Bumpin' Buck

MNSCS #7 was moved from the popular course at Welch Village Ski area to Buck Hill at the last minute due to construction. While Buck is a good venue, it is too bad we missed out on the Metric Drop and the Wall (a ~35% rocky rutted climb up a ski run).

The race organizers still put on a good show out at Buck, and even with 6 laps our times were the shortest I ever remember in a MNSCS race. Don't get me wrong...I am not complaining because I still have a little case of the 24 hour legs=)


Most of the normal hard hitters lined up, but Ben was replaced by the familiar face of Jeff Hall. Heath Wiesbrod, a newly crowned semi-pro, took off like a mad man at the start. Mid way up the first climb Jeff and I caught him and I put in a little effort up the gravel/pavement climb to get into the singletrack first. You see, the course was basically a 5 minute climb and 7 minutes of winding your way back down so getting clean look at the singletrack after the climb was key.Jeff hugged my wheel the entire race, and we slowly pulled away from everyone. We sort of shrugged our shoulders when lapped traffic started to get heavy through the later laps. We chatted on the last lap and agreed that the proper way to finish would be a sprint. The only hiccup came about 3 minutes from the finish when lapped traffic caused us to do some crazy maneuvering in one of the sand pits...Jeff cracked himself right in the seeds. I let up a little to make sure he was ok=) Coming out of the last down hill, I had the lead into the sprint and held him off for the win.

Tegan was working hard too and cheering everyone on "go guys, go guys" (for that matter any time he sees a picture of bike racing he says that=)

Next, I may try to hit up a Murphy Hanrehan TT. I have always wondered how fast of a lap I could do out there. There is NO race this weekend...we are not doing Afton, as that would end my season doing a second 24 hour race in 3 weeks. It is too bad that they were so close because 24 of Afton is one of my favorite events.

After this weekend is the combined WORS/MNSCS. I have a wedding the night before in Duluth, so we will see how that works out. From what I hear, it sounds like some awesome singletrack but no hills.