WVMBA-Blackwater

Blackwater Bikes is one of my favorite places to attend for racing, so I was headed to the wvmba series #8 race held by them this weekend, it's also the WV State championship race.

This year's course was all on the east side of Rt.32, the bog and moon rocks side. Cool. It was also the day after torrential downpour. Not so cool. Times were greatly extended due to conditions, but that didn't deter race director natzi Matt Marcus from demanding those claiming toughness to complete the intended mileage, pre-determined to be set a little longer than a typical series race.

DH was in full force, but so was Trek and all the WV trail experts.

The women field was big enough, I wasn't sure how I'd feel as lots of changes to bike recently and not too comfy yet. This proved to be an issue all day and sadly regretted it. Not knowing until the finish that several women had DNF, I rode it out finishing second to last of the finishers with Sue Haywood (trek) setting the front runners pace. At the finish (down the street from the event HQ), Justin waited with a big laugh at me for being a putz, while Gunnar, Betsy and Roger attempted to comfort me with some fake cheering. It worked a little :-)

DH Rob Spreng ran into bad luck only 1 mile in, ripping der off in a muddy bog (watch out, there are rocks in them thar bogs). Everyone else has a rough but very good finish for the day, considering the line up of pros present.

Too much mud to talk about, if your curious see the write up/photos/results at: http://www.iplayoutside.com/Events/?eid=2008/06/10565c.html