BBBUUURRRPPP

That is the sound my tire made in the second lap of Thursday's Buck Hill race.
The rain held off and the race course was in pretty good shape. Fisher took it from the gun, and I just followed he and Paul with Sam close behind. Near the top of the second lap pavement climb, Paul was struggling and Fisher and I broke away by about 10 seconds from Sam. Then as I took a banked corner really hard, my tire burped air, and I ended up in the woods. By the time I got going, I knew I was screwed. My tire had dropped to about 15 PSI so I let Sam by. The night before, I had just installed new Small Block tires with Stan's. Typically, I don't race a tire until I have had it off road a couple of times, but I was willing to risk it out at Buck...it didn't pay off. As it turns out, the front tire had been leaking the entire race and on that one corner it was just low enough to let loose.
Anyway, I limped along until lap 4. I couldn't corner, but the climbing was fine. I kept the pace high when I could. I almost crashed twice on lap 3 in off-camber sections, so I had to stop and put some CO2 in. After airing it up, I pumped out the last lap for 3rd place.
Fisher and Jen took a pair of wins and Jen won the "mac-daddy" prize which was some sunglasses and a carbon fiber handlebar. Jen loves carbon fiber, so she was pretty happy.
Afton on Sunday....