Meatmachine.info

This past Saturday I raced with (most of) the rest of Team PAUL at the Folsom Rodeo. The course was varied and exciting, the faster riders were very fast, the crowd was enthusiastic, and I got my first taste of actual mud.

I didn’t know much of the different species of mud before this race. Thankfully the course designers routed us through plenty of shit, and my internal wet-dirt-dictionary has expanded.

Right off the starting line the ground turned to Velcro. The floor of the rodeo was fine grained and rained upon just a few hours earlier, and though it packed down relatively well under a wheel it also tended to fly pretty well of the back of a knobby tire as it was ripped from the ground.

After about a hundred yards the course made a sharrrrp right turn around the end of a fence. Here the ground turned to chocolate pudding, and most riders put a foot down to make their way around, killing much of their speed. My teammate Scott said that on the last few lap he had been able to grab the post at the end of the fence and whip himself around it.

The course then wrapped its way through a series of paddocks behind the announcer’s stage. The ground there was very well fertalized, and I tried to keep my mouth shut.

After seven laps I finished in sixth place of the eight riders in the single speed category. I napped readily on the drive back to Chico, and ate greatly when we reconvened at the brewery.

There are five more races coming up in the next two months, and I am very excited about that.