A Tale of Two Poachings

Sometimes you just have to poach.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term as it applies to mountain biking, it's the act of riding on trails that are deemed off-limits to bicycles. Yes, it's illegal. No, it's not very responsible. Yes, it makes all mountain bikers look bad. Yes, it could threaten the access we currently have. I've heard all the arguments, and yet I still poach. So why do I do it?

The main reason for poaching is pretty simple: Convenience. Time is in short supply these days. Most every trail close to my home is illegal to ride on, so when I only have a couple hours to spare, it's poaching time. Terrible excuse, sure, but convenience is only part of a complex equation.

Most of these trails see little use by the vocal minority, i.e., the hikers and equestrians. I rarely see a horse on a ride, whereas I see many, many mountain bikers. Seem fair? It doesn't to me. But life itself is not fair, and I accept that, so fairness is only part of the problem.

I don't think I have ever traveled anywhere outside of my home region and ignored a "no bikes" sign. I don't go to Marin County, for instance, and poach a trail. The people who live and ride there have their own land access battles to fight, big ones, and they don't need outsiders screwing things up. In general, I am honest to a fault, and I obey the rules handed down to me. I use my turn signal while driving, return shopping carts to the corral in pouring rain, never run with scissor and sit up straight at the dinner table. Hell, I've never had a speeding ticket.

Which brings us back to my local trails. Over 30 years ago, my friends and I graduated from BMX bikes to the then-new mountain bikes. We left jumps, berms and 45-second BMX races behind and embraced singletrack and grueling multi-hour races. We began riding the horse trails around our two local lakes, and having a blast. We had miles and miles of it at our disposal, more than we could ride in a weekend. We saw the occasional horse, and it was no big deal. But within a few short years, the all-too-familiar circle-slash signs went up. To my knowledge, there was no discussion or public forum, no debate. Just a knee-jerk reaction to complaints from horse owners. Case closed, never to be opened again.

For people who came to the dance late, they see a "no bikes" sign and shrug their shoulders. They never knew any differently. Those who were there in the beginning feel that something was taken away from them. For me, today, it is this: The Good Old Days.

For many years I obeyed those signs, obeyed the law. I rode the boring, short, multi-use trails and looked longingly at the fun stuff across the lake. I drove for an hour or more to do legal rides. Finally, I really lost my way. I rode a damn road bike. The horror.

Then one day you reach a point where you start yearning for those Good Old Days. You're spinning along on the paved bike path, and you think, "What if I slip down Shady Trail, just this once?" Nobody is around, it's near dusk, and you go for it. And it's as good as you remembered it. Better even. At that point it is all over. You are a poacher.

So before you point toward me, perched high upon your horse (or worse, your bike), calling me the problem, know this: I am just a guy, a tax-paying guy with a job and a family and a mortgage and a yard. I'm just stealing little pieces of my past, little pieces of the miles and miles of enjoyment stolen from me, little pieces of The Good Old Days.

Most of the time, when you choose to poach, things turn out just fine . . .

Back in my racing days, we had a team single speed ride on Tuesdays starting at the fish hatchery. We were a competitive bunch, so the pace was fast and painful and often dangerous to others. Many of the trails we used were not especially legal. This combination could, on rare occasions, lead to problems.

One day I showed up for the ride after a long absence. I had raced with the Rio Strada team for seven years, but my participation had tailed off greatly due to a number of outside factors. I pulled into the parking lot apprehensive about my ability to keep up after the layoff.

The 3:00 start time came and went, and only Curtis and I were there. This left me feeling a bit uneasy, as Curtis was coming off a fine cyclocross season which saw him place 11th overall in the Master A class. I, on the other hand, was finishing up a fine season of, well, absolutely nothing. I was hoping for a little pack fodder to hide among.

For the first time in eight years, I raced not a single time all season—not a criterium, road race, nor a mountain bike or cyclocross event. Without any racing under my belt that year, and nearly all of my riding being done solo, I again questioning my fitness as we saddled up. I told Curtis, "Take it easy on me, Racer-Boy."

Whereas I usually start out my single speed rides with some spinning on the flat, somewhat boring (but legal) multi-use trail on the south side of the lake, the team ride jumps right into the illegal stuff by traversing the cliff near the dam. This is the toughest climb of the entire ride, steep and rocky and loose, and it's right out of the parking lot. Curtis flew up it, his spinning tire spitting rocks backwards into my spokes. I barely hung on, thinking this was going to make for a long day.

