Lagging on the race report from Kirkwood. Sorry. I'm faster on the bike than I am at postings on this here blogity thing.
The race - I took the "W" by 6-ish minutes thanks to quite a bit of techy downhill. Well... that and deciding, at the last minute, to run the 2.35 Schwalbe Nobby Nic on the front of my race bike. Note to self; always... ALWAYS do a "shake down" ride on the race bike after doing changes. After having gotten used to the 2.35 inches of ultra-traction that the Nobby Nic provided me at Downieville going back the the "spindly" 2.1 WTB Prowler -which worked fine in the early season- proved to be quite scary. On my shakedown ride I was questioning my ability to pilot the bike as I overshot corners, had little to no braking power up front and generally had less fun on the ride than I knew was possible. Upon arriving back at home base, I threw the bike in the repair stand and put the Nobby Nic back on the front of my rig. That tire is simply AWESOME in the Tahoe duff and dust.
Fun course. 4 laps. Hard climb to start. Onto singletrack. Then a quick, hard, steep headwall climb on fireroad. Then... then some ultra-rad singletrack. Mostly descending. Lots of off camber sketchy rocky trail. Mmmmm. I like. A typical lap went like so: Get caught on the start climb - recover - drop the guy who caught me on the descent - repeat.
After the race, me and the misses did some investigation of the local campgrounds and decided on Kirkwood lake campground as our accommodations for the night. Super nice site. Out on a point. Killer views. A nice little trail that took us to a waterfall. Mmmm. I like.
The race - I took the "W" by 6-ish minutes thanks to quite a bit of techy downhill. Well... that and deciding, at the last minute, to run the 2.35 Schwalbe Nobby Nic on the front of my race bike. Note to self; always... ALWAYS do a "shake down" ride on the race bike after doing changes. After having gotten used to the 2.35 inches of ultra-traction that the Nobby Nic provided me at Downieville going back the the "spindly" 2.1 WTB Prowler -which worked fine in the early season- proved to be quite scary. On my shakedown ride I was questioning my ability to pilot the bike as I overshot corners, had little to no braking power up front and generally had less fun on the ride than I knew was possible. Upon arriving back at home base, I threw the bike in the repair stand and put the Nobby Nic back on the front of my rig. That tire is simply AWESOME in the Tahoe duff and dust.
Fun course. 4 laps. Hard climb to start. Onto singletrack. Then a quick, hard, steep headwall climb on fireroad. Then... then some ultra-rad singletrack. Mostly descending. Lots of off camber sketchy rocky trail. Mmmmm. I like. A typical lap went like so: Get caught on the start climb - recover - drop the guy who caught me on the descent - repeat.
After the race, me and the misses did some investigation of the local campgrounds and decided on Kirkwood lake campground as our accommodations for the night. Super nice site. Out on a point. Killer views. A nice little trail that took us to a waterfall. Mmmm. I like.
Then on Sunday we did a nice road ride on nearby Blue Lakes Rd (Hope Valley). Light on traffic, heavy on views and nice pave'. Mmmm. I like.
Next up was some recon on the last 35 miles of the Tahoe Sierra 100 race course. This thing's gonna be a soul crusher. Steep climbs, river crossings, poison oak, loose trail with lots of rocks, bugs that swarm your head while hiking your bike.... should be a hoot. How hard is it? Well, hard enough to make you look like this!!! 
Why do we do this? Because you also get trail like this:
and this
and this
and this
with views like this
and this????
So.... I'm racin'. Or at least going out and riding 100 miles. Should be some tales to tell. Race report to follow.
Ya'll come back now.... ya hear.
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