We did the full four days as a family this weekend. Garrett (14 yrs) with his buddy Brandon, Patrick (17 yrs) and me. Poor Mac had to be left home as no dogs but we got a great reception at 5:30 last night.

 

Weather: windy Thursday, great on Friday, Rain on Saturday and full throttle winds Saturday night!

 

Great to put plenty of faces & names together. Buell Profitt goes down in the books at the most memorable for the weekend. Booming voice has me wanting to call him Bueller! He is from the MBOSC crowd, then there was Josh & Chad came in from SF, Daniel, Matt Cerkel, Mark Davidson. Scott Seery was there the WHOLE weekend (Scott was the last SO racer to go off his start point at 4:35pm on Sunday), Loren & Ester, Isaias & Mo plus a few more I am sure to have missed.

 

Missing from the campsite: most noticeably, Mike "this weather sucks" Gin and Bob Knight. Jerry Brown must have had the same idea as Mike, I barely knew he was there!

 

IMBA conference was Friday night. Numerous attendees including Ned Overand, Micheal Kelly & Jim Jacobson. Jim has been president of the local advocacy group in the north bay for more than 10 years. Many more familiar faces, still hanging in there working on issues that affect all mountain bikers. It's really great to see Tom Ward there as the IMBA rep for California. Romp started talking about paid help for advocacy issues year back and now it looks like it's really happening!

 

Haro bikes was doing demo's so we picked one up for Brandon. His bike, a Toys R Us BMX bike, was not going to work for where I wanted to take him and Garrett. A loaner helmet from the main man at Roaring Mouse Bicycles (his own personal helmet) and we were off to the goat trail. I saw Garrett bombing down one section and thought "wow...I thought he didn't like singletrack". Later I discovered he was too scared to use his front brake. I gave both kids some tips. Garrett took one spill but didn't work it up too bad as four guys were right there. Brandon loved the downhill and is currently trying to figure out how to get a real mountain bike. They both climbed well and had a good time. We would have gone for a second ride on Saturday but the weather wasn't cooperating. Too bad. We were going to get Garrett a loaner bike too so he could check out the full suspension and try a bike that wasn't too small for him.

 

Saturday nite dinner was great when it finally showed. We went through almost everything in my cooler trying to put off cycling appetites. Next time, someone handcuff Isaias to the bench so he doesn't take off on a ride at 5:30 (when there is a 6:30 dinner time!). Next time, I'll start the water sooner, bring more brats and Isaias can come back with that "sauce" for the pasta. It was great!

 

Race day: it was great to see Patrick up before me. I pretty much left him to his own devices. This kid may grow-up yet! I'll leave him to his own race report. I'm just amazed to see him back on a bike as last October I never thought to see it happen again.

 

My race: I had a lovely ride. Warming up during the first half of the course, I was amazed to be passed by so many extremely polite expert racers. I don't know how they felt about having to pass so many of us but the difference between beginner/sport racers and the experts was tangible. Always the first and second guy to each group called out. Sometimes the third or fourth may have skipped it but probably thought better of it after nearly being knocked off the trail when each of the women tried to go back to their lines. The weather was good, the course fun. A 16th placing of 33 or so women in my group feels good. Thanks Mike for thinking I had a mechanical but no, the one or two problems I had didn't take up too much time. It is a lack of riding & riding hard. I felt great at the end. Not tired and my lungs didn't cough all day as when I have raced hard.

 

It was awesome to see Jenny, Paul and baby yelling at the finish line. Ryan Bontrager was right there too. Later, all the Ambrose's made it for the picture. Next year we need to advertise the picture spot better as Josh, Chad, Daniel and more were missing. I think Robert showed up so that Mike can do his magic with the photos.

 

Thanks to everyone for being so great with the kids. This past weekend goes down as my least stressful Otter with them. It's great to have positive adults (with good attitudes) around them. Osmosis is a wonderful thing!

 

Kathleen