Tsali+Mud=Good Times

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So we arrived at Tsali Saturday afternoon only to be greeted by gray skies and rain, bringing back bad memories from the year prior, where brake pads were eaten up and wrecks were a plenty.  Luckily for us this year looked to not be a repeat of last year as the skies cleared about 11 pm and the forecast for Sunday was clear skies and highs hovering around the low 70’s.  I saw 2 other crew members who were in attendance.  Sam Koerber, who owned the the Pro/Semi Pro race taking home first place and what I would assume was a rather large payout since there was quite an abundance of Pro/Semi Pro racers, and Amanda Sproat who made the long 9.5hr drive for some warm weather racing and a 3rd place in the Expert Women category.  Nice job guys!  As for my race, things started out as I had planned.  I went into the woods exactly were I wanted to be and was just settling in as we approached the first climb of the day when I heard  the disheartening sound of my chain falling off to the inside.  Shaken but not stirred, I hopped off the bike, corrected the problem, and set out to make up the ground I had lost only for the same thing to happen again a few miles later.  After I remounted the bike for a second time I tried to calm myself down and settle back into a rhythm, hoping that I hadn’t lost to much time.   By the end of the first lap I slowly began to start picking off the riders who had passed me and after a couple of miles into the 2nd lap I had worked my way back into 4th position.  Halfway through the 2nd lap I had made it to within 30 seconds and viewing distance of the 3rd place rider when “Man you gotta be kidding me” i had a flat tire.  I pulled the tire out inflated it with a C02 and started shaking and spinning the tire hoping to activate the superjuice enough to to salvage the rest of the race.  After an eventful day of racing I held on to 4th position rolling across the line a mere 45 sec behind the 3rd place rider and with 15psi in my rear tire.  Once again it proved to be another good weekend for the 29er crew.