Submitted by Paul Weiss:
Team Maine today:
Epic conditions today with my race/heat supposed to start at 8:30AM this morning. But due to some serious overnight weather (strong winds but warm 60 degree temps no predicted tornadoes) they had to delay and fix up the course first. Ended up racing 2 hours later. Several inches of water on most of the course made for some extremely slow conditions. Ended up in the back of the start line and finished on lap 2 with a wheel losing air. Jumped into the pits and lost some time when my chain got a bit off the front ring. Derek Griggs did a great bike change for me though! The one elevation feature on the course was really brutal with a mud slog uphill, a deep almost boggy top plateau and a hair raising off camber downhill through a small creek (no joke). It was amazing to think that the sand pits was second only to the short paved sections for ease. Sand drains water well, and packed in fine, so it was really funny to look forward to those parts of the course.
It turned out that I ended in 25th on the group, while not my best day, Looks like I will get to race on Friday’s finals. Yeah!
Tomorrow I will take some pictures and pit for Derek. Friday is race day again and should be below freezing with some snow on the menu.
Lucia and Ziggy loved the mud. They were great at cheering me on in while ankle deep in mud. Well Ziggy was in body deep mud…….
will update this weekend. I got press passes for the Elite Races this weekend, so that should be great.
Paul and Lucia and Ziggy from Louisville.
Portland Velo Club 