Late summer through UTCX #3

You ever go a while without cleaning up and you end up with a pile of dirty clothes, etc... sitting in the corner of the room. That's what this post is, that pile - a quick and dirty clean up of the last month or so....

Annie raced and won the USCS Draper SuperXC - hot, hard day. She won her sport class, and collected another big check for fastest overall sport time. She also ended up winning the series for her class. Fantastic rookie year for her on the Mtn. Bike. She capped the summer off by taking a digger while out riding with her girlfriends, led with her face and head, smashed her lip open, chipped a tooth, and concussed herself pretty good. Took a while for her head to get back to feeling normal - but she came out pretty good for punching a rock with her face/head.

Next up was a Euro trip to Vegas to celebrate our anniversary. Swung through Valley of Fire on the way, where I stalked-ok, guess I can't call it stalked if he's looking right at me, we'll call it chased-this sheep to get within photo range. They grow em' big in the protected parks.

We also did our first hike in a sweat lodge, minus the lodge part - check out the temp. Little excursion to some little water hole out in the sandstone. We had visions of jumping into it until we saw it - putrid.

Here's the euro part of the trip - took a Fiat out for the long weekend - sweet, fun little cars. Think it paid for itself with the savings in gas - don't think we spent more than $100 bucks in gas down and back.
Kids started learning to fish a bit....

Brock finally paid a price for one of his stunts - gutted his arm just under his armpit jumping off a playset where a screw hooked it. Came in crying, didn't pay much attention to him until he pulled his shirt off and saw the hamburger hanging out - then out to the car pretty quick. He'd stopped crying on the way down when I began the pep talk about getting his first stitches. Spent the rest of the ride down listening to him insist he just needed a band aid, to turn around and take him home so he could get a band aid. I love his Rambo spirit.
Next up was Xterra - I had a comped entry for the triathlon, so did the short course. My swim was slow, but a success as I put an entire swim together without resorting to rolling onto my back or breaking form, that's a first for me, baby steps. Rode the bike well, than had the traditional melt down on the run, it was brutal. You probably won't want to watch the entire clip, but here's on board footage of the bike course from a slow swimmers perspective. They've widened the singletrack since I last did this race, so traffic, although it was there, was not the time penalty it used to be, plenty of room to ride around it all the way up. It's a really great course.

Annie raced the 10k trail run, and true to form, landed herself on the top of the podium.... she's ridiculous. This one was literally done with about 4 weeks of total inactivity after the concussion.

This was my favorite pic of from the Xterra weekend - amid the serious game faces prepping for the start, she's right in the middle being a total screwoff. The dude won it though, so she picked a winner.


CX season: Two races the first week at the state fairgrounds. First day was rough for both of us. We'd done some handling and skill practice in preparation, but no top end effort type work. That's never going to feel good, and it didn't.

Day two was more of the same for me. Annie came around a bit and put a better race together - seemed to be back near where she was at the tail end of last year, which bodes well. Decided over the next few days that we'd bump her up to the A flight the following week. UTCX #3 was at one of our favorite tracks, Ft. Buenaventura in Ogden. I raced dramatically better, had some rider error type things - dropped my chain twice and totally hacked the barriers the first lap through, but put in a good start and felt like I was able to ride hard the entire race. Wasn't sure that was going to happen all year after the first weekend.

Annie went out with the A's and got exactly what we were wanting to get from it. She rode hard, paid attention to how things transpired a little differently in that group, and held her own just fine. She also looks very good thanks to our friends over at DNA Cycling. Turns out their women's stuff goes perfectly with her fave helmet. I've got one of their skin suits on it's way, and can guarantee you I won't look as good in their stuff as Annie does, but looking forward to it nonetheless.

Pierre's Hole 100, or 50, race

Quick recap of the Pierre's Hole race the weekend before last.

Aside from plate #1, which signifies that either 1 - you've earned it and are the designated guy to beat, or 2 - you were more anxious to sign up for the race than anyone else at the start line, (only the former applies here), the most sought after plate number in the field is this one.

....and I was handed this number at the check in under the oath of representing it the way your supposed to - by riding with the strength and gumption of 3 men, a six pack of balls if you will. So how'd I carry the banner......

I cut it off half way through, had run plum out of fun and didn't have the head to keep grinding. That's not to say that the course and terrain aren't fun - they are, very much so. 100 miles on it was just more than I had the fitness or the gumption for. Annie had been warned earlier in the week about the high likelihood of that scenario, so her bike made the trip up as well, and despite the extra mojo bestowed by the race plate, I pulled the plug and we swapped pedaling and kid duty and let her go out for a lap that would be more enjoyable than had I gone out for another.

