cue the opening scene of apocolyspe now, chopper blades cut the air with there whoomping, and the doors jim morrison begins to croon eerily................this is the end...........this is the end beautiful friend....the end......
and so on sunday the 2007 installment of the H2H race series comes to a close. its bittersweet in a way. its been a long season for the darkhorse crew. we bit off a huge piece of racing cake this year and it left us feeling a little bit like after thanksgiving dinner where you should have passed up that second slice of pumpkin cheesecake. two series races and the 40 really took a chunk out of the summer. george felt as if he spent all his waking hours in stewart clearing trails and getting poison ivy and i had to suffer a little extra listening to him complain about it! but all in all i think it was a very successful season. its pretty amazing that we can get a very competitive field of 300 racers to show up week after week especially since the season runs from may to october! big props go out to all you racers! thanks for coming out and making the scene!
so the darkhorse crew stepped out again this weekend in full force. some were even sporting the newly redesigned uber sweet team jersey! first out of the gates was sir richard the steady! fresh off altitude training in utah he took the hole shot off the beginner start and never looked back! claiming yet another victory in the series and i believe taking the overall top podium spot for the season! good show sir richard!
on to the sport class. we had quite a crew flying the colors. bobby showed up on his big wheeled one gear felt, chris had his ss seven, i had my seven sporting a single cog, georgie and the rave-in-ator where representing the geared carbon squishy bike crowd and tony was there on the one gear voodoo flying the DH colors as well. after a little parking lot pre-game warm-up crit we made our way down to the start. the usual suspects were out in force for the series finals and it looked to be a good field. i little bs and a little more warm-up and i suppose we were ready to go. tom rossi wasnt content to start the race intact so he got both a flat and a crash out of the way during his warmup! he figured turning his hip into 80% lean ground chuck prior to the start might just give him an extra edge! they sent the one gear blokes out towards the back which was fine with us. the first few miles of fireroad saw the ss class pacelining it. it wasnt until we got into the singletrack that things started to break up a little. tom, not content with one flat prior to the start figured a second one would set him right. couple other mechanicals thinned the field a bit more as we started to mingle with the elder statesmen of the pelaton and the youngsters who left before us. i basicly settled in at this point. i wasnt feeling bad but didnt have the snap in the legs either. about 3 miles in i realized that i had ejected both my water bottles! sweet, at least it was cool out. there were three of us one speeders mixed in with a group of total about 6 and we soldiered on for the first lap. prior to the b turn off i handed off my co2 inflater head to a ss conhort in need. ive had some bad flat mojo working lately. not sure how i got the jinx but i figured that by helping a bro out maybe i could lift the curse. more on that later..... coming thru the start i stopped to pick up my spare bottles and took off on the long fireroad. after a gu and a little too much drink i wanted to die. apparently riding a lap with no water then ingesting a whole bunch is a bad idea. pace edited at this point and felt better as i went into the singletrack. now i was basicly alone. just riding along. i knew that 2 other ss guys were just up the road and i was content to dangle a little . as the lap went on i felt good and was really enjoying the course. the singletrack was a nice mix of flowy buff sections and arm and back busting rock gardens. the fireroads were well roads. i was having a blast and psyched to turn into the b loop and blast down toward the finish. i made it about 500 yards and i boogered a rock section and felt i square thump on the rear. oopsie. then i heard it........wish wish wish wish wooooooooooosssssshhhhh. flat. sweet. so much for karma. i ran it in. yeah.
the darkhorse crew did well over all in the sport class. mr rave, the flying scotsman, represented with a strong 3rd! we will have to await points totaling to see if he can keep the overall top spot on the podium. georgie boy, showing what a training diet high in ipa can do for you, had another 3rd! bobbie piloted the felt 29'r into i believe 4th and the webb-man cracked in to the top ten as well! good show boys!
so where does that leave us? well its party time! look out for date and venue info on the banquet. should be a rip.
well its been a fun ride! a good series, good venues, and a great crew of guys and gals. i have to say i had a blast racing in the ss class. if you can call what i do racing! got some work to do over the winter and am hoping to come back strong next season or at least not any worse! keep your eyes peeled cause rumor has it darkhorse might be feilding quite a crew of singlespeeding freaks next year. and they might be running
big wheeled bikes to boot!
i'll give george till thanksgiving and then its time to start planning for next season. stay tuned cause we got some cool new stuff coming for the 40!!!!
ok folks, save the date, mark your calender, tattoo it on your forehead or shave it into your dogs back! AUGUST 3RD 2008! the 6th annual drakhorse 40! so that gives you plenty of notice to get it going. i can already hear the trainers whirring in the backround! hopefully this will give you something to think about thru the long dark winter.
