Capitol Forest Classic

The Friends of Capitol Forest put on an awesome event last weekend; the Capitol Forest Classic. Saturday's cross country course was a blast, with 100% singletrack and an epic feel. Greggs co-worker/friend Gian (John) Dalle, Loren Hanson, and I rode a lot of the race together, enjoying the fun trails. I attacked on the long downhill about halfway through the race and held on for the win. Gian and Loren finished strong for 2nd and 3rd respectively. Noble teammate, Aaron Mickels had a great ride for 4th place on the new Noble F5. After the race, lots of free Fish Tale local beer and food was consumed. There was even a tequila bar with free shots!

Sunday's Super-D (D for downhill) was a ton of fun. Gian and I decided to ride over 2000 vertical feet up to the start of the course. Long story short, we ended up getting lost and had to burry ourselves up a fireroad climb in an attempt to make our start times. Gian missed his by a couple minutes and I made mine with less than two minutes to catch my breath. All things considered, it was probably the perfect warmup for the race. I had a mostly clean run, with only one memorable mistake. I was later surprised to find out that I had set the fastest time of the day, ahead of some fast downhill racers. Gian was forced to wait on top of the mountain for an hour until he could take a later start time. Unfortunately, he broke his chain mid-run and had to pump extra hard. I bet he would have given me a good run for my money, had his chain not broken.

All-Mountain king and queen.

As the winner of the XC and Super-D, I was also the winner of the "All-Mountain Championship." Gian finished 2nd and Aaron 3rd. FOCF pimped the women's All-Mountain winner and me both out with some goods. The "King" cowbell will be perfect for cyclocross season!