Sweet Sweet Castlewood

Friday about mid-day I found myself in the parking lot of the local grocery store, with a quarter in my hand. Heads I'd go, tails I'd stay. There was a good size storm threatening St.Louis and it wasn't looking good for race day. Luckily for me, the flip came up heads. Off to the Lou it was.

Travis, Steve, and I left about 1, and by 4:30 we were engulfed in a small rain shower. Just enough to slick everything up. It stopped, and then got entirely too humid and hot. No biggie though, we had fun popping our Cwood cherries and ripping down Rollercoaster with giant grins. It was the perfect course to hold the Missouri State Mountain Bike Championships.

The opening climb was bonkers, and I ended up changing my gears based on it, and the two main hills on the course. Basically you climbed the first climb, then bombed down the backside and started what was either 3 laps for sport and SS, or 4 four experts. On the course you quickly hit the Grop hill, then railed Rollercoaster, to the bottoms, up Lonewolf, and then back down to the staging area. I really like how the course was laid out.

We got super lucky and dodged the rain bullet leaving perfect conditions for Saturday.


The results, I took 2nd of 14 in the SS class, Travis took 6th in the 30-39, and 7th overall showing how stacked his class was in the Experts, and Steve dominated two laps but decided three wasn't the best idea. It was hot, and lots of racers pulled early. It was so hot that three of us singlespeeders whooped up on a national champ Pro, Deejay Birch, who was passing through on his way to Colorado. That made my day.


Jon Schottler took the overall Expert win handidly, and Dan Miller took my class, showing us again that he's racing super strong this year.

The quarter was true, but either way I should have known. Grab a couple friends, travel across the state to go ride bikes, and your bound to find fun no matter how much mother natures wants to piss on your parade.



Here's the link to a video of the narly downhill right after we started. My back wheel fell off so you'll see DJ come through with Dan M, Dan F, and Nico right on his wheel followed by me 12 or so seconds later. That's about 1:15. Travis was before that in the Expert group, and Steve later in the video as the sport riders go by. Notice JP hit the tree about mid way down and topple over. Classic.

This weekend we'll hopefully find ourselves at Perry Lake. The forcast looks iffy, but should be good. Think dry thoughts.

Also, just a heads up, I just found out the Warsaw 3/6 Hour race for the following weekend has been postponed. It was scheduled for the 26th. Bummer but I'm sure Mac has good reasons.

More riding bikes...

G