However - there were a few men who rode with six packs, and who made the fun and excitement build all afternoon as they kept knocking out mile after mile.... check it out below.... it was a pretty electric scene as they finished.

Congrats to Brandon and Gordon - huge respect for those rides!

Tushar is the Crusher

Will try to be brief in saying how great I thought this race was. Burke is on to something really, really good here, and I hope he ride's the wave he created into adding another date or two next year and putting together some kind of series of these (Moab/La Sals is first to come to mind but that may be hometown bias, regardless, plenty of mountain ranges in Utah or even just across the state borders in a few directions). And if he does do more, I hope he can bring the same crew of volunteers to them, they were the stars of a knock it out of the park production that Burke put together. Type of people you wanted to stop and get to know. I'm taking tips to hand them next year - they were better and more attentive than any waitress I've ever had. The pre race buzz was exceptional with all the puzzle solving going into bike choices. I think people loved the chess match that took place before we even toed the line. I was a little late being able to commit to the race so missed out on a lot of that, and had a quick process of elimination that landed me on the Mtn bike at the line. The big post race question has been did we choose the right bikes? In hindsight, the Mtn bike was exactly the bike I needed to be on that day. Were I to line up with a little more preparation both with bike set up and conditioning, I think I'd make a few tweaks to the CX bike and give it a run, but it would have been wrong for me at this years race - I think.... see that.... you seeing the magic in this puzzle of a race course Burke's created? It's rad.

So the race started in Beaver, with Bruce setting the tone for one hell of a day with one hell of a countdown - never seen anything like it... not sure I will again without significant intoxication - it was great. I'll get brief with a few highlights from here. Felt great through the first 40 miles - the first climb went by quick, felt like I paced it right for what I had in me that day, and enjoying the heck out of racing on dirt roads up in the mountains. The day started to get long for me not far out of Circleville. Was by myself on that windy flat stretch of road, and that's where the fading started ever so slightly, then when we turned back on the dirt road, the fading began in earnest. Had felt good enough earlier in the day that I'd fueled maybe just a little light, but the time between stations had been quick enough that it was going just fine. That being said, I learned a serious lesson about bonking at last years Park City point to point, and have since been fairly attentive to catching it early if I get a little behind. By the time I got back to the intersection where we doubled back, I was needing to get some more fuel in me, not desperate, but in a less than ideal state, with nothing to correct it. I spent that stretch of pavement leading to that monster of a climb thinking about how best to approach it. By the time I hit the beginning of the dirt, I knew it needed to be a walk if it get's strenuous type of thing, I couldn't afford to rev it very high. So, about that strenuous thing.... between the pitch and the wind, I did a lot of walking, like damn near the entire thing. And it was slow walking.... I turned the music off for that section of the video to help give a good picture of what that was like... the signature climb of the race, and I was off the bike walking. Pathetic, but necessary to make sure my day extended beyond that climb. By the top I was getting a little more desperate - i'd done what was needed to keep the exertion in check, but the course had been exposed and hot for a while, and I had taken a long time to get up there. I felt some things similar to the park city lesson, and shut it down. Found the first shady spot I'd seen for a few hours, sat down, then lied down. Then I heard someone holler at me - Jon James rode by and shouted J-dub. I opened my eyes, sat up and said hi and told him he was looking strong, sat for another minute, then jumped on the bike and got moving again. Didn't think I'd been there for more than a few minutes, but John had probably saved me a lot of time by waking me from what was as best as I can tell from my race data, about a 15 minute nap. I was still in bad shape, and was fortunate that the roving support was bringing drinks back towards the KOM. Got a coke from them and proceeded to the last aid station before the home stretch.

