Big Calves

The Intermountain Cup "Circus" headed to Sundance this past weekend for a challenging but fun race. The course is equally challenging and fun, a sufferfest on the uphill but a blast coming back down. I opted to ride a full suspension bike this past weekend and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Thanks to Matt O to let me ride this bike and Ryan K at the Cannondale tent for helping with a super fast set up. The bike was also equipped with 172.5cm (I am used to 175s) crank arms which turned out to be an interesting experiment. The Pro field was stacked again with almost 20 people showing up including a come back from Eric Jones. You could feel the fear on the startline, everybody thought Eric would put the hammer down again just like he used to. I actually rode a while behind him at the start and noticed his calves are almost as big as mine. (but not quite)

Alex Grant and Ali G got away at the beginning and a small group of 4 formed about 2 min. behind. Bart and myself were in that group at the front and I noticed I could barely stay with him on the steeper climbs, but felt like I could do much more on the backside of the race course. I attacked on the gravel downhill section (or maybe my 160lbs just helped me pass Barts 135lbs on that section) and was able to build a little gap which I held to the finish. I caught Ali at the beginning of the third lap but never could quite get within the reach of Alex G. He seems to be getting in form at the right time and put in a great race. It'll be fun racing at Deer Valley for the next 2 weekends.