A cold blustery wind greeted us at the start of the race. I was dressed properly for the riding conditions but underdressed for just standing around. A new section of trail had been cut just a few days before in preparation for this race and this would be my first time over it. As usual, I lost the pack right off the start and settled in for a nice ride. I had set a race goal of breaking into the top 15 placings for this series but since I hadn't been doing much riding I didn't figure I'd do it on this race. Made it up over the hike-a-bike wall and sped off into the desert.

The new section of trail goes down a ravine and it was loose from all the riders in front of me. Didn't have too much trouble with it and even picked up a place when the rider in front of me stalled out. Once out of the ravine, we were back on the "regular" singletrack with no major climbing. I picked up a couple more places on my way back to the start area and was feeling pretty good for the start of my last lap.

I should have known better cause that's when the trouble started. I was bombing down a rocky section of doubletrack just before the new trail when I felt the rear end start to get squirrly ... flat tire. What I didn't expect was that I would have a major de-Sliming! I blew a big hole in the tube and all the Slime gushed out. Not too much of a problem, I figured, I'll just throw on my spare tube. Got the spare out of the seatpack and discovered that my tools had worn a hole in the tube. What a dumb move that was! At this point I knew my race was toast but figured I could at least patch the hole and finish. Couldn't get the darn SpeedPatches to hold. The first patch blew just as I was getting ready to retighten the quick release. The next patch blew near the bottom of the ravine. I figured I'd be a DNF now and started to walk out. I 'found' a new tube lying alongside the trail (OK, OK, Brent loaned me his spare) and finished - DFL (Dead Freakin' Last). I got lucky in the raffle, though, and won a new Airlock tube!

The totally bad part of this whole thing is that I knew who was in front of me when I flatted. I looked on the race board to see where he finished and I would have taken 12th if I didn't have any mechanicals! First race and I would have met my goal. Oh well. Try again in two weeks at Olympia. See ya out there.

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