Race Report

Race Report by Rich Henthorn

Pretty nice day at Lake Sonoma. High temp just shy of 90.

TWW showed-up with Allan, Loren, Franck, Jerry Cherra, and I. Overall, the turnout was a little less than usual. Ken grouped all the male sport racers into one group of 12, male experts into one group of 5, I think (Jerry, correct me if I'm wrong).

Results:
Loren 2nd
Allan 3rd
Franck 5th
Rich 6th
Jerry 2nd

Not too shabby. We also had a brush with fame in that none other than Ned Overend won the pro-expert race, just nipping Jerry by about 10 minutes. Ned gladly signed our Specialized water bottles and posed for a couple photos. Too bad Allan didn't think of having Ned sign his Epic frame. D'oh!

Updated results and standings are in Mike's hands and should be posted soon. Loren is still top dog. I'll ask again, Loren: What size jersey do you wear?

-Rich

Race Report by Jerry Cherra

Saturday was a good day of racing. Not the normal huge TWW turnout, but what we lacked in numbers we made up for on the podium. Allen, Rich, Frank, and Loren dominated the Sport podium and I represented on the Expert podium.

When I showed up at 10:30 I was the 5th car in the parking lot. I was a little concerned that there wouldn't be enough people to even call it a race. I guess most people were more last minute because by 11:30 there were some better numbers. The expert/single speed category had about 22 or so and I'm not sure about the sport group.

The race started and I went out at a moderate pace. I went into the singletrack 9th and was planning to move up into the top 5. The problem was that for the first 10 minutes I was riding like crap. I kept dabbing and every time I did 1 or 2 guys would pass me. Finally, once I fell back to about 18th or 19th I was able to get my rhythm going. By that time I had my work cut out for me. I was able to attack pretty hard on the climbs and rode a strong tempo through the singletrack. By the end of the 3rd lap I had moved into 7th with one lap to go. I rode a fairly strong 4th lap and past a few more to finish 4th.

A few times out on the course I saw this guy in full Specialized team gear and I wondered who that was. At the finish of the race I found out it was Ned Overend...wow. In case anybody was wondering...he's still pretty fast. He beat me by nearly 11 minutes...ouch. It was pretty cool to meet such a legend much less race against him. Maybe if I knew he was in the race at the start I would have pushed myself harder...LOL.

Mendocino on the 31st is my next race. Anybody else thinking of heading up?

Jerry

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