Here and there

This weekend we took a trip to Colorado Springs for a UCI race and Granby to preride the course for Nationals.

The Colorado Springs course was interesting - most of it was on a wider than singletrack but not jeep-road gravel path type thing, but then there would be big piles of rocks that it was impossibly to take a good line through. Then on the start line, they decided that all of the Experts were going to have a mass start!
Luckily I was on the front row, but that didn't stop about 10 people from other classes who could ride slightly uphill open stuff but had to stop and walk as soon as there was a rock more than an inch tall from getting in front of me before all of the rocks...
Eventually I got back around most of them, but still had no idea who was in my class and who wasn't. Basically the rest of the race was me trying to pass anyone who I could, and I guess it kinda worked, because I ended up 5th in 19-29 and 2nd in 19-24.

At Granby they didn't have the entire course cut yet, so we got to ride up the mountaian, then take 3the easier downhill courses back down. Unfortunately, our legs were tired for some reason, so we only felt like going up two or three times, which meant we only got to go down a couple times (which was pretty cool - the course we took had ~70 jumps and berms!)

Anywho, we're back in Snowmass now, just in time for some waiter to think he was sneaky enough to pocket a $20 and put some extra on my card... Then try to guilt-trip me when I caught him and and left a sup-standard tip...