Month of Mud part #2

(See attached file: Tandumb.bmp)

Even after a long day of racing and traveling on Saturday I was pretty excited about racing the 2nd MOM race at Raccoon. This was going to be my first cross race of the year and I wanted to see if my practice would pay off. We didn't get home Saturday until like 10:00 and got cleaned up and I did some last minute bike preparations. Sunday morning came way to early as usual. The plan was to get to the park by 8:30 to do some pre riding so I could pick my final gear and also wanted to practice some dismounts on the Red Sled. But as usual left late and then to top it off 10 minutes into the drive I seen I forgot my helmet. Finally we arrived at the park at like 9:15 got registered and dressed that didn't leave much time for any pre riding. I asked a few other SSers what gear they were using and changed my to a 42x19 which was the easiest I had with me. I did manage to squeeze in a full and got to the line. The field had about 40 people in it and I was very happy to get a call up. Then it was off I had a good start and after a couple laps I found myself in third. Which I was pretty happy with but after about 30 minutes of this pace I popped and had to slow down. By the end 4 people passed me and I was glad that there wasn't anymore. I would have liked to done a little better but after a long race the day before 7th overall and 2nd SS will have to do.

Now it was time to hurry up again and get on the Red Sled to do a little practice. If you think dismounts and run ups are hard on a regular bike try it on a tandem sometime. After a few dismounts and remounts it was time to go. Mechanicals always suck but somehow we managed to pop our chain off in like the first ten feet. I want to say THANKS to the Shogrens our only competition for the day that waited until we were up and going before taking off. We stayed pretty close to them on the first couple of laps. It was amazing how clean they're dismounts were. I think on lap 3 is when we started to make up some ground. This is also when I realized that we had a big advantage over them big and wide tires. We were making up lots of time because we could almost everything and they were walking allot due to there skinny little tires. Then on the 4th lap we go around them and held them off to get the win. It was fun and pretty intense racing on the Red Sled and thanks to everyone that was cheering us on. I noticed that Gunnar is already onto us and looking for a different wheel for his sled. But maybe he needs to look a little closer at the pictures to see the big advantage. I never noticed it until I looked at the pictures was that our pedals were out of sync. Stay tuned for next week's rematch at Grove City. I also need to say thanks to the MOM crew and Gary Dugovich for the awesome job like always.

J