MMBA #3 Campus Krusher

Sucks monkey balls. Ok, that wasn't fair because, in reality, the course seemed like it would have been fun if I had been able to race beyond 15 minutes.

Here is the short rundown. Concert Friday night in Portland. In bed at 3 am. Awake by six but doze on and off until 8-ish. Too tired Saturday to loosen the legs for Sunday's sufferfest so I figured I'd take my chances with dead legs come Sunday.

Sunday morning I headed up solo, met up with Wheels, Andrew, Al and Steve for a pre-ride. The course was primo technical with lots of rocks/roots and tight turns. Minus the tight turns it was a perfect 29'er course, especially the trail called "King Root" where I witnessed a couple of 26" riders come to complete and abrupt stops while we rolled right on through. The legs felt fairly good during the pre-ride so I was hopeful that things would come around during the race.

The gun went off with the whole pro/expert field going off at once (yippee!) and after a minute of complete squirrel, I found myself third wheel behind Wheels and Andrew. In the first tech section Wheels' itty bitty 26" wheels got caucht up in the deep roots so I was able to slide past. Unfortunately, once we hit an open road section I realized the legs weren't opened up yet so I let both Wheels and Al (on his fully rigid Mamasita) roll past hoping that once my legs loosened up I'd bridge back up.

Fast forward a few more minutes and after a short, punchy climb a pokey rock nicked my front tire sidewall and I heard the sickening sound of air leaking out of the tire. Unfortunately, I didn't hear any Stans leaking out to fix the puncture. I stopped quick to try to get some Stans in the area of the puncture and soon realized that the tire was basically dry inside (maybe I should have put some in like I had thought about Saturday night!). Ok, no biggie, I'll just throw a tube in and hope to not lose too much more time. No go here either. As I tried to unthread the nut holding the tubeless valve in it seized up so I couldn't take the valve out to get a tube in. After a few minutes of fighting with it I threw in the towel and made the walk of shame out to dnf. Son of a bitch.

I can kiss that slim master of mud lead goodbye.

Rating: 1/2 of a rotten squirrel.

On a good note, since I bailed so early I was able to get home hours earlier than usual so that I was able to work on B's swingset, mow the lawn AND get out for a nice ride with the fam (more on that later).