Gloceser Grind, fogged in, and Power Bar

This past weekend was the first EFTA race on the calendar for 2010, The Glocester Grind (RI, not MA). Sean and myself represented the Comp Edge MTB Team, and because we like to roll in style we brought a dedicated mechanic Nate. I was looking forward to the race as these EFTA races are pretty fun, and the weather was looking good, so I was expecting some dry weather. When we pulled off the highway to get to the race, the area looked familiar, and immediately I realized that I was about 5 minutes from Rogers Corporation where I interned for two summers! This gave me good feelings, and when we arrived at the race I was ready to get registered, dressed, warmup and then rip it up.

The whistle went off (no guns for bike racing) and the elite field was off, immediately we were shot around a tight corner and I got into a good position and ended up going into the woods in about third place. I was here for a little bit and was feeling good, and within in a few minutes we ended up getting into the muddy rock gardens and this is where I started to get a little thrown off. There were these extended mud pits, and for some the reason the past few years these have given me endless trouble. I always seem to pick bad lines the first few times through and people eat me alive, to make matters worse a lot of these mudpits had rocks in them, so I was losing time. The course was as flat as a pancake and in general had fairly rough ground, because of these reasons I was unable to really get into a groove, and hills are ushually a good thing for me, so I just kept on pedaling, ended up running through most mud pits, and I came across the line in 4th place. I am pretty happy about this as the field was strong, and this course was not well suited for my abilities. If I race enough of these mud pit courses I am bound to get a feel for them, so I am happy to be challenged in this way.

Check out this video from Cycling Dirt of the race:

Cycling Videos on CyclingDirt

Post race legs, covered in mud, and yep that is blood. The course was pretty crowded with people from other fields, so I was running by someone who got stuck in mud, and I fell right on my knees. Also, what you can't see is that something hit me in the back of my leg, and caused a huge knot in the back of my knee. This is gone now, but it hurt pretty bad and made my leg really stiff at the time.

,

Here is Nate, our dedicated mechanic, he keeps the machines running properly, and it was awesome to have him at the race, thanks Nate!

Sean came across the line first in the expert race, and now he is upgrading to elite in EFTA, should be great to have a teammate around.


Here is an awesome waterfall I came across last week, its hard to tell its scale, but the waterall is about 10 feet high.

After the race weekend I found all of these PowerBar wrappers on my passenger seat floor, I eat a lot of those!

Finally, this Wednesday it was raining, however I was scheduled to do hill repeats, and I am not going to let rain stop me, so I still rode to the top, and by the time I got there I was in a cloud, awesome!