As we descended down the backside, I easily caught up. Coming from a road racing background, Curtis simply isn't the descender I am.

The next few hills yielded the same result: Getting killed going up, catching back on going down. We were really flying, and I was very uncomfortable with the ungodly pace. It hurt. I tasted copper and lunch was lurking right behind my tongue.

On the next hill I went around Curtis and gave it everything I had to crest the top first. On the descent, a long winding one, I really let it go and put some time into him. This worked well, and was to be my strategy for the remainder of the ride. Using the gap, on the next climb I was able to climb comfortably at my own pace. And so on.

The trails were completely empty except for a couple other riders near Beal's Point. Curtis asked them if they knew they were riding on illegal trails. They didn't get the joke, but Curtis and I laughed anyway. Nope, no runners, hikers, horses or dogs. It was nice. A great afternoon for poaching. No harm, no foul.

On the way back I started getting my legs, bringing the hammer down on the climbs, descents and everything in-between. I was hurting Curtis a little bit, and it felt good. He said, "Take it easy on you? Take it easy on ME!" I felt a bit more confident that I could still ride with these guys who raced all year.

Sometimes, when you poach, things go terribly, terribly wrong . . .

The scheduled Sunday ride was supposed to be in Georgetown. Scanning the dead and dying bikes strewn across the garage, I decided that I didn't have a running machine up for the task. Georgetown is rough—trails maintained by motorcycles, basically. A rigid single speed and a cyclocross rig were the only living soldiers; neither was going to cut it.

I woke up on Sunday morning and saw an e-mail from Dave. It said the ride had been changed to El Dorado Hills due to the freezing temperatures that would make Georgetown miserable. Sweet, I'm in.

I scrambled to change the gearing on my 29er single speed to accommodate the ride at Brown's Ravine, a trail I've poached maybe three times in 15 years. I grabbed some food, changed clothes, and flew down to the pizza place where we park.

Due to the cold, the group was small. It ends up being me, Craig Peterson and a tatted up dude named Robert on single speeds, with Dave opting for his old Merlin geared bike. We took off and it was a little cold, but nothing like the temperatures we would have dealt with up in Georgetown.

Everyone agreed to a slow warm-up, but almost immediately Craig P. broke the truce and put the hammer down. I jumped on his wheel. Craig is a strong rider, but I was pretty much sitting in comfortably. Even so, we put a big gap on Dave and Robert, who actually stuck with the warm-up plan.

The trail was in prime condition from the rain on Friday, and we railed through the turns with seemingly endless traction. We regrouped at a crossroad, and Robert took the lead followed by Craig, Dave and me. We were going through a long series of downhill left turns followed by gradual uphill right-hand bends, over and over. So fun. Robert bobbled on one of the short, steep climbs, and Craig passed him. This would prove to be our undoing.

We continued in this order for a couple miles. I was actually spinning along very comfortably in back, enjoying the ride for the sake of riding. Sometimes it's nice to just cruise along with a slower group and not feel like puking.

Suddenly I came around a corner to catch the beginning of a discussion that was quickly escalating to an argument between Craig and an equestrian. She was in her early sixties, I'd say, with three dogs in tow. Craig had moved off the trail, to the downhill side, and issued a good morning. What he received in exchange was not quite as pleasant. Within moments there was a cussing and pissing contest involving who had been riding the trail longer, who did more for it, and who was more wrong—us for riding the trail or her for letting three dogs run wild. Since Craig lives right up the road, he rides the trail often, and claims to clear poison oak every spring, fix washouts, etc. She admitted to never doing any trail maintenance, giving Craig more ammunition against her, but this only pissed her off more.

The argument lasted for some time, and the old woman was really dishing out the profanity. Craig and Robert responded in kind, and quite frankly it was embarrassing to witness. Robert finally had enough and continued on. Craig finally did the same and issued one last "fuck you" as he rode away. Well, this riled her up again and she took that damn horse right down a steep ravine and up to the trail again, cutting Craig off. She positioned her horse right in front of him and said, "I could crush you right now and nobody would care because you're illegal."

Craig said, "Yeah, well I could shoot your fucking dogs because they're off a leash."

More arguing, more cussing. We tentatively went around her and tried to ride again. This time she decided to chase us while trying to call someone on her cell phone. Unfortunately, I was at the back and the fucking horse was running right up my ass. It was scary. I could actually feel the ground shaking beneath me and feel the horse's breath on my neck. I couldn't believe how fast she was riding that horse on the narrow trail.