I spent about ten minutes at the last aid, the first five piling in food, the second five catching up with Sam and Jamie, and then we were back off. Jamie made it 50 yards before he started puking. For me, the resting had worked, I'd gone from the brink of a point of no return bonk, to feeling as fresh as I had all day for that last 10 miles. Leg's were good, head was in a good place, rode with Sam whom I hadn't seen for a while so it was good to catch up with him... was just back into a real good place to enjoy the last stretch. Have never gone from so bad to so good in such a short period of time before - continuing to learn lesson's the hard way about staying ahead on the sustenance, but learning them none the less. Only hiccup of the day aside from the poor management was a random flat while rolling across those golf course like meadows - that's the origin of the tube ornament I'm wearing at for the finishing clips in the video. Shannon come by during the pit stop on her way to a 2nd place finish. A support truck also came by with Jamie sitting in front, I was heartbroken for him that he'd fought that far only to have to get in with just a few miles to go, then the truck pulled over to let him out for more hurling, and it was obvious he needed to not be trying to finish. Just as we were flipping the bike back over Joe came by. We jumped on with Joe and the three of us rode the rest of the way in. There's a little joking left in me at the end, but my favorite is Adam - you'll see him at the finish when I rolled through - I want you to pay attention to his expression when I say he's probably been there for two hours... turned out my two hour guess was within minutes of being correct, but he was too humble of a guy to affirm it. He rode a great race, along with numerous others. Also on the vid are the Zeph, Banks, and Gordon finishing up. Gordon rode the Crusher with a pretty serious shoulder separation, and get's my tough guy award for the day. Enjoy - and if you missed it, you need to make sure you don't miss the Crusher next year - it's absolutely a can't miss format and race.

Ride data - http://app.strava.com/rides/953455

Park City 50

Did the Crusher in the Tushar this weekend and my head is swimming with stuff from that race that I want to get up, but here's a quick post on the PC50 - also a fantastic race and a significant day for the White clan. Annie and I both went up to this one, and it would be the longest Mtn Bike ride she'd ever been on, not to mention it being a race, along with a whole bunch of climbing thrown in the mix - makes for quite a bit to bite off for a first go round with endurance racing.

Quick recap of my day: It was fairly uneventful. Got about what I could get from what I brought to the game that day, no mishaps, flats, or any other problems with the bike. Brief fueling deficit a bit past mid way that I recognized quick and nipped in the butt by sitting down for a few minutes and putting in what food I had, felt good the rest of the way in. It was hard, but fun.

Annie's day went a little south early on. She had two flats early in the day that required some assistance and consumed enough time that it nixed her chances at being in the mix at the front of her group. Huge thanks to Lyna Saffel and the Bike Fix crew that offered her some help - it was a less than ideal start to a hard day, and their kindness helped salvage a race that otherwise would have been really disappointing for her. But alas, it wasn't. Annie's got a head for racing - and the legs I might add - but she's very efficient in managing herself above the shoulders through the various peaks and troughs of a race. After the slow start, she got settled in, worked her way through a course that's was a little rougher and more technical than anything she's ridden more than briefly, fueled herself nearly perfectly, and finished her first endurance race. 50 miles is a long way, and covering them by riding up and down bumpy ski mountains on her mountain bike isn't a "testing the water" kind of way to do it for the first time. I'm telling ya, I think there's some significant racing in her if she keeps having fun with it - and I think she will. Here she is wrapping up her day - man I dig this chick!

Best outing yet for the Suncrest gang - everyone got er done, a feat that's evaded the group numerous times in the past. Kingdon got into a similar situation to what I got into last year on those same mountains - bonked to the point of no return early in the day - hat's off to him for grinding it out - takes a lot to do it when it gets like that. And Banks, what can I say man - think I was happier for your race than I've ever been for one of my own... way to rip it man!

2011 Iron Horse Classic

This annual post always starts out the same..... rave, rave, rave about how fun the Iron Horse Classic is. I'll get to that.

As has become tradition, I raced it again this year, but fairly miserably. I began to wonder within minutes of the start, when the pace was already in my brain - Geez, Are we going faster this year, this is causing more distress than usual this early? Hung on to Shalona Hill, then had my answer when I fell off the back rather abruptly. Went really slow for the rest of the race, I mean really slow. Insights? Yes, I have one. Slower is harder. When your going slow in a race, it's generally not because your trying to race slow, no, it's because your genuinely slow - but the effort to go slow isn't any less than the effort to go fast - your just stuck out there longer when the effort generates less speed. It was the slowest and hardest one I've done, with nothing to blame the day on other than my own limited capacity, indeed it was a perfect day for a mountain race. Despite the slowness, I enjoyed the heck out of the classic route from Durango to Silverton.

