Cholla 08

As usual this desert race was somewhat disorganized and lacking the basic neccesities of an event in the middle of nowwhere. (one lone porta potty made it to the venue) The Friday evening pre-ride was in gale force desert winds which made the already challenging course quite a bit harder. I was a bit concerned about the sandy washes and loose new trail that had been added for this year's course.

Fortunetly, Saturday morning the weather was perfect and the race went off fairly well. The fast start and large group prompted me to hang back for the first few hundred yards. There's plenty of room to pass on this course so I wasn't too worried about being out front. I worked my way through the group as best I could and by the time I hit the hike-a-bike I was feeling pretty good but knew Doug Rock was still out in front of me but wasn't sure who else was. I think I caught a few others from the group on the long steady climb next to the small cliff and from there I was just trying to hold position and look ahead for "the Rock". Roger Gillespie caught me at the end of Lap 1 and I followed him through all of lap 2. I felt pretty good that I could keep contact with him, he must have let off the gas a bit on his second lap for some reason. I also had a DNA cycling rider in front of me with a light blue tag and assumed he was in my group, I paced with him as we followed Gillespie and made my move on the climb again hoping I could hold him off, but at the end it turned out he must have been part of another group, very confusing. Never caught Doug as he finished 3 min in front of me, but I was happy with a second place finish. Guess the spin classess are helping a little.