No More 'Goooooooooooooooo!'

In fact, I can't even recall what was said in order to start the race this past Sunday at Hop Brook Dam in the Root 66 XC series. I think the official just shrugged and waved his hand dismissively, signaling that we should get off the line.



To fill most people in, Wisconsin has an excellent mountain bike series (whose races and people I miss dearly) called WORS, which is organized by Don, who's been there from the very beginning. Don starts each race by giving a long and loud "Gooooooooooo!" and it goes together with mountain bikes like the bugle goes with horse racing.

The Root 66 series here in New England looks to be a good one and I'm looking forward to seeing more of the courses. Unfortunately, they're a little more spread out than WORS was (if my memory serves me correctly), but I should be able to hit a few of the closer ones this summer.

Upon arrival at Hop Brook Dam, all that was visible were some long sections of pavement, and I settled in for disappointment. However, the rest of the course was interesting enough, and there was one long and pretty challenging climb, as well as some fun descents. It would be easy to get bogged down complaining about the long stretches of non-technical riding, but I'll just say that I'm out of shape and that I would have welcomed some more technical sections to make up a little time. By the second (and final) lap I felt like I was getting back into the groove of things, aka, enjoying bullying my way over many small rocks with very little finesse.

Speaking of being out of shape, I downgraded to a Cat 2 in XC mountain biking since I haven't raced any kind of bike consistently in two years. This past weekend I got second in my age group (which barely counts) and I estimate I got maybe 5th or 6th overall in the Women's Cat 2. The results aren't posted yet, so I can't be sure. I do know I finished a minute and thirty seconds down on the woman in front of me (she put a full minute on me during the second lap), and that I would have been much too out of shape to do the longer Cat 1 course. So thank goodness for downgrading.

There aren't many photos of me riding, but there are a bunch of me standing around and freezing.

Here I am with Ben, a former teammate some of you may recognize.



With a coworker, David, and someone I do not know... yet. FYI, it feels indecent to slide an arm around a coworker who's wearing a skinsuit. There's just something about 100% lycra that feels like it's not 100% SFW. I was even wearing gloves! I can't explain it. Just steer clear.





I look like I don't even belong on a bike in this picture. So awkward.



And here I am on a bike anyway. My one action shot.



Well, I apologize for the boring race report. Maybe my next one will be more interesting - or maybe I'll just stick to blogging photos of Citizen Snips, everyone's favorite bed hogger.