Mixed it up this year, skipped the other road Omnium events to do the Mtb race Sunday morning. And, contrary to what I expected, had a little more snap in the legs for that race. Finish was still poor, but slowness wasn't the sole factor, this was an important course to preride, and I hadn't. Critical sprint section going into the final stretch of downhill 1track, and here's another insight - when your the last one to know it's a sprint, your not gonna catch it. I realized I'd made a mistake the second the wave came up when we hit the pavement, and there was no catching it by the time I tried to accelerate. Was happy with how the legs and effort felt though, for the first time this year I felt like I was managing and thinking during a race vs. barely hanging on. Small positive from a punishing weekend.

So back to these Iron Horse organizers. Mentioned they added a Mtn Bike race to the mix this year. Good course, nothing great or spectacular......... until the pro race. That's when, after coming down off the mountain section, they moved the fences inside the restaurant, ran a ramp through a window, and detoured the course through the Steamworks Brewery..... check it.....

Course entered through the front window.....

Here's the exit ramp.....
Deadly Nedley in hot pursuit of the 16 or 17 year old kid that won the race.... Ned had his day the previous morning when he won the road race... again....
The kids races were awesome again... Brock's the Spiderman dude in blue, head down and charging like a bull...
Chesney's into the standing pedal lately, and spent a lot of her race out of the saddle...
Along with Kylie who also came out of the saddle to hammer the short climb.
Racing is only half the enjoyment of the Durango trip - simple stuff like setting out nickles and pennies on the tracks to get flattened by the train, and skipping rocks in the river from the railroad tracks are also among the enjoyments. We always love this trip.
In Silverton after the road race... one positive about riding slow is that you don't have to wait as long post race before they open the road back up to return to Durango.

This was the first of two weekends of racing in Colorado, with some touring of the rockies in between.... more to come.

12 hours of Mesa Verde 2011

Quick recap and some photos..... behind here and have some Yosemite hiking/climbing and Green River kayak stuff to get up as well.

Instead of bagging one more lap than last year I did one less. Right about in line with where my fitness is this year, riding less than once every other week thus far. First hard riding on the new Yeti - it's fantastic. Rode the course (one of my all time top two race venues) on the full suspension epic last year and was dramatically less beat up after this years race on the Yeti hardtail. Partly due to the lower mileage, but would attribute a lot of it to the big wheeled bike as well, I was late to buy in but there something to them.

Highlight was probably the multiple buck offs. Took two of the worst diggers I've ever taken that day - one on lap one, and the worst on the last lap. Came up with only surface damage from both. The last one decapitated my helmet when the bike came flying by from behind, taking my helmet with it. Despite being fine, had to sit and get unrattled for a minute, it was high speed and easily the hardest I've ever hit. Super lucky to come out clean. Don't know what my deal was, but I had to be the sketchiest rider on the course that day - aside from the two hard get offs, there were several others that were less hard but no less clumsy.

Annie even got lap in for a team with no name - think we'll be doing some duo MTB events in the future, she's getting a lot more comfortable on the Mtn bike.

The kids also raced, and did fantastic - Brock's first race on the big kid bike - he did great. Kylie's about ready to venture out into Corner Canyon.

Followed up the race with a trip out to the ruins with the Banks, Pogues, and Seamon's - fun trip with fun friends - still looking for an itch to get on the bike though, thought it would have hit by now, but heading Colorado for the Iron Horse and Teva Mtn Games later this week and haven't even thought about a bike since Mesa Verde, curious to see how it goes there....

Photo's from the trip...

Crackalackin....

Iron girl Las Vegas

We were back in Vegas a few weeks ago for Annie's Iron Girl Triathlon. She and a few friends had put this one on the calander late last year and she'd been working hard to get ready for the last few months - yet another practice from the school of Annie that I should pick up on, assuming the getting ready part had something to do with how well she did....

We dropped the kids with Grandma and Grandpa on the way down... big thanks to them for taking them for the weekend. Also saw a certain rider that hangs out in Utah on occasion from team Radioshack with his motorpacing crew out in a place I would never expect to see an elite pro riding - he was way, way out in the middle of nowhere, we spent a while trying to guess where he must have started from, didn't come up with any obvious options.

Some observations from the husband.... and right out of the gate - I must conceed, there are things that suck worse than having to watch a womens only triathlon....

• There is a fashion show element at a womens triathlon, can't say for sure, but got the impression that race attire may have been a little higher on the priority list than at a men's race.


• Funniest thing we saw was the girl struggling to get her wetsuit on.... backwards. Her guy was there helping her, so we didn't want to interfere and say anything, just watched. Saw her just prior to the swim, still on backwards, fidgeting with it as if it weren't comfortable.


