I raced at the Greenbrier Challenge in Maryland this weekend. It was a great race for me because it validated a lot of training that I have been doing. I have had a rough go in the last two races, but I am pretty sure now that my problems were out of my control. As everyone may know I was misdirected by an uniformed course martial at the Mountwood OMBC race two weeks ago. Gunnar Shogren and I ended up riding six extra miles. Surprisingly, we didn't finish last.

This weekend at the Greenbrier Challenge was great. I started the race riding pretty hard and quickly got away from the rest of the semi pro pack. Within a couple of miles I began to reel in struggling pro riders. About 10 min into the race Chris Eatough who had been separated from the pro pack by a flat tire ended up behind me. We rode together for the next three laps taking turns pulling, admittedly he more than I. He is much better at passing lapped riders than I am. I'm just not verbal enough when I'm racing. At one point while pulling, I caught a slower pro rider and yelled "rider up" to which he replied "left or right". I couldn't think, so I said "I don't care". By this point I was practically on top of him, so I passed in the rough. Chris Eatough plans this out much better.

At this point I should mention the true performer here, my bike. It rode so smoothly over the thousands of rocks that littered the trail. The combination that I have is amazing. The Manitou MRD Absolute was so smooth that I didn't think about it at any point during the race. It feels bottomless and steers with such precision that it requires no extra thought. In addition the Mongoose frame is so light and compliant that climbing on it seemed effortless.

At about the middle of my last lap I had worked my way to 3rd in the pro class with a 3+ min lead on the next guy in the semi pro class. I wish that I could say that it continued to work out like this but it didn't. A broken spoke became tangled in my rear derailleur tearing it off the frame. On the spot I tried to break the chain hoping to shorten it and remove the rear derailleur but I couldn't make it happen. I ran the last three miles finishing in 11th place. Not what I had hoped for, but good enough to qualify for nationals.