Mayhem in Marysville

The Marysville stage race is my favorite event in the MASS series. 

The Visit Pa guys put on an amazing

 race, everything went so smoothly.  I think the night TT is the most fun part of the weekend.  It is so cool to see all of the lights bobbing between trees and twisting and turning.  My start time was 30 seconds behind Madison and Jacob was 30 seconds after me.  I feel like I ride at night almost as well as I ride at day.  I had a Light and Motion head light, and a dual beam night rider handle bar mount light.  I had the trail looking like day light.  I was very warmed up for the start and felt great off the gun.  I rode really fast and had a little trouble with some logs.  I ended up catching Madison about 1/2 through the lap and passed about 2-3 others.  My time was 22:43 and that won Sport B.  I did a cool down and drank a recovery drink so I would be able to ride in the morning.  My cross country started at 12:00 and I had to do 2 laps.  The gun went and Madison, Caleb, and I were in the front, with Jacob right on our tails.  Madison and I dropped Caleb on the long wooded double track climb that lead to the first descent.  I don't understand why MASS starts us so far back, when we end up passing so many of the sport riders in front of us.  The first downhill was pretty hectic, about half way down it we started catching the class that went off in front of us.  That hill is pretty tight so it was very hard to get through.  Once we got passed all of the slower people we were moving pretty good.  Madison and I were riding together until we climbed up the hill out of the lower creek section.  I made my move there and really picked it up.  I put a gap on him going up that hill.  After you climbed up the hill and started going over all of the logs I noticed my back wheel was lose.  I thought it would be smart to try and extend my lead to a bigger one then fix it.  Chuck from Bear Creek pulled of to the side of the trail for me to pass.  But when he got off his bike, I think he said he locked up and couldn't move.  So i clipped his back wheel and went down.  Everybody was okay, so it might of been a good thing because then I stopped and fixed me wheel.  While still holding on to my lead.  I kept pushing and had a pretty big lead going into the second lap.  I made  it up the hill and started to feel bad.  I took a hammer gel, and that got me going again until that long field section after the upper creek trail.  From there until the end I wasn't feeling the greatest.  I finished with a 1:40.  Jacob came in second with a 1:44 and Madison in third with a 1:55.  I didn't enjoy getting up for the hill climb but when I got going it was really that bad.  I rode almost the whole thing only having to get off at that one muddy impossible hill, and another section because I was tired.  I made it up the 3 mile climb in 21 minutes.  The climb wasn't as bad as I imagined.  The short track was a blast.  I had to run for 20 minutes which I thought was a little short but afterwards I was happy it wasn't 25.  Right off the bat I got out in front.  I was feeling great in the beginning and end, but in the middle I wasn't feeling great.  On my last lap, I lost it on a corner and went down pretty hard.  My chain came off and I ran across the finish line still able to hold onto first.  The whole weekend is the best event of the year and I am already looking forward to next year.  The hand made wooden bowl I won for winning the overall is really neat.  That is definitely the coolest prize I have ever won!!