• They started the race like a time trial, swimmers going in one at a time in quick succession. Helps the anxiety associated with the mosh pit pack start, but negates the head to head racing in the latter legs where one had no way of knowing who was leading the race or had any idea where they stood. There wasn't a winner at the finish line, it was an unknown until times were posted. Pro's a con's, but most of the girls seemed to like it.


• Chicks are every bit as competitive as bro's - saw some serious race within the race battles both at the beginning of the bike leg and the finishing sprints on the run.

This Iron Girl organization is over the top with the body marking. Counted 5 marks in 5 different areas - I volunteered to do fake or real markings....

In case you didn't notice it's dark in the photo above, the day started early, too early. We drove out that morning around 5:00 - race was scheduled to start at 7:00, and they were hustling people almost to the point of being beligerent, to have them lined up ready to go off on the swim at 7 sharp, which was great. But then proceeded to have them stand in said line for about 35 minutes past 7 while they got the course ready. You may also have noticed we had Annie in a down coat that morning - it was cold, especially for the 800 girls standing around waiting. So what do girls do while standing around waiting...? I know what guys would do... we would start bitching, a lot. The girls, they start dancing... and they had choreographed dances for each song that they all seemed to know... it was an amazing sight - like a flash mob, that lasted 6 or 7 songs. And then they were off, one by one, into the water that was starting to churn decent sized waves once out of the little bay they started in.

I love this girl...

Here she is just after finishing.

The swim was a tough one - it was windy, and despite the TT style start, congested. The hardest transition from swimming, to swimming in an open water triathlon, is learning to get your stroke into a rythym with all the variables going on immediately around you. I've never been able to put a complete swim together. Annie wasn't able to either on this day - she had a hard time breathing between waves hitting her in the face, and got a little uncomfortable in a few spots where it bottlenecked. Turned into a survival swim vs. a race swim, and she grinded her way through it. Once out of the water, she turned it on. Her bike split was solid and she ran a top 50 5k. I was a proud husband and foresee more coed duo events in our future. She's diggin the racing, have to thank cyclocross for igniting that spark, and I'm diggin that she's diggin it - it's pretty darn good to be the guy married to her.

Grit 50 race report

We'd been pretty cold for a while...... somewhere out on Stucki I got cold enough that I thought getting off and walking might not be a bad thing to try and warm up my feet and hands, and it was effective. It was on my walking hill that some of the travel group came back together - Gordon came by, then Banks and Kingdon, and I jumped back on, wanting to make sure good company remained part of the equation the rest of the way in.


Cold is hard to manage on a bike, there aren't a lot of options to try and mitigate it, so you don't manage it, you just deal with it. Annie had my rain gear out at the 2nd aid stop, and I declined when she offered to swap it out for the windbreaker I had on. Would have done that differently had I had another 30 minutes of hindsight available. Soaking wet and cold is a little harder to manage on a bike, and not unlike plain old cold, there also aren't a lot of options to mitigate it, so you also just deal with it - you deal with it a little harder.

That's where we were at the top of Stucki - soaking wet (really, you can't picture how soaked we were), cold, and "dealing" more than racing - but we'd topped out and were headed back down which wouldn't help the cold, but would help progress feel a little faster. That's when we hit it - or it hit us - the mud bog, the first of many, but to give it it's due, this first one was the mud bog. Took 10 yards to gain 30 pds of the stuff on the bike and shoes. It was immediate pushing, then, when the wheels wouldn't roll anymore, it was dragging, carrying, or a number of other techniques I saw to try and get one's self and the bike through the mud bog and the short but steep hill it crawled up. It was here that we started to laugh a little bit, between the cursing that we all conceeded seemed to be more frequent than usual - laughing was the only thing to do really - there are days that are memorable because a trail was great or you felt particularly strong that day, and then there are days that are unforgetable because of the conditions and the amount of "deal with it" required. This day was quickly becoming one of the latter - a day you'd never get yourself in the middle of on purpose, yet there we all were, a raceful of us caught out there in a hard, cold, desert rainstorm, grinding it out.

I thought the cold started to let up a bit, was able to recover some from feeling nothing more than stubs on the end of my arms that couldn't shift or brake without guiding the contact points there with your eyes - but the rain didn't let up, and however poor the condition of the riders at that point, it was those trails that were getting the worst of it. I don't know how long it will take them to be good again, but suspect it will be a long time, they were ravaged. We rode and pushed and laughed and limped along till a race staffer informed us it was over and to pack it in. So we turned and rode back to the finish.