After a couple minutes of this, I'd had enough. I was getting mad. What the fuck did I do to her? I hadn't uttered a word to this point. I started to brake and hoped she wasn't serious about stomping on someone. Thankfully, the horse did stop. I tried to talk to her, tell her this wasn't really a constructive way to spend a morning, but it didn't work. She only had eyes for Craig, and rode around me in the weeds, taking off in pursuit. I took off after her.

Riding behind her, I saw her feeble attempts to get a cell phone signal out there. Finally, as we neared the road, she registered a signal and stopped the horse. I blazed by. I knew I had to get back to the guys to warn them about the call she was about to make. Not a half mile later, I was descending down to the creek that runs under Salmon Falls Road, when I saw a ranger getting out of a truck. He told Craig and Dave to stop. Robert was nowhere to be seen. As I pulled up, the ranger, who looked like he was rousted from bed, asked, "What's this about you brandishing a gun, son?" Craig, who is normally pretty quiet and laid back, went off. You could almost hear the capillaries bursting in his eyes.

At this point Dave jumped off his bike and pulled Craig away, while I slipped in to diffuse the situation. Although the lady told him that shots were actually fired, I explained exactly what happened. The Ranger nodded knowingly, like this lady was a constant pain in his ass. Or maybe he was humoring me because he thought we did have a gun. I wasn't sure. Still, he clearly intended on giving us citations and we knew it. I think the fine was $500 back then.

Craig said OK, have a nice day, and started RIDING AWAY. The look on the ranger's face was priceless. He couldn't believe it, and he stood there frozen. Then Dave said the most brilliant thing: "Let's just ride back to Falcon Crest, get in the car, and go home."

Well, we were actually parked on the opposite end of the trail in El Dorado Hills. Dave and I slowly rode away and Ranger Rick didn't immediately come after us. However, I did see his radio come out.

Once out of sight, we regrouped with Craig. We agreed to ride up to a point where we could jump off the trail before Falcon Crest, where the posse was surely assembling, and come back on the road.

So we were riding along, and out of nowhere the psycho horse lady came flying in again. It was like something out of a bad Western movie. She was pretty mad that we kept getting away. She said, "If the fucking rangers won't do anything, I will!" She then started snapping limbs off of trees and throwing them at us. The situation had reached the point where all we could do was laugh.

We took off again in a hail of tree branches and put some distance between us. If she stayed within sight of us, it would make positively identifying the "shooter" very easy. Without her, we were just three guys poaching a trail. The terrain was flat and fast, and the horse couldn't keep up as well as in the tight woods. Craig suddenly took a hard left and went right off the trail and over the embankment towards the lake, diving behind a bush. I looked back and realized that she didn't see him bail. I let Dave ride for about a quarter mile before I whistled at him to pull over. She stopped briefly to ask us if we give up yet, and I said, "Nope, just stopping for lunch." She looked up the trail and headed out in pursuit of Craig, who was now actually behind her.

Dave and I sat there for a few minutes and shot the shit. All of the sudden, a new ranger on a horse appeared from the direction the lady just went. Dave and I quickly turned around and high-tailed it. We were hauling ass and the ranger was losing ground. He pulled his radio out, so he was probably calling ahead. We were getting boxed in.

I told Dave to hit it hard and look for a place to bail. After about a half-mile, we came to a faint cross-trail. We headed uphill and it became too steep to ride. We ran up the hill cyclocross style to who-knows-where. We ran under a line of trees and shrubs, and came to a barbed-wire fence. We ran along it for a while until we saw a break in it. We ran through and found ourselves on someone's ranch. We rode on a dirt road until we hit an asphalt road, which we took towards where we thought Salmon Falls Road might be. It ended up being a gated community, and we rode through it to a chorus of dogs barking; it was like they knew we were on the run. Residents looked at us like we were already in orange county jail jumpsuits. We found the gate and of course it's closed. And of course it's six feet tall with spikes on it. I carefully hopped over. Dave handed me the bikes and followed. An old lady watched us from her garage and pulled a cell phone from her robe.

Dave and I rode for a while on the road until we saw the Deputy Sheriff cruising slowly behind us. Luckily he was combing the woods to his right, so he didn't see us yet. I ducked down a dirt driveway and Dave followed. We hid behind some bushes and thankfully he drove right past us. We then decided that we preferred park rangers over El Dorado County Sheriff's Deputies, so we rode up to a trailhead and continued back on the trail where the first ranger stopped us. Screw it, we weren't going to miss the best part of the ride.

