On a roll

The Cache Valley Joyride was a joy for me. The combination of the holiday and the heat drove a lot of people away from the race. At the start I was disappointed to see that there were only a couple of familiar faces and The Payne Cave wasn’t among them.

I rode up to the venue with the Deer Mouse and Denny the Duke. I should have known we would get a late start with the Deer Mouse involved. We managed to get to the venue just 40 minutes before the start which only allowed for a quick ride around the start loop and climb through the feed zone before heading to the start. Once thing I was sure of was the dust. Since the start group seemed pretty green I decided to pull a Sherwin and go full throttle at the start to see how these guys would react and save myself from having to suck dust on the start loop.

The start went off and I went hard. I was surprised on the 1st corner to see no one behind me. I decided to push the pace hard to see if I could hold off the Wimmer guy to at least the first feedzone since that would be my best chance to stay with him. He caught me just before the end of the start loop and as we started up the first climb he dropped me pretty hard. At this point I was suffering at my lactic threshold and had to let off a little. Another guy in a green Logan jersey came by. As I got to the feed zone the guy I battled with at Solitude caught me and I was determined to hang on to him as I knew he was slow in the dh and could overtake him. I managed to stay with him until the climb across the second meadow which was new to me. He managed to gap me but was we came out of the trees on the long dh I was able to sit on his wheel through the long decent and recover. As we began the long climb to the start/finish he managed to put a gap on me. I looked back and saw no-one. I was still suffering a little from my start and decided to ease up and work hard on the DH to pull him back in and then use the 3rd lap to take him. As I came across the feedzone I could see him about 100 feet in front of me and was confident I could catch him. I pushed hard on the dh hoping to catch him again before the climbs and saw him off to the side fixing a flat. At this point I was doing the math in my head and decided to ride a little conservative and hold on to 3rd place as the 1st two guys where long out of sight. On my third lap coming across the first meadow I saw a group of guys closing in on me and decided that I shouldn’t risk them being in my group and threw down the hammer all the way to the end. I crossed the line and was happy to discover that the guy that I thought was in first pulled a DNF and I was sitting in 2nd place 8 minutes behind the winner. Not a perfect race but hey I got my first podium with prizes!



Here comes Kentucky Bob, I saw that finger you gave me!