Fantastic course is an understatement. Started off fast on some crowded climbs, legs were tired from spending energy yesterday, but fine. We were steady but not quite as quick.
Last 13km was downhill singletrack of the technical variety. Jon displayed downhill skills that were hard for many to believe, in addition to some similar uphill skills the other day. Nothing like passing 4 teams walking down a section with loose gravel and drops. They didn't even see him go behind them, they turned around and thought someone had crashed into the woods behind them, but he was already 30m down the trail. That left me in the humorous position of trying to negotiate with them to let me pass so I could catch up to the apparition none of them really even saw go whizzing by.
Saw a spectacular wipeout, guy flew off a ledge. Must have not seen the 90 degree left judging by how airborne he was. He rolled down the hill in starfish mode, probably 5x over. Seemed ok after. Probably ended up 20m down a large ravine ledge.
Tim the singlespeeder extra-ordinaire from La Ruta crashed and dislocated his shoulder.
Pat Doyle, man who doesn't let suffering slow him down, didn't have words at the finish when Jon saw him. Those who know Pat know he's tough as nails, and he's had now two days of having to dig really deep.
Trish took a little spill but is fine.
We kept rubber side down, rode all the skinny's and bridges, and kept an OK but not fantastic pace. No mechanicals thus far either. My leg muscles are a bit sore. The Scalpel is a really well handling downhill bike, I tested the traction limits of the front tire no less than 28 times on the downhill.
Apparently we finished 14th, I'm unsure if that's on the day overall or just open men (couldn't catch Wendy and Norm early on, then Katie Compton and her partner dropped me like a bad habit on the climb after checkstop 2).
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