MuddySlinger Racey Reporty

Like I said before I am going to catch up on these race reports before chainbreaker! So let's talk about perhaps the most well organized, insanely fun course, most slick conditions on the OBRA Calender..The day before we headed to corvallis to get our pre-registration done, and get a nice pre ride in. It ended up being one of the most fun warm up rides I've ever done with a nice climb followed by an amazing downhill that was a little slick to get ourselves prepared for the conditions we were set to take on in tommorows race.

Mandatory Post-Ride Picture

Perhaps what made it the most fun was we had our photographer, and good friend Fletcher Jackson out to join us on one of his first mountain bike rides ever! He was a trooper in the slick conditions, and well....I think he may be hooked on it....Especially seeing how he now has a shiny new Marin Bolinas Ridger 29er in his collection now.

After the warm up it was off to Shane's dads to wash off the bikes, and ourselves, and of course to visit. Of course he had some yummy cheese and crackers for us to have, and he's truly a great host letting 7 people take a shower at his house. After we said our good byes it was onto the next destination...

Shane's madres! You see one of the things I have grown in love with is how good we have it when there's a race in Corvallis. I mean she sets us up nice a bed to sleep in, home cooked meals that are conducive to our cycling, and pretty much anything else you would really want! Including some not so friendly treats to slow ya down that little bit more :).. So after a good nights sleep it was D-Day...Time for some Mudslinger Action

Coming into the race I had mix feelings of what was going to happen during the race. I didn't feel like I had been riding to great as of lare, and I was definitely not hitting my training hours like I was supposed to, but none the less I was ready for another race, and whatever happens was how it was going to be. I did make the conscious decision to run some well suited mud tired though, as I knew from experience it was going to be a slick one, and boy did that turn out to be a good decision!

Get Dirty....

Before I knew it we were in staging, and ready to get this race started. Then we were off, and it was go time, and instantly into the pain cave I went as it started on a gravel climb to separate the field before the singletrack, and it did exactly that! As it turned out Shane got a bit of a better start than I did, so I set my sights on him and got going. When we got the singletrack it was as slick as snot! But my tires were hooking up real good, and really making the slick downhills almost effortless...In fact I was gaining quite a bit of time on some of my competitors who didn't make the choice to go with some mud tires.

Basically for the rest of the race Shane, and I kept going back and forth, and let me tell you that made it one of the most fun races in a long long time! But through it all he even decided to help me out with some shot bloks! That helped me soooo much buddy, so on one of the last climbs I put in a dig and it was the last time I did see him until the finish. The climb leading back up to the finish was sooo painful yet so rewarding knowing I was just about done with the race, and as it turned out Shane rolled in only about a minute back so I was like perfect we finished right near each other, so let's hope we did alright against the rest of the field...As it turns out we did real good!

Did someone ask for a gunshow?

In fact we ended up finishing 2nd and 3rd! With Shane taking 3rd, and me taking 2nd. Needless to say this was my best mudslinger result to date, and I was extremely happy with how it ended up. I always struggled at this race, but not so this year! So those results made for a nice ride home, and of course a nice call to Eric who runs Trinity Bikes, which is the shop that makes this all possible! Now let's hope we can keep the momentum going for the rest of the season...