TAKE A CHILL PILL.....

 I'm chillin today. It was a pretty arduous road trip for me to 24 Hour Mountain Bike Nats in Gallup, New Mexico. The drive down was going to include riding and or fishing but the wind was outrageously annoying on the way down. Gallup is a strange place. I found myself extremely anxious there. The "atmosphere" is not very relaxed in these parts. I observed many dead dogs on the side of the roads, many live dogs on the side of the roads, and way too many Native Americans hitch hiking everywhere. I do not get it....at all. I'm not going to try and get it either. The landscapes are breathtaking and heartbreaking at the same time in this part of the world. It's an odd mix.

With that part said, the mountain biking is fun, and fast. The 24 Hours in the Enchanted Forest is a pretty nice event that will grow, and it was big this year. The 20 mile loop is FAST. It is very user friendly. The venue is a keeper. Zia rides does a great job of organizing a fun filled and wonderful event. From a professional announcers stand point, the wrench in the cogs was the timing crew. This weekends race was a big challenge for me. Really big. With virtually no usable information coming from the timing crew, it was an ad lib job at best. I had nothing tangible to work with. This is not the promoters fault, Lindsay had her hands full with 100 other issues to deal with.  Rain, lightening and cold in the middle of the night put the race on hold and the "Laird" rule was put into effect. This means that the race was stopped at roughly 10:30, and all laps that were completed after that time did not count. The course was being destroyed by mud and rain and racers and had to be stopped. The race began again at 7am and was basically run as a two stage race with the two stage times being combined, which is fair. When the race was called off, there were a lot of racers on course, a 20 mile loop, who did not know the race had been stopped, they continued on to finish laps even though they would not count. They were upset, and they wore out the promoter and the USAC officials with their bitching and complaining. It wore me out just listening to it, it was disappointing. The crew out there was under enough stress as it was trying to keep things rolling reasonably and then the racers starting going off on them. I wish everyone who races could work the other side of one of these events just once, so they had a better understanding of the amount of time and effort that goes into putting together and running a race like this, then they would chill a bit. But for some it always about them, and they can be real assholes. It was stressful out there. I feel like I did a pretty piss poor job of painting the story of the race and calling the action. The drive home could not end fast enough. I just need to chill for a few days and regroup. It's mountain bike racing, that's it folks, your status in life is not going to change because you lost a lap at a bike race due to a safety call regarding weather. At least you got to ride the lap, in the fun and mud at night, and that is what the sport is supposed to be all about, fun and crazy memories. Nobody got screwed over, you just got caught in a rain storm at a bad time for a race. Get over it, go ride your bike and have fun. Fuck.

Oh, and congrats to Tinker Juarez and Nina Baum on there outstanding wins.