Racing Bikes is in our Blood!

Ah, Gordon Moore.  Not at all my kind of racecourse.  But look at that beautiful panorama. As far as fast, smooth courses go, the folks at the Cyclery set up a good one.  Much cooler temperatures, too.  We packed up the car with the Beautiful Mrs K, Eli, and even Remi the Hound Dog and drove over to Alton.

Eli raced in the first race of the day.  We arrived early and did a loop of the course.  He likes more rocks, more jumping, you know, mountain biking. But he was quite motivated to race and I was glad he was.

Boom!  St. Louis Start!  He did not want to waste time (just like me!!) and he jammed off of the start.  A couple of kids got by him later, but he kept fighting it out for second place with another mountain biker.  

A little surprising that the Juniors race was 40 minutes.  Not surprising that Eli needed a bottle hand-up.  He's handed me hundreds of bottles over his lifetime so I was more than happy to get him one.  This pic caught the cast-off, mid-throw!

In the end, he got 3rd.  He's got a massive head cold, so I'm proud of him doing the race anyway.  I never, ever push the kids to work out or compete when they're not feeling well.  It was his idea and he did well.  We're proud of his grit!

The Hound Dog had a great time.  He was into everyone's business.  He was particularly anxious when we would ride away from him to warm up or race.  Deanna had her hands full holding him back at times.  80 pounds of Hound Dog makes for a good workout!

We had time for a pre-race selfie.

My typical race strategy (blasting off of the line and come what may) didn't work quite right today.  I got a gap, but after 3 laps I still had a guy only 10 seconds back.  Rather than try to hold that for 5 more laps, I slowed down so we could ride together.  There was a nice big gap back to 3rd place, so I figured it was a safe bet.  Well, I had a hard time staying with the guy.  He was super strong.  But I hung on and hit the last climb and barriers HARD and that was enough to squeak by for the win.

Cash Money landed herself and her teammate on the top two podium steps! Super proud of her!

 I don't understand why I always look so ridiculous on the podium.  The look on my face says "I'm not sure what I'm doing here, but I'll just smile and no one will notice"!

Some People can do MORE THAN ONE Sport!

I'm pretty much a one-sport dude.  I ride bikes.  Oh, I run a little.  I've thrown a baseball before, kicked a soccer ball, got hit in the eye with a handball.  But bikes are all I really do.  Eli, my youngest, is just like my other kids...he can do a lot of different stuff.  Right now, he's a football player AND a mountain biker.  He has football practice 5 or 6 days a week plus games.  And yet, we packed up the Murano and drove to Warsaw (not Poland, mid-Missouri!) for another NICA mountain bike race.  This photo is a picture of the Sophmore "A" field.  The fields of kids were all this big!!  Mountain biking is alive and well, for sure.  Four hundred plus riders were signed up.

I rode the NICA course the day before and although it was not difficult in terms of skills (lots of gravel switchbacks and tight corners, though), it was hot and darn near 100 feet per mile of climbing.  Eli can ride anywhere and ride anything, so for him, it's never a question of skill.  He's not a trained bike racer but he's an awesome mountain biker.

He's been racing my bike lately, which is good because his Trance X is a legit trail bike and the NICA courses really don't need that.  I'm sure he'd rather be jumping off of something or barrelling down some super fast rocky shute, but he does like the speed of the Anthem.  

He had a football game tonight and made some tackles as well as a pass reception.  Tomorrow, he has NICA practice at Bluffview.  Sunday, he's going to do the cyclocross race in Alton with me.  

So glad my kids are not as single-dimensional as I am!