Treasure Valley Rally

Somewhere between the pebble, the rock and the boulder I lost my sh*t at the TVR. I know there was a trail there but had no luck finding it this day.  Maybe it was the full moon this week that had a strange pull on my brain because as much as I wanted to stay straight on the course I kept crashing left and right.

 We Left Pittsfeild at 7 am and that gave us plenty of time for our 2 hr journey. Just Taylor and I rode together and Ray and Judy were going to meet us down there. We got to Palmer and checked in. We got a chance to meet up with alot of familar faces as it was to be the EFTA finally. We got lined up in our age groups and called to the starting line around 11am. There are a lot of fast guys in expert vet 2 so just holding on to a wheel for a good period of time is the best bet. Ride it out for about 2 miles and see what happens. Sounds like a great plan if it works but you never know.

So we get called up and we’re off in a minute. My legs felt good off the line so that wasn’t a problem. We raced up in the single track and things were going fine, I rubbed some tires and made a couple moves. Rubbed one more tire and had to dab. Since I had a train of guys behind me I Just pulled over and let them by. Jumped on the back and started moving up again. This was all in the first mile so I’m off to a great start. Did I say I had a plan? Well by this point it’s probably gone. In the next ¼ mile I grabbed a hold of a JRA riders bike as he went over the bars so I wouldn’t run him over and then passed 2 more guys only to come down to the first stream crossing. This is where I went ass over tea kettle in the river. Someone please just toss me some soap because I can’t ride today and I mine as well take a bath right here.  I flipped the bike over and continued on rolling forward as a good rider should.  Got to the top of Sampson’s pebble and rolled down hill. I must have hit every rock on that downhill side because I couldn’t ride anything. This poor single speeder behind me was having the same kind of day I shouted out a couple of words and continued off. It got better  as we climbed back up. I felt strong besides the aching right leg that I bashed on the handle bars when landing in the river. Picking up on some more riders as I closed out the first lap I was gaining and it felt good. I started to think I brought the wrong bike. Probably should have a full suspension for this one. Man the rocks get to you after time.  I crossed the river with ease this time and caught up to Taylor on the new single track. “What took you so long?” he said. We rode together for a while and he told me to go so I went. Rolling along and making the climb up to the pebble and down. After climbing back up to the pebble my rear tire decided to go soft. Nice! It’s always something today. So I gave it a hit of CO2 and let Stan’s do his job. That worked. This is surprising because it’s not always the case. Stan and I have had a battle for some time. I’m glad it worked. So 5 more people passed as I fixed the flat and I continued on. Finishing up near the bottom of the pack as it was one of those races where you would just like to forget it.  The next race I’ll have forgotten all about this.

-AC

Single Speed Open - photo courtesy of Mark Tucker