Red Wing

Sunday was an unusual race at Red Wing with a lot of the top riders out of town for nationals. It was a good race to get the body reintroduced to some harder efforts without going ballistic. It was warm and I only had a short warm up before lining up. Temps were moderate with higher dew points being responsible for most of the sweating. Not a scorcher by any means compared to other years. It rained the day before and the trail was perfectly tacky with no slick spots. Off the start I just slow rolled the big ring around the grass field and when I looked back half way around I had a gap. I went into the single track first with Sam on my 6. I wasn't feeling the flow of the tight single track and it took me a lap to get my handling back on par. Sam had a small gap on me going into lap 2 but I came back to him when he went OTB on a log pile and he had to put his chain back on down in the quarry. After pulling another gap he crashed again slipping out in the grass going down around the starting field and I caught him again. The whole race the time gaps were growing behind me, 1:00... 1:45... 3:00. I stayed under a minute behind Sam and he waited after climbing out of the quarry on the last lap for me to catch him. I told him I wouldn't contend with him at the finish I guess watching the Schlek bros in the tour, he wanted to come in together. I told him to do the "Howitzer" victory salute (we practice our victory salutes with John Thompson on victory lane once in a while at the end of a ride. Watch for Eric Thompson to perform some of these maneuvers in his upcoming years) It also would have been fun to do a slow motion sprint with the "Howitzer" added in. Now that would have been an entertaining finish. It was a fun race and a fun coarse. I haven't been on the coarse in 2 years so it was nice to be back and ride it.
Next up is Powder Monkey in Duluth. I'm sure it will be the other extreme with a stacked field. Spirit is always an epic race with the longest climb in the series and the funnest technical single track. The Duluthians never disappoint when it comes to a quality race. I hear its a 2 lapper this year.