Dirty Secret

 Sunday was the Dirty Little Secret mtb race in Manhattan at the Fancy Creek State Park.  Ive raced there at least once before and I remembered it being pretty rocky.  It was.  Its a great course.  Its definitely not easy and takes some techincal skills to navigate.  Perfect for the Top Fuel. There are some sections with some serious rocks, a section of wide open field, and some nice flowing singletrack.  The course starts off on a bit of pavement that is led out by a Manhattan bicyle police rider and then immediately is into a pretty challenging section of trail which was tough being I was following Travis Donn and he was driving right over every huge obstacle he could and I was forced to do the same.  The good thing was that every time I had to slow down to clear a huge boulder, everyone behind had to do the same.

The first time we entered the big grassy field section there was a group of 5 of us pretty far away from the rest of the field.  By the end of the grassy knoll there were three and I was in the middle of what is becomming a typical Ethos Sandwich.  Donn was not going to let me by.  Even as he was crashing and being forced to run, there was no passing him.  The trail was tight and it was hard to get a good rythm going so we rode together until I got by on a climb and opened up a little gap.  Shortly into the second lap Garret was closing back on me and we entered the grass section together.  It was really the only place to get in a sustained effort and I didnt want him to sit on my wheel for the entire section which was probably 5 minutes so I picked up the pace and got a safe lead that I didnt think he could get a draft.  We enter the rocky trail again and my chain drops and get all sorts of tangled up.  Garret catches me and passes.  I catch back on just as he decides to do some crashing and I get back by and pretty much ride alone for the rest of the day.  Three laps took about 1:45 so it was good they shortened it from 4 or it would have been a pretty long day.

After the race there was free beer and bbq along with a whole bunch of raffle stuff.  Nicely done by the guys at Big Poppi for their first race.  It seemed like there was a lot of people bleeding afterwards, which is always a sign of some good trail riding.

No racing next weekend so Ive gotta figure out whats next.  Rumor is a group is heading to Alabama for the Bump N'Grind which is one of the best trails ive ridden...