Mud, Sweat, but no Tears

For all you wimps that cried about the course being too muddy, you missed out. What a great course. There were a couple of sections where snow melt had created a couple of mud puddles but everything else was nice and tacky.

The hardest part was getting into the venue. It was mud bog getting in but the sun was out and the course was drying pretty well by the time the sport race started.



I took my usually starting place (off the back). The first part of the course was as Bart described it, like riding on a rubber mat or a mattress. It looked dry but was the resistance it provided made it difficult to ride fast. Even the meadow downhill required a lot of pedaling because of this.

After starting in 12th place I decided to just be patient and see how the first lap went. I figured the people that did well in this race were the ones that took things easy since the mud can cause problems with the drivetrain. Sure enough on the my second lap I started passing people and seeing a few people walking back to the start. On my third lap I almost ran over a broken chain. I passed two guys in my category at the start of the second lap and was relieved that wasn't going to finish last. Finally after 3 laps I was done and managed to end up 7th. (note - very little mud in the picture below)