Last Thursday I did go to Pocatello to watch the PowerBar IWC circuit race at ISU. There was a 100' climb on the one-mile course, and the field exploded big time after the first lap. 20 laps later, Karen Kurreck rode away from everyone else in a preemptive attack on the sprinters, winning by 6 seconds. It was cool. I shook her hand and said she was awesome, and I read her race reports on r.b.r. I was slightly tongue-tied - she was a big celebrity after winning the stage.

Saturday I did two races in Boise and watched the PowerBar crit around the Statehouse (capitol building). My first race kind of sucked because the 1/2/3s started two minutes after the 4/5s, caught us on the fifth of eight 3-mile laps, and started shredding from there. I got dropped and then nearly taken out by a geezer on the only slight hill on the course, and then got pulled on the sixth lap.

The mountain bike circuit race was for once really flat - the biggest rise was one 6' berm. But to make up for that, it was very bumpy as the course meandered around the grasslands of a city park. Beat me all up, and I got eighth out of twelve in sr. sport - thought I would have more time to recover from the other race if I didn't do Clydesdale, but I probably could have won that class over the other six. Prizes were light anyway, as the race was being held as a benefit for Mike King, the guy injured in the Idaho City downhill. He can now wiggle one hand and foot, a great improvement from zero wiggles at all. The first-place woman got a new GT Zaskar frame, an $800 value, donated by GT. The first-place man (who also won the road race) got titanium skewers, donated by a local bike shop.

Did I mention yet that it was very hot? Mid-90s, quite a change for me, at least while exercising since all I did in Texas was sit around for a week. And Karen's race report said it is usually hotter! She also said that the crit was more relaxed this year, though it looked plenty fast to me. And those cash primes...Elizabeth Emery must have collected over a thousand dollars while she was off the front.

later, hah