Well, the main season is finally over - next weekend is the state
championship and then the cross bike gets a good clean and hung up until
summer (unless it gets super snowy again this year).
Monroe is a
challenging course that always taxes you with mud, tons of technical
corners, and a steep (although thankfully short) run-up. This year's course was a little altered from last year and removed the painfully long slog through ankle-deep mud but added some tacky but slippery mud section at the top of the run-up. With the light rain through the day and from the week prior, the sand section was well-packed and handled like a shallow banking in the corners.
I have been running a great season and was
hoping to cap it off with a series win after this race as I entered with
a slim lead (40 points, which would normally be tough to beat, however Monroe is double-points). As we started I again had a great position and was about
4th as we were headed into the sharp 180 to climb to the back section.
This is when my race took a turn for the worse - As we slowed to make
the corner, a rider tried to squeeze through on the outside despite
myself being right near the tape. As a result he knocked me and my bike
sideways and sliding across the gravel into the front of a truck parked
near the course. OUCH!!
As I picked myself up and determined I was ok, I
quickly straightened the bike and sped off to try to catch the back of
the pack. Now, just like at Enumclaw, I was racing from the back to try
to catch back up. From the single incident I was almost a minute behind the leaders.
Over the rest of the race I slowly picked up places
and climbed up to 12th place, although in the final sprint I was a
little slow to gain speed and finished a decent 13th for the day. Not
great, but better than many expected given the crash. I was happy to
hear that most of the riders felt really bad about seeing the crash and
were happy that I was ok. I was not confronted by the rider who caused
the incident however, hopefully he feels bad though. Pretty silly to push so hard at the start of a Cat 3 race with $0 on the line for the winner.
So, battered and
bruised I ended up doing well enough to hold onto 2nd overall in the
series, which I think is pretty nice given that this series has seen me
race sick once and also have two starting-lap crashes requiring a
mad-chase from the back of the field.
I just now need to heal up good and hopefully I can snag the states race next weekend to crown off the season.
Great racing was done by:
Dave Matthews - Singlespeed Men - 22nd for the day - 15th in the series!
Kevin Raymond - 1/2 Masters - 15th for the day - 21 in series
Roy Colven - 1/2 Masters - 8th for the day - 12th in the series
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