The Sunburst Showdown

I said I was gonna kick ass, and I personally think I did, this being my first Sport race I knew I was gonna have to step it up a little bit. Saturday afternoon I was giving is a last minute tune when I must have gotten some lube on the rear rotor and pads. You would think I would be ok, just wipe it off. Well its not that easy I did what I knew and that wasn't good enough no matter what, I had sub par braking performance. Sooo... I made the decision to race my backup bike. My 8500 with a pyramid singulator on it. I registered at about 9am on Sunday, I didn't want to register Saturday because I was unsure about what bike to run. I registered Sport SS. I know this is a tough class but I knew I could handle it. I had my race breakfast, 2 Breakfast burritos from MacDonald's. Prep my bike the best I knew how, drank lots of water prerace and had some Endurolytes right before my start. SS is one of the last waves to start and when my wave was called up, I was gone. 8th or 9th out of 10 out of the gate, I was pegging off riders through out my first lap, SS and otherwise. It was only like 72 degrees or something like that, but I was burning up, when I came through the pits on lap one I screamed to the Peters family that I needed a hand-up next lap. they came through big time. I swapped bottles coming through on my second lap starting 3rd. With out that bottle I would have been cramping up or bonked or something. I finished 5th out of 10 in SS, 101st out of 164 finishers. Personally I think that is pretty stout, I'm very very happy with myself. I think so far, this is my best finish of my career. Its not spectacular, I still have two more races this year plus the cyclocross season. I think I'm going to be carrying a pretty good amount of momentum into the Cyclocross season with a finish like this. Among other things props go to Mike Raash Owner of Expedition Supply, our primary sponsor got 2nd in age group and 5th overall. You can see his podium below.



Aris's Start, we had to leave shortly after this