Soggy Otter!

I am beginning to think that the Short Track race at the Sea Otter is cursed. There is nothing like walking into the venue to get ready to race when it's POURING rain and everyone else is going the other direction. This is going to be an amazing day! NOT. I get over to the Cannondale pit and decide that my tires that are designed for sand and dry conditions may not be the best for the race today. I head on over to the Michelin booth (next door) and they set me up with a killer set of mud tires. Just looking at them I know they will rock.

I head over to the course with my teammate Sue and take a lap around it before the start...just as I suspected, ooyie, gooyie, slippery, slidy , yucky mess. This is going to be AMAZING! It's what Mountain biking is all about right?!

They call us up for the start and BAM! the gun goes off...Get your foot into you stupid pedal genious. We hit the little hill on the back side (which was rideable when one is all by themselves) when you have 50 girls coming at it all at the same time it's a bit more chaotic. It's more like a high pitched screaming and cussing mass of bodies falling and crashing into each other. Once you get up and over the slip and slide it's a little straight away that I spent more time tring to get my stupid foot in the stupid pedal. Power around the uphill corner, hit the straight away, up the power climb (there is grass and not as steep as the other one, so it's ridable) another little straight away, into a hard right down a nice slip and slide, through the start finish.



So basically the race for me consisted of climbing on my hands and knees dragging my bike up the first little climb (very entertaining for the crowd), trying to get my stupid foot clipped into my stupid pedal, powering on the staight away and the other climb trying to make up some places, sliding down the downhill sections (but staying upright). This went on for I don't know how many laps until finally getting pulled with 4 laps to go.

All pictures courtesy of cyclingnews.com