The days race turned out to be one against the weather, and only the select few uberfast guys beat it. Hat's off to them. To the rest of us that stayed out till they were pulled off - no less respect, I thought the guts to grind in those conditions was a better satisfaction than anything a results sheet could have provided. I fall into the camp that thought the race promoter did one hell of a job in a situation where it was impossible to make the right decision for every racer out on the course. Have some friends who came out on the short end of the decision, but think it was the best for the most - kudo's to Cimarron and crew - thought they executed really well.

Photo's in no particular order...






The day made for a great commercial for the Look Quartz pedals - use them for both MTB and CX - waited to have a problem getting in/out of them all day but they were extremely efficient in clearing mud - never had an issue.

Don't know if I can attribute the saddle sores to these dirt clods I didn't know I was sitting on, or the lack of saddle time I took into the race, but I've got a few more than a few that I'm "dealing with".

Tyler and his crew along with Banks. Tyler had the toughest go of any of us - snapped his rear derailer off in the mud.

Kingdon - dude rode strong.

Banks and Super Crewer wife Karee. Banks rode strong and kept me positive Post race - Gordon-who also rode like a bull, Kingdon, Banks and myself - it was fun and merited smiles, it was just a unique fun.

The ill fated ride away from the 2nd aid stop from where my wife took this shot - while holding my rain jacket that I'd told her to keep. Less than 30 minutes away from conditions going real south real quick. Next up for me will be Cortez, and have a pretty dramatic amount of bike fitness to gain if that's going to be a good outing.

UTCX #'s 10 & 11

Race #10 in the UTCX series was at Fort Buenaventura, and it was prime CX conditions - wet snow that transitioned to wet mud with some traffic, on a course that's fast, and got nice and messy. Which meant one thing for the White's - flailing. I went down hard on lap one -happened before I knew what hit me on a transition from dirt to pavement covered in wet leaves that were slick as hell. First crash I've had in a while that rattled me a bit, took me a lap or so to get my head right again. Eventually got going again and although still a little timid, managed an ok race the rest the way in, with the exception of one more get off on a corner right in front of Alex, who handles his bike well enough to have avoided stacking it up on top of me.

Annie's race was similar - she got bucked off three or four times, kept her head better than I did, and rode her typical strong race. Muddy might be one of her sexiest looks.

Big step: First time she's come in from a bike ride inclusive of crashing with a big ol' grin on her face. Contrary to mine - her crashes didn't phase her.

Brock had his first mechanical - need to make some adjustments to his ride to improve mud/snow clearance. Couple of tire kicks and he was back on his way.

Some of the girls from the B field. Annie, Gigi, Shannon, and Kara - they push each other - hard.

Good indicator you did some rolling around in places the race wasn't meant to go when you have these on your persons at the finish line. Not sure where I picked them up, which means there were more than a few lines I took that weren't the fastest ones.

Only thing to do after a day of flailing is to make uncoordinated faces for the camera turning onto the finishing straight.

The series wrapped up at Herriman, new course that brought with it it's own special feature - high winds. I liked the course, the long stair run up, the teeth rattling section through the frozen post hole countoured arena - didn't really notice we didn't have any barriers till after the race. I still can't ride wood chips worth beans.

Annie went after it hard right out of the gate, and finished up her season with what was probably her best start line to finish line race of the year. Nabbed her first win in the B field. She's really enjoyed racing with those girls and has learned a lot watching them. Figure she probably deserves a new CX bike sometime between now and next season - the hunt is on for another Yeti to go in our garage.

Just ducking out of one of the short sections where the wind uppercuts you right under the chin coming out of a fast corner.

Annie defending her first lead in the B field, she managed it really well, riding hard but smart.

Her transitions off and back on the bike are night and day from the beginning of the season, she's consistently smooth and fast now.

That's a wrap for the year. Obvious highlight has been having Annie take up the sport and do so well - think I've said it before, but can't tell you how much fun it's been having that little lady share in the fun that is CX this year, she's such a great cohort on so many levels, and we just keep adding layers. Also great to have the Zeph catch the CX bug, look forward to next year with him as well. Will probably add one more CX post of a few favorite pics from the season at some point, but if not, thanks to Ohran and the rest of the UTCX crew for a great series this year - made for a hell of a lot of fun!

Need to figure out what to do with Saturday mornings now, but sure we'll come up with something.