Keystone - MSC Finals

The MSC finals at Keystone pretty much, without question, r0x0rd my s0x0rz. Loads of racing and fun and more racing and stress and more fun and DAMN GINA where are my pants? So there is a lot to speak of, let me summ up and essplain one at a time. ready? Oh kay!

Friday I got out of work late, I had to work on freelance late, the race promoters called and needed this that and the other thing (namely missing awards and coroplast), and things were just generally balled up, so even though I originally wanted to head out, I called it and just went to bed. Ah yes, a good night's sleep does the body wonders. Saturday morning I got in to keystone around 7:30am, got registered, dropped off awards and coroplast, got into my gear and headed over to the dual slalom course.

Anyone that knows me knows I LOVES me some dual slalom. It's like ski racing on bikes: you race someone head-to-head but in your own lane. Then you switch lanes and race again, fastest combined time (based on the differential) wins and that rider advances into the next round, until only two racers are left. Sweet! Despite getting 1.3 runs in on each track, I was able to pull some kind of miraculous something together in my qualifiers and wound up 7th in a field of 15. Not too shabby, I guess. Especially considering that halfway through qualifying (you run each track once) i went and practiced, then raced, the Super-D! In the finals later that day, the racing was fast, fun, and close. I missed a gate (more like two or three) in my first heat against a formidable competitor, and was unable to make up the differential in our second heat. D'oh! Sidelined again, but with plenty of great racing to watch. In the pro men's field, "Fast" Jon Watt just basically dominated to whole deal, with only one or two competitors getting close. Jon is one of those riders that when you watch him ride, you stare agape at how much skill, power, style and finesse can be generated by just one person. In the pro women's field, it came down to Michelle and Bobbi.

Super-D (which was held earlier, as I mentioned) was super fun. 30 guys on the starting line, ready-set-go and everyone runs for their bikes and scrambles for position going into the singletrack. I jogged casually to my bike and got in line near the back of the pack, and then started picking off guys in the corners. One pass, two passes, three. Not sure how many people I snuck by in the tight turns, but I wound up 9th overall. Not bad for getting stuck behind my friend Jamie for a good 500 yards while he was sitting down putting along, listening to Van Halen on his earphones!

Downhill on Monday was pretty fun as well, since I had "rankings guy" duties to attend to all day sunday and got no practice, the race promoter got me a ride up the hill with some Keystone crew first thing. The ride up was brutally cold, but once i got to the top and rolling it was nothing but smiles. My first and only DH practice run of the weekend turned into pure goodness, and I pushed it all the way through to the bottom. Not blazing fast mind you, but considering a few weeks ago I couldn't pull together a 3 minute run without stopping, being able to ride Keystone's 10+ minute track without as much as slowing down is what I consider progress! Being that I was also needed to do DH rankings that day, I opted to take my run first of the day, before pro qualifying even. Yeah, some days it's nice to be in the club. So I headed straight back up and got my timed run in, made a TON of mistakes, blew corners, clipped out in rock gardens, and generally had the most funnestâ„¢ yet crappiest run I've ever had. I ran a 10:35.74 which put me 21st out of 27 for the day. not quite where I want to be, but given the nature of how my summer went, I'll take it. Hell, I ran a 12:01.xx last year healthy on the same course, so how pissed can I be, right?

So until next season, I'll be on the moto... Enough of these bicycles already!