Bryan

Well, rained again. That pretty much sums up the Bryan experience but I'll put it in a little better perspective. We left Houston on Saturday morning at about 11 after hitting up some book sales, garage sales, the bank, and somewhere else on the way up to Bryan (~100 miles away). Apparently the DOT decided to close down two of the three lanes on 290 which led to some serious backups and waiting in traffic. Once we got going again we noticed some ominously dark looking clouds looming on the horizon to the west and north (near Bryan) but we were hoping to beat the rain there. Approximately 10 minutes after saying, "It looks pretty light up by Bryan", torrential downpours struck. This demotivated me to pre-ride and slowed traffic considerably. We finally got to Bryan about an hour and a half later than I had wanted to but it didn't matter because the course was a real piece of muddy work so I didn't pre-ride anyways. Keeping my fingers crossed, that the rain would stop, I registered and then we headed into town for some food and later, sleep. Lauren somehow talked me into going to the Large Animal Vet Clinic at A&M, creepiest feeling ever!

About dinner time the rain started up again and, as far as I can tell, it didn't stop until about 8:30, 30 minutes before the Cat 1 race. Awesome, I thought as I peered into a couple of the large puddles we had to go through 20 feet after the start line. The course officials had shortened the course considerably after a pre-riding racer was consumed entirely by a large mud hole on the western loop, that's not actually true, but they did cut off that section of trail. The final trail length was 11 miles, "That's not too bad," I thought. Thinking I would catch some of the PSE riders coming up the final stretch before the start finish line, I waited around until I had to go get ready and warm-up. Something struck me then, "11 miles and the pros aren't even back and it's been over an hour," this could get ugly. After a good warm-up I headed to the start line. One of the race officials was saying, "Watch out when you go down the hill by the 'Slippery' sign because there is a large telephone pole at the bottom that you could crash into."

The race started slippery and fast, I got into the single-track in second and was right on the tire of first place until he slid out and off the trail on a wet bridge. Being in first, there was no one around and I didn't know how for ahead I was. Then, a rider that went to A&M caught me and apparently he had taken a mountain biking class out there so he knew every inch of the trail. We were pacing each other and then all of the sudden another rider from our class was on us and he was looking pretty strong. He got into first and I stayed with him for a while then I lost him on a short nasty muddy uphill in which the other guy passed me too. Now I was in third and I was starting to get tired. Having not pre-ridden I didn't know when to attack but this wasn't a big problem as my chain kept binding up which slowed me down quite a bit. I started to catch back up to the two in front of me and then I passed second place after he had flatted. I tried hard but I couldn't catch first. It was a tough race and I ended up in second.

Last hill, it hurt, I think my tongue is sticking out.

MuddyBike bath time, I think I dropped something...

Seu got it