more Racing and Clinics

Another big week of pre-riding, racing, traveling and clinics. The US Pro Tour Race #1 was held in Fontana, CA. It was great to see friends I hadn't seen since last year, I spent all three days at the venue and had a great time.

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Saturday's race clinic was good with about 15 people, lots of questions about racing and preparing for races.

Saturday's Fontana Race Clinic

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Sunday's race was hard, visit Brian's blog or Amanda's for descriptions of the race and course. Videos here: http://www.cyclingdirt.org/. For whatever reason my legs weren't all there, I placed 14th, not my best race and not my worst. Great race to a lot of the girls: Amanda, Chloe, Kathy, Melanie and Allison!

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Monday we moved to Alpine, CA for the US West Cup #3 race.

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Tuesday I drove back up to the LA area for some skills clinics. Both of the 4-hour skills clinics were a blast, nothing like meeting new girls, riding new trails, sharing and practicing skills and techniques! There were no crashes on the technical stuff, but I still managed to cause a wreck or two. For example after watching a few death grips I talked about a relaxed grip, one rider took it a bit too far and said the bars slipped right out of her hands. I'll clarify a bit better next time. :)

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Tuesday's Women's Skills Clinic #1

Tuesday's Women's Skills Clinic #2

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Wednesday was a pre-ride of what I hope is something close to the course. More hike-a-bike sections, hope my hike-a-bike muscles are recovered by Sunday.

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Thursday was a birthday party in San Diego for Pete Masiel, whom I haven't seen since before I turned pro. He is one of those guys who helps out anyone (on a ride or otherwise). I still remember him letting us (Todd, my brother Mikah and myself) crash his hotel suite when the weather turned horribly cold and rainy at a race in Texas. I was racing Expert, it was both Mikah's and my first race back after our broken collarbones (poor Todd had to drive from GA to TX and back while we slept on the bed the whole time). If you haven't heard the story we broke our c'bones on the same Tennessee 4x track a few weeks apart from each other. Anyway with no muscles in my right arm I felt horrible during the super crazy cold and muddy race, Pete was on course and cheered me on to a first place finish in my age group, after that a hotel room never felt sooo nice.

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This weekend US West Cup #3 in Alpine, then we are headed up to Sea Otter. We'll make a few stops along the way to visit Todd's Mom who is vacationing in CA and then to get some automotive maintenance taken care of. I should have some new toys waiting for me when I get there. A Magura Durin fork for the singlespeed, a Raxter rack and hopefully a set of white and red Magura Mag brakes for the race bike! The red SLs are amazing and will be part of my super sweet Singlespeed setup as well as the full suspension, but I need the white and red ones to match my race bike. How cool is it that Magura understands this? I have the best sponsors!