Windham, NY NMBS

Another flat tire, somehow I cut a hole in the tread of the tire. Stans wouldn't seal it and I ended up having to put in a tube. With only 13 minutes to go in the race I spent 4:50 messing with and changing a flat. Of the girls that passed I was only able to pass one of them back. 21st in XC, I think, I didn't bother checking the results. I was not having an awesome race so I am not too upset, but still... It was a cool course though, especially for a climbing course. I didn't have a clue what to expect, but it was probably the most fun NMBS course (except Arizona of course). Each lap was basically a climb up the ski hill then twisty, techy singletrack (in the trees) back down. Instead of a long dirt road up it was bits of road along with bits of rocky singletrack in the trees. On the elevation profile it looks like a long, almost steady, climb up but mentally seemed like separate sections. There were ~12 new wooden bridges, some of them were built so the XC racers could ride over the downhill racers which was cool. We have a new mechanic for the next couple weeks, Danielle's mechanic, Ted. He was very patient with me and my blown fork frustrations. Plus he washed, tuned, fixed everyone's bikes. Thanks Ted! I am doing the team travel/lodging thing. Last night there were 6 of us in an efficiency apartment; only 1bed and 1 pull-out couch, but two bathrooms, one of which is huge. We arrived in Albany, NY Thursday night (after flying ALL day), rented a mini van and drove to Windham. We were able to pre-ride Friday; I blew another fork and decided last minute to race the Racer-X instead of swapping forks. We hit the grocery store in another town, Windham is too small for a grocery store (and Starbucks is 28 miles away), then tried to get some sleep. Our air conditioner iced up Thursday night and we didn't figure out what was going on so spent Friday night trying to sleep in a 83degree room. ST tomorrow...