The last few miles were uneventful, and we didn't encounter a soul. Knowing we likely escaped a fine, arrest or being stomped to death made the curving ribbons of trail that much sweeter.

When we arrived back at the cars, Craig was there and Robert had just pulled in. Rob had ridden non-stop and went all the way through Falcon Crest to do the Sweetwater Trail before riding back on the road—a nice ride. He never saw a soul or knew of the chaos we were dealing with.

It was a wild day and I probably left out some details. One thing I do know is Brown's Ravine is one of the best single speed trails in the region. I had forgotten how great it is.

Sometimes you just have to poach.

Race Report: 2003 Sacramento CX #6

I skipped race number five for a number of reasons. First and foremost, my son was born only two days before the race, and he played hard to get. It was a long, long labor and ultimately he had to come into this world via C-section. All is well, though.

Two, Grass Valley is quite a drive from my home. And three, we get to drop a couple races, so I thought it was no big deal to drop race five. In hindsight, just like last year, that wasn't a great decision.

Race six was again at Granite Bay. I rode a good but not great race. When it was clear I wasn't going to be a factor, I buried myself on the last road section into a fierce headwind to set up Gordon. We blasted by a couple guys on the last lap and he came off my wheel to coast in for fifth. I never recovered from that effort but managed to hold on for sixth and scored a few points for the overall.

I go way back with some of these guys. Dave Burke is a current Rio teammate, but we go back to the '80s with ABC (Anonymous Bike Club). Craig Petersen was also an ABC guy. Don Metzger rides single speeds with us old ABC guys, and he is also attending our Rio Strada training rides on cross bikes. He is strong and getting stronger each week.

Later.

G-Town

I had an epic solo road ride planned for yesterday, but I received a better offer: Georgetown.

Doug Page called me Saturday night to tell me that an ABC ride was happening, and I pretty much drop everything for either an ABC or Georgetown ride. This is both, you say? Hell yes.

It rained Saturday night, so the trail conditions were damn near perfect except for a few mud holes. The traction was just awesome. The new WTB Velociraptor tire I just picked up worked great.

Well, these aren't your classic ABC rides anymore where you ride around for eight hours, take one of Greg's "I know a shortcut" trails, get hopelessly lost, and perhaps bushwhack down a cliff. These new guys rip. No waiting. No bullshit. The old guard—Doug, Greg Edwards and I—were typically bringing up the rear. There were eight of us, and three were on single speeds. One of them wasn't that fast, and he held me up on more than a few climbs. One was pretty strong, but the other one was a freaking animal. He climbed almost everything. Evidently, he took 15th overall at the Shasta Lemurian this year . . . on a single speed. I can't remember his name, but he builds frames for Ventana, so that's what all three single speeders were riding. They are only $400 and look pretty sweet to me.

Isaac Chilton was there too. He's riding a Ventana full suspension, so we enjoyed dicing it out on some downhills. After putting some more miles on the Dean since the last Georgetown ride, I was much faster. I don't think anyone else was as fast as me today. But when I wasn't flying downhill, I just hung hung out in back with Page and Og.

One time when we stopped, Page told everybody that I picked the sweetest lines on the downhills and everybody should try riding behind me. Cool. I guess that's something Steve and I were always good at. We could ride on each other's wheel with the utmost confidence that our partner would pick the right line. When I ride behind other people . . . they seem to just pick a side of the trail and stay there regardless of how shitty the line is. I think we have better "trail vision." If we see a cool line 10 feet away on the other side of the trail, we get over there and make up time. 

Isaac is pretty damn fast too. I saw him in the top three of the expert class all year in the results. He is threatening to get a single speed. My guess is he'll rip on it because he already pushes pretty big gears.

Anyway, about the ride itself. It was even harder than last time. Isaac was kind of leading the ride, and he opted out of the normal Bald Mountain route with all the fire road climbs. He took us on nothing but singletrack, and he included every steep climb he knew. I think he was mostly trying to torture the single speeders, but it was hurting all of us.

It was only 24 miles, but so tight and twisty and rough. It was a ride where you wrestled the bike the whole time, both up and down, and at a high pace. I was wasted afterwards from head to toe.

