5 hours and I was way off a top 5 finish at 10th so I have some room for improvement if I ever decide to do this beast again. This race is all about climbing and that is not good for an all arounder like myself.
As for bike of choice. I was very certain I had made the right choice all day...but thinking about it I could have been a bit faster on my CX, I enjoyed the DH much more with a suspension fork and some fatter tires on my 29er hardtail.
Burke does the best job of creating and executing an event that I have ever seen in all my years of racing bicycles. If you havent done it, do it. First class everything and the post race meal was the best grub I have had in a long time.
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