SingleSpeedMT: 6 Day CSU and Nebraska

Got some nice riding in the past two days. Sunday included a quick trip up to the Foothills Trail to the west of Fort Collins, in hopes of starting to get used to what will become my local trails. Despite Saturdays race still being felt in my lungs, the legs felt decent, and I pedaled around any trail I came across, enjoying the good life. Followed it all up by heading down to the CSU Oval for the 6 Day Style Racing at the Oval put on by the CSU cycling team. Fort Collins is trying to get a velodrome in town, and until that happens, the fine kiddies at CSU use the main oval at campus to put on a 6 race series on Sunday evenings in May and June.

There was a scratch race (first across the line wins after the designated number of laps), miss and out (with each lap completed the last rider across the line gets pulled, until you have a winner), and a snowball (set number of laps, where the first and second riders across the line get points, with each subsequent lap the number of points up for grabs keeps going up). I raced in the messenger class on the CX bike, and had a blast. The best was the snowball race, where on the fourth of eight laps me and a guy from CSU got a gap. We agreed to work together, one of us could sit on for a lap, but couldnt contest the sprint, then we would switch positions. By the last lapped he told me he was cooked, and couldnt contest the final sprint. I took the big W and combined with two seconds in the previous two races walked away with some big bills ($9.60) in the pocket. More importantly than the green, the race was fun, and a good gathering event for the local cycling community.

Today included a MTB ride in Nebraska, which was fucking awesome. So what if Nebraska has no mountains, they got some serious trails over in the eastern part of the state. At first I didnt think i was in for a good ride due to the high temps (90 degrees) high humidity (must have been above 75), and high winds (holding steady around 45 mph or so). But once I got in the trees of the state park, all seemed well, and I just ripped around on the trails for a while. These are the kinds of trails that when you ride them, you realize that someone decided, "we dont have a lot of space for mtb trails, so lets make the most about possible in this area". The entire trail network probably took up less than a few square miles, but I was able to ride for close to an hour and half. I know I'm a shitty photographer, so if the pictures don't make sense, just take my word for it, Nebraska has some good MTB. Tomorrow, got plans for Iowa MTB, then an evening of annoying my sister.