This morning I am pretty blown from riding four days in a row. I don't believe I have done that since summer vacation.

Later.

Race Report: 1987 Revenge of the Siskiyous

The Revenge of the Siskiyous may have been the low point in my racing journey. The course itself, at 47 miles with 8,000 feet of climbing, would have presented a challenge even at the pinnacle of my fitness. Unfortunately, I was not only on the downslope of my peak but also exhausted.

In late April and May I raced four times, placing fourth twice and winning twice in the Sport class. I was fit and fast and confident. On the last day of May I raced as an Expert for the first time and struggled. I attribute that one mostly to a Bay Area course that didn't suit me well, but I definitely think my fitness was waning. The next day, as the calendar flipped to June, began a hellish month I really regret.

I was working part time at Frank's Bicycle Lane in Roseville, California. My motives for working at a bike shop were pretty simple: Work just enough hours to pay for my racing habit and get the parts I needed at a deep discount.

Everyone had a clear role at Frank's except me. While I mostly built new bikes, I also performed service when needed. I also sold bikes, parts and accessories. My manager, Tony, trusted me and leaned on me for my mountain bike expertise when ordering bikes and parts.

When our service manager, Mark, decided to go to Italy for the entire month of June, I was asked to step in. These were big shoes to fill, both literally (Mark was six feet, six inches tall) and figuratively.

Mark worked full time, and I thought I could pull it off and still maintain my outside life. It was only for a month. What I didn't realize, however, was the fact that when I became Mark there was nobody to become me. So I was expected to put in my 40 hours as the service manager Monday through Friday and still work Saturday, which was our all-hands-on-deck day. We would sell a few bikes during the week, but on a good Saturday we might sell a dozen or more, so it was the day everyone worked.

The mistake I made was training like I did when I was working 20 hours a week. I rode whenever I could, often in the heat of the late day instead of my customary mornings. This pushes back your dinner, your bedtime, your ability to rehydrate, everything. Being young, confident and dumb, I didn't realize what a huge difference there was between 20 hours and 50.

I made it through the month, and I was never so happy to see my tall, grumpy service manager walk through the door.

On the Fourth of July, Steve and I drove up to Ashland, Oregon for the race. The next morning we drove from the motel to the venue. At registration we were handed this:

It was as bad as it looks. Well, for me.

We took off and settled in for 16 miles of climbing. I actually did OK, although at some point I lost contact with Steve, who was having a good day. Still, I felt like I was only a couple minutes behind him. I thought perhaps I could catch him on the long descent.

I crested the top, and I was very happy to begin the long downhill. I was passing people and feeling pretty good about myself. I knew I was a pretty good at going down.

Descending is really great. For a while. But this one went on for far too long. At around the halfway point I actually wanted it to be over.

Eventually it did end and at first I was happy to begin climbing again. Until I wasn't.

Revenge hill was about four miles at nearly a 10% grade. It was tough. You can see it took some of the fastest guys around 45 minutes to go 3.8 miles.

I cracked big time. I never ate in races, and for the most part I didn't have to. Most of the races back then were 25 miles or so, falling within the classic two-hour mark. (Your body typically stores two hours worth of glycogen to fuel your muscles.) This race obviously exceeded that, and I should have brought some food.

Anyway, I crawled up the climb in my lowest gear and even resorted to walking a couple times. I crested the top and rolled into the finish glad the ordeal was finally over.

Steve turned in a fine performance to take 7th place Expert with a 3:53 finishing time. I limped in over a half hour later, taking 22nd place. Somehow I beat six guys, and a feel for anyone who had it worse than me.

Again, another learning experience. I would have been better served riding less in June while I worked so much, and focusing more on rest and recovery.

Now that the month was over, I needed to get refocused and prepare for the late summer races. Hopefully I could rebound and get some good results.

Later.

Race Report: 1987 Rumpstomper

My second race as an expert went a little better than the first, but the result was still a disappointment. After racing so well in May, I really expected to perform better in the Expert class.

Organized by mountain bike legend Bob Shaw, the Rumpstomper was the sister race to the Rockhopper with a slightly different course.

If I remember right, the first and last thirds of the race were basically the same as the Rockhopper, but we rode the middle loop backwards.

The one big difference between Sport and Expert was the company we kept. When we staged for races in the Sport class, the big names were somewhere up in front of us in the distance. As Experts, we were staged with the Pros. For a few races it was weird to be right next to Joe, Ned, Casey, Max and Tomac. But eventually we realized they were just racers, like us, albeit a little faster.

