Methow Indie Series Race

This last weekend I camped near Wenatchee with Whitney and my family. A perfect summer weekend that included swimming, cold beers, campfires, mountain biking and more. On Saturday, I raced the Indie Series mountain bike race at Loup Loup Ski Bowl in the beautiful Methow Valley. The venue featured a challenging but fun 12 mile course with a good mix of fireroads, doubletrack, and singletrack. Joe Brown, who ran the race, had personally built miles of great new singletrack for the race! Pretty impressive, considering there was probably snow on the course until a couple weeks ago!

Looking overly nervous at the start.

Once the race got underway, I settled in behind Kevin Calhoun (Rocky Mountain) and Kevin Bradford-Parish (Emde). About halfway up the big climb the first lap, I managed to roll away from the two riders. After a fun singletrack descent, I could see that KBP was only about 20 seconds behind me and chasing hard. I managed to hold him off going into the second lap, where I was able to open up a more comfortable lead on the long climb. Ripping the descent and the final few miles, I was able to cruise in for the win.

Satisfied. Time for victory beer!

At the awards ceremony, I was crowned "king of the mountain" for being the fastest rider to the top of the big climb. Sweet! It was also said that all of the money raised from the race would be used to build new mountain bike trails at the Loup. I look forward to riding and racing here in the future!

KOM.

Elkhorn

After a month of fewer races, I felt well-rested, but not particular well-prepared to race the Elkhorn Classic stage race down in Baker City, Oregon. Instead of expecting to do well, I decided to race purely to have a good bike racing weekend with Second Ascent friends. My relaxed approach did me good, as I still ended up 13th overall in GC. I had a lot of fun in the crit, where I bridged up to a 3-man break that included WWU teammate, Steve Fisher. The 4 of us rode together for 40 minutes while our gap hovered around only 15 seconds until the final lap, when we were caught. Bummer to not be able to finish it off right, but a fun ride nonetheless. In the Cat-3's, my Second Ascent teammates totally dominated. From what I heard, AD, Carter, and Stansbury controlled the races and worked hard ensuring that Logger would take the win. Sweet!

Turn 1 inside line.

Photo: Chris Mahan