I was competing in the Root 66 series at Pats Peak NH. The course had 850+ft of climbing per lap, and the pro's did 5 laps! Thats a lot of climbing! Turns out all the thunderstorms and rain that fell in NH and Maine yesterday missed the course. So the conditions were dusty dry, bone dry, too dry. Well I guess dry is better then wicked muddy. I like the mud more, but it does a lot of damage to the bike. 

I made the trip over to NH with old high school coach Wheels. I was really nice to be able to bum a ride with him. If it wasn't for him I probably wouldn't have gone. Thank you! We made it earlier enough to the race that I was able to get in a pre ride on the course. It was a fairly wide open climb followed by a wide open decent down the mountain, make a U turn and go back up the mountain. The final and major decent was in the woods and was pretty tricky at high speeds.

Turns out the majority of the Pro's in NE chose to come to the Rt 66 race vs. the EFTA race happening on the same day in NH. The pro field was 20+ deep. Not to shabby! I was lucky to get a front row on the start line. From the gun I was sitting in 5-6th going up the 1st big climb. About 1/2 way through the 1st major climb I decided the pace wasn't hard enough so I took off. Only Adam Snyder and young gun Greg Carpenter were able to match my pace. FWD, to 1/2 way through lap two, Snyder and I drop Greg and never see him again. FWD to somewhere in lap 3. Turns out Snyder is really fast, and most likely still has some altitude blood in his system and he dropped me. For the rest of the race I was riding solo and crossed the line in 2nd place, maybe two minutes down from Snyder? 

Over all I am very happy with my result. I had a good hard race and everything on the bike worked! I might have pushed it a little to hard on the first lap, but I need to get used to racing at that pace. Now I need to rest up and get ready for Canada in the next two days. I start work on Wed and I want to have everything cleaned up and ready to go before then. This hopefully will reduce some stress right before the big race.

Oh and good news I am getting a camera! So there will be less typing and more photos to come!