We took off and within a couple minutes Steve and I were sitting somewhere around the top 50. The pace was always very high in the beginning of these Annadel races, and I tried not to get too caught up in it. Sure, there was a definite advantage to being near the front when we turned off the gravel road, but you still needed to pace yourself. There was an 1100 foot climb coming.

When we turned onto the singletrack we entered our element. The trails became more technical and the climbing suited me. We started making our way through the field, picking off riders as the climb progressed.

When we crested the top, I felt like we were doing well. Now the downhilling duo would do their thing. 

We blasted downhill with Steve leading the way. Over the years we developed a level of trust so that either of us could lead on a downhill and the other could ride his wheel knowing he would choose the right lines. I alternated between looking past him to get a basic lay of the land and watching his hips to see the subtle weight shifts alerting me to his changes in direction. If he hunched down, I knew he was about to manual over an obstacle. If his head tilted down, I knew a technical obstacle was coming. There were probably many more clues that I innately understood that elude me now as I write.

We finished the descent and picked up a few more places. In the Sport class we would pass MANY riders on downhills, but most of the Experts and Pros were just as fast. Still, we made a net gain.

On the next climb neither of us was as strong. We lost places and even noticed a few Sport riders passing us, which surprised me. After all, I had just dominated the Sport class here at the Rockhopper three weeks ago.

On the second downhill we gained some places back, but not enough. We time trialed the gravel road to the finish and crossed in 35th and 36th overall.

While getting inside the top 40 out of 250 starters seems good, this only netted us 15th and 16th in the Expert class. Disappointing. Even worse, we would have been 5th and 6th in the Sport class, outside of the podium. It definitely left me wondering if the Expert class was really for me.

Our ABC teammate Greg Edwards finished a couple places ahead of us. No disrespect to Greg, he was a strong rider, but at this point in our racing careers he should not have been ahead of us.

Steve and I both rode well in the early season, but it was clear we had both peaked and were on the fitness downslope. This was all a learning experience. There were so many facets and nuances to training and racing well, and we were still figuring it out. Merely three weeks before on the same trails I felt unstoppable, yet today I didn't have nearly the same power.

Next up was Revenge of the Siskiyous in Oregon. I was already concerned about this one.

Later.

Race Report: 1987 Back Country Ridge Romp

The Back Country Ridge Romp was a race put on by our friend Don McEnhill in the Sly Park area. This was the venue for not only our first race back in 1985, but for many of our mountain bike training rides since then. Steve and I met Don at Back Country Bicycles, a shop in Pollock Pines where he worked. We rode with Don a number of times in the months leading up to this race as he finalized the course. We knew it well by the time race day came.

This was only two weeks after messing up my hand at the Lemurian, and it wasn't healed yet. Fortunately I knew the course wasn't terribly rocky, so I taped up my palm and I don't remember it bothering me that much.

I had a "Rule of 100" for judging how hilly races were, meaning the breakeven point for a "hilly" race was about 100 feet of elevation for each mile. Anything less I considered flat. This course had 3500 feet in 25 miles, so I considered this a climber's (and descender's) course.

Even with all the climbing, this was a very fast course on mostly fire roads. We took off from the start and it felt more like a road race than anything. We just put our heads down and pedaled. Joe Murray won averaging over 16 miles per hour, which was pretty fast at the time. Steve and I were never more than a few seconds apart the whole race. It's one of the few races when we were very evenly matched.

I honestly don't remember much from the middle of the race, but the last third of the race is still pretty clear. There was a group of five or six of us riding wheel to wheel and absolutely pinning it on the final long, rolling downhill. It's so fun when you get into a group up front and everybody trusts each other enough to paceline on a downhill. I was inches from Steve's rear wheel with 100 percent confidence that he would pick the right lines.

We finished up the downhill and all that was left was the flat road leading back to the campground. Steve put in a short effort at the end to gap me by three seconds at the finish.

We took 18th and 19th overall.

That netted Steve 7th in Expert while I was 4th in Sport. Handmade trophies and plaques were definitely a thing back then.

A number of our ABC mentors and teammates finished behind us.

It was pretty cool for us to slip inside the top 20 and only be a couple minutes outside the top 10 with the big boys. Still, I wasn't satisfied with another fourth place.

Off to the Rockhopper next week where I hoped to keep improving.

Later.