blown out

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i try not to make a point of racing brand new bikes, but they were just too pretty to let sit at home another weekend. jesse and i loaded up the new ferrous and headed to rockcut in rockford, il for the second year. always good competition and a fun course. the directors warned of a few muddy and soft spots but after a brief trail warmup it was quite apparent that these “few” spots could break the race open.

i took a brief vacation from my “PRO”ness as i slipped a pedal at the start, im blaming it on my new shoes. i found myself in the middle of the chaos that is a race start. after some fancy weaving i made it to the outside and onto fifth wheel. someone got antsy pants and shot into the off camber turn in first only to blow his tyre off and spray us with stan’s. by the time we hit the trail i was third wheel. we hit the mud. as jesse hunkered down i took to running and got on his wheel. the hammer was down and we quickly created a nice gap. jesse led the first lap. we hit the giant log crossing into the second lap as jesse happened to roll one of them off, leaving a nice big gap on the backside. thanks jesse. me OTB. I scrambled to latch back on. half a lap later jesse picked the wrong line in a mud bog. i went around as he latched onto the wheel. generally, im very good at sucking wheel but ive made it a point to actually help out a bit. third lap came and jesse took over pacing again. we made it through with only minor hangups through lapped traffic. the final climb was an all out suffer fest. who would pop first. turns out i did five seconds too early. we maintained the gap through the finish, with jesse taking the win. same outcome as last week but a very different feel.