Peak-to-Peak Mountain Bike Race

Mike and I loaded up my Mom's car along with Chuck (my dog) for the journey down to Crystal Mountain for the Peak 2 Peak mountain bike race. Luckily the race didn't start until 12:30, so we didn't have to get up at the butt crack of dawn, unlike Mr. Cowan(s) who mistakenly got there at 8:30 in the morning. Ooops!

Chuck back seat driving.

The race itself was pretty dang fun if you ask me. Fast flowing butter smooth single track connected into one mother of a climb up the back side of the ski resort. Once again was the fastest 5 or 6 fastest dudes in the state lining up,

making for a fun and good spectator watching race. Mike A and Derek Graham got a gap on the main climb after gapping me, so I kept a good solid tempo until Mike Simonson got up with me. He's a big monster of a dude hence the nick name Simonstor, I really could use his draft. After a good lap and half I made a dumb mistake blowing a corner while leading and dropping my chain. After getting laughed at by Simonson he then put the hammer down and got the gap that he held to the end. Oh well! Mike had a show down up front with a sprint finish just edging out Graham.

John Cowan coming across the line in 6th! The dude is on some impressive form right now making the lead group after being gapped out from a crash in the first part of the race. I think he might pull something out of the hat at Iceman!

Now I've got a little pre-race food guide for you that worked wonders for me at the race. I'm not gonna go into foods you should eat so just make it something you know you can tolerate and will give you plenty of fuel.

• Follow dinner with a good quality beer. Not Bud Light, I'm talking something from Bells or my choice this time was Octoberfest from Sam Adams

• Follow this with a putting down a water bottle

• Follow the water with a huge class ( I went with 30 o.z.) of Chocolate milk made with Hersey's Special Dark syrup for the extra anti-oxidants in dark chocolate (I'm sure the syrup really doesn't have the anti-oxidants, but it's all about telling yourself it'll help... more importantly it tastes better)

• Follow this with another beer

• Then hit the water bottle one more time before hitting the hay

• Once the alarm goes off have another water bottled

• Followed by another huge class of Chocolate milk.

After all that get a good solid breakfast in and you'll probably have the best race of your life!

Fun fact:

• Of the top 6 I was the only one on a 26er, all others were on 29ers.....
• 5 of the top 6 were on Trek/Fisher bikes!
• = Trek bikes are fast and I'm getting a 29er next year.

Thanks for reading,

Chad