It could have been much worse, or better, for Catherine. She finished 4th. She got the hole shot and was racing at the front for a lap. But soon found herself racing in a group for 3-7th. 1st and 2nd had checked out. On the last 1/2 a lap she was in 6th, but got by 2 and finished 4th. She was great on the technical portions and mildly sucked on the riding sections. She was okay with the result. She got to the airport with minutes to spare. She’s nearly back to Topeka by now.

Ned did what Ned does. He won. Pretty handily. He barely avoided a disaster right off the pavement with a pedal into his front wheel. Just the noise, not the final product of the noise. He used the riding sections to his advantage and looked well within himself. I bet he’s relieved.

Bill and I went over and finally rode the time trial course at 3:30. It was pretty
much a running stream.

I saw the results from the TT today held at 12:45. Don Myrah won in a time of 6:14. We rode two laps. The 2nd one at 85%, walking the hill. I rode a 6:41. I felt pretty good. Tomorrow I’m going to put a ton of pressure in my tires and ride conservatively.

I was thinking it was going to be fun comparing the different categories times for the TT, but it is going to be valueless. The course changes up too much because of the climate, plus they keep changing the course. They added barriers for tomorrows racing when none had been on the course before. It does really matter.

Okay. More tomorrow.

Trudi with Catherine right after the finish.

The worst podium ever. 1st fails to show.

I’m not sure what Ned is doing here at the start. Probably just caught him in a weird moment. Pretty clean though. Kind of looks like a superman outfit.

Ned after the race with the media.

The flyover tunnel to the beer garden.

I’m not big on getting up early. Today was one of those early days. I got up at 6:30, got dressed and went for coffee. That was breakfast. I got dressed and rode up to the TT course. It was good, but frozen solid in spots. And most of those places were sketchy. I rode 3 laps and was feeling just okay. I got a little lucky when
my 30 second guy failed to show. I had over 40 psi in my tires.

I can’t complain much about my ride. I lost a chunk of time catching my minute man on the only icy descent. I scrubbed a ton of speed and switched to the other side of the double track, which, in retrospect, wasn’t such a necessary thing to do. My time was 15 seconds faster than Don Myrah’s yesterday. And a few seconds faster than Adam Craig ‘s singlespeed time. But, like I said yesterday, comparing times here is impossible. The course was completely different racing at 9:10 than pre riding at 8:40. I assume it is just going to get faster all day.

Bill rode pretty good riding 6:18 an hour after me. His skinsuit was way messier than mine, so it is melting pretty quickly.

I’m going over to the venue this afternoon and getting some ceramic bearing installed by Enduro Ceramic and the watch the 45+ race at 3:30. Hopefully that is all the standing around I’ll be doing today.

Here’s a new Dugast Rhino after one 40 minute race. I guess you don’t get what you pay for in this instance.

These are my brake pads after two days of riding around. This volcanic soil is super abrasive. It is going to destroy carbon rims. There is no way I’m riding my new Shimano wheels in these conditions.

Heading out into the desert.