moraine = morepaine

last weekend (yeah, it took me a week to review my race last weekend) i raced in pittsburgh's MONTH of MUD series race at Moraine state park . the course was wet with lotsa leaves- this created problems. wet east coast courses are tough because your tires get no tractability and you cant take turns and steep downhills too fast. moraine was also really tough because there were TONS of big boulder you had to ride over- these rocks were the size of mini coopers and you had to be technically perfect to make it up and over them- i was not perfect. besides the big rocks there were a bunch of small basketball-sized rocks which made a rock garden that was, in my estimation, about 1 mile long- doing this for a few laps was tough, and it didnt help that i did not know the course.

the riding was like these pictures for many miles



needless to say, i crashed a few times on the rocks, and they weren't even the worst part. the wet logs/ piles of logs you had to ride over were tough because, well, they were wet (and im not super amazing at them regularly). i tried them all the first lap around and that was a bad idea because ididnt know how they let out. on the real big one i went over with some real gusto but didnt realize how far the drop was on the other side and i went right over the bars and was on the ground. a few no-no werds were said, as the master rider behind me left me in his proverbial dust (it was more like wet decomposing leave debris).i got some pretty gnarly cuts via chainrings/logs/other things






ok, so they werent even that bad, but i got blood on my bedsheets at home and it is cool for that reason. anyway, i finished the race, taking more precautions the second lap, and this helped me gain more ground back. i think if your careful when you ride you go faster because everything is more fluid and you mess up/ fall less. i ended up finishing the race somewhere in the upper middle half of the group of 50 people... and i didnt get passed by any women either. i didnt win anything besides the new dirt rag magazine which was kinda a disappointing issue in my opinion.

well, i got some new bike parts and i attribute them and my beefy 2.35 kenda nevegal tires and dh tubes for my decent finish. lotsa people with lightweight stuff got pinch flats but i didnt because i ran those beefy tires and tubes. and the thomson seatpost totally increased my speed because of the way it held my seat in the appropriate place.




the ergon grips have proven real comfy too and i may get some for my fixie because my oury's just arent as nice. my gt is working great. it took a thrashing at the race but held its own. my wheels took tons of abuse and they are still kinda true- i havent trued them since i got the bike- but they still ride good. ive recently become a handbuilt wheel snob, but mavic makes some awesome intermediate level wheels.