Good representation at Swanson!

Holy moly! What a great reward for an old bull having finished a tuff race. Free Red Bull, courtesy of Libby, the Red Bull hoddie.
The Tedster, menacing with his Fu Manchu bar-room brawler look, leads the group.
Single-speedster Dave is chomping at the bit to hit it!

Summary: May 2, 2009, Swanson MTB race

Andy, Ted, Dave, Randy and Pete all competed at the first Psycowpath mountain bike race of the season at Swanson in Bellevue. It was a fast track, due to early week rain. No dust, just beautiful fast dirt. Now, if I could only learn how to take advantage of those fast conditions.

I raced Cat 3 Masters 45+ for the last time. I'm moving up to Cat. 2 for the rest of my MTB life. I look forward to getting routinely thrashed in Cat. 2, but I'll get more out of it. Anyway, I managed to ramble to a win in my race. I was hoping to keep up with the Cat 3 Open youngsters, but the first tough up and down caused the two riders in front of me to fall over. I had to bail out and run up the slope. Later, it happened again on the hill right past the pavement crossing. And I dropped a chain. Did a quick pit and got it back on OK, but that cost me 20 seconds or so.

Dave podiumed in the Singles-speed category. What kind of sicko does that race with only one gear? Go figure.

Andy grabbed 13th in the super-fast Cat 1 Experts race. Nice showing for a dude out laying on the beach in Hawaii the last two weeks.

Ted raced Cat 2 Open and finished 24th in a big field. He was definitely the scariest dude out there with his new Fu Manchu look.

Randy did the Marathon class and endured his way to a 4th place finish. He did 8 laps and finishe in 3 hours, 25 minutes. Crazzzy!!

Looking forward to this weekend's Platte River State Park romp. Hope I can find a sub to teach for me at the Y for Spinning on Saturday morning. If not, that hilly Noon race is going to be my demise. Bring it on.

El Guapo