Visit PA Stage Racing...

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend! The weekend Stage race and mountain bike festival at Marysville was a total blast. However, today I'm pretty tired from all the racing.

The weekend started out with packing the car on Friday morning in the rain and heading to Marysville to setup camp. Fortunately it was dry when we got there and we were able to get everything unpacked and setup before the rain returned. After chilling out for a while, drinking some Mad Hatter IPA and shooting the breeze with some fellow racers, it was time for the night time trial.

The night tt is probably one of the coolest events of the weekend, with riders going out every 30 seconds starting around 9pm and riding a roughly 4 mile course. Most of the course winds between through the XC race course, though sometimes in different directions. I was able to do the loop in 23.5 minutes securing 5th in Sport "A" and 1st in my age group.

Saturday morning was really different for me as I didn't have to wake up really early and "race" to the race. I was already there and didn't start until 12:30, so this was a welcome change to the normal race day prep for me. Beginners went off around 9am which was cool as they went right by our campsite. Our race started right on time and I was sitting in 4th place for a bit and was able to pick off one racer moving me into 3rd where I would end up for the race. I definately need to work on some core stuff and endurance as I was really tired by the 2nd lap.

Later that night they did some awards from the XC races and swag toss. The Spokes team had some great results at this race, although we would've liked more to come and enjoy this cool weekend of racing. There was a trials demo by Topher, Austin Carter and a few other - it was really cool to see what some of these guys can do on a bike.

Sunday morning began with some bacon, eggs, and pancakes. Not sure if this was the best breakfast choice with the hill climb and short track still to come, but it sure tasted good!! I hadn't done the hill climb last year so I had no idea what to expect. It was 2.5 mile climb out of the farm on some dirt, some gravel and some road. My plan was to just keep Travis and Gunnar in sight and I knew I would do well in Sport "A". The worked well as I chased those guys up the hill and got 7th overall and 1st again in my age group.

After some much needed chill time, short track was next. Sport "A" racers were set for 20 minutes of pain. This was a really cool loop about .50 mile and we did 10 laps in just a bit over 20 minutes. I was very happy with how this race turned out as well, I think I got 7th overall and 1st in my age group as well.

I should have secured myself the 1st place points for the Stage races towards an extra XC race. This is something I really need as I won't be able to get to Iron Hill and missed Granogue, Sewell, and Neshaminy. After next week's Fair Hill race, I'll be done racing until Bear Creek so this is a dangerous time for me. Last year during this break from racing I kinda stopped riding all together - so I'm gonna try really hard to stay motivated and get ready for Bear Creek as that counts for 2 XC races as well.

Hope to see everyone at Fair Hill where I hope to not get smoked on the drag strip by all the big ring mashers. See you Sunday.

Pictures from the week should be up by tomorrow.

-matt