big bear...

back from this weekend's assault on west virginia... great weather and great course conditions (in spite of a couple hours of rain friday night) made for a great 24 hours of big bear.

the expert field was stacked with some very serious competition... the athen's wrecking crew came up from the georgia, bike lane had a team that looked like they'd be really fast, and there were a bunch of teams we didn't know anything about. klasmeier, matt, cargo mike, and i turned in consistent good lap times and managed to avoid any major mechanicals (i think we had 4 flats total, several of which were near the end of the course and were just ridden in).

dirty harry's started off with the overall and expert lead and looked like they were going to run away with the race until a bad night lap sent them back a couple of places and put the wrecking crew up front. we ended up turning in 18 laps for 4th place in expert and 5th overall (out of 135 teams & solos).

i rode my stumpjumper instead of my epic for 3 of my 4 laps, and loved how it sucked up the rocks. on the smoother sections of the course i liked the quickness of the epic, but i don't think that performance on the climbs suffered at all on the stumpy. overall on this course i'd give the advantage to more travel, but then again, the suspension on the epic could probably do with at least a tuneup if not an overhaul or upgrade.

before the race i talked to jeff kerkove, who was manning the ergon booth for the weekend and he hooked me up with a set of grips. i'd been having problems with my fingers getting numb on the stumpjumper and these seemed like a good thing to try. i rode the stumpy with the ergon grips for 3 of my 4 laps and no numbness at all...

after my 4th lap i talked to jeff and mentioned that the grips seemed a little large (in diameter) for my hands and i was having trouble getting a good grip on the rockier downhills where i had fingers on the brakes. he switched me over to a smaller pair. the difference was noticeable riding around the venue, but i didn't get a chance to test them on a lap as it turned out i was done for the day. i'll post more as get more time on them but so far they're great. thanks jeff...

the city bikes vet team took 2nd in vet and 8th overall, taurine junkies (with city bikes racer tom vaughn) took 3rd in vet.

more later, time for lunch...