Peak 2 Peak

2010 Mileage: 4365
This past weekend Linz and I loaded up the new car and headed up to Crystal Mountain in northern Michigan to meet Kate, Andrew and my Dad to race Peak 2 Peak. It was a great time and a gorgeous fall day.Ending on the podium with the win in the sport class felt great too.I lined up not sure how I wanted to approach things since I have ridden very little single track this year but as soon as we were off that all changed. It was a really wide open start so it made jockeying for position going in to the single track pretty easy and I knew I didn't want to roll in first but close to it. I entered the woods in 4th position and was surprised when I had no difficulty at all with the pace being dictated by the leaders. As we hit an open section about 1/3rd of the way in to the lap some positions changed ahead of me but I remained in 4th. The guy that had moved up to the lead was pulling away a bit and I realized that the two guys right ahead of me weren't giving much chase so at the next opportunity I went around them and bridged up fairly quickly. As soon as I caught the guy I told him we had a descent gap and said if we worked together we could grow it. I then passed him expecting him to grab my wheel and instead didn't see him again for the rest of the race. I rode solo for roughly a lap and a half from there on out and managed to push myself to keep away. I had a mechanical just before the second ski hill climb (we did two laps) and got passed briefly but as soon as I got my chain back on I bridged back up on the climb and rode away with the win with a time of 1:31:10 for the 23.5 mile race.Lindsay also completed her very first mountain bike race (and only her second time riding mountain bike trails) and Kate won her class too.Next up is Iceman, although I think I'm might be more excited about the party after than the actual race.