Hot day in Golden

Hot day,  for sure.  Red Rocks Velo #1 in Golden today.    New venue,  course came out pretty good,  in spite of it not leaving a good impression in warmup/inspection.  I guess a course can "race" better than it feels in warmup sometimes.    Temps pushing 80 even by the "Beer Drinking Dad's League" race made for some parched tongues hanging out & a lot of dust.  The course was hard enough that it broke up pretty fast,  and ended up being mostly a bunch small groups & solo riders by a few laps in.

Couple of decent hills,  rough mowed field,  plenty of loose corners,  and even some nice grass.  Double barrier into a "U-Turn" sand run led up a climb to a STEEP staircase (that was coming apart in the 35+ open race..) into a narrow,  rough remount,  then a STEEP loose,  left hand drop.  Right after the stair/drop was a last steep.  loose,  short little "hump" to a long path across the top to get recovered on.  Rough descent to more grass and another "U-Turn" sand pit back to the start.

Keeping my 2nd row callup (for now...) allowed a decent start in the top 20 of a 70-ish rider field.  Things sounded like they started to go bad right behind me on the first couple of twisty drops,  based on the crunching noises & hollering from behind.  Survived the carnage up to the stairs,  which was pretty much a mess in traffic.  Ran the drop because of the herd,  jumped on then immediately stalled out right at the top of the little hump from the traffic.  left to me doing a slow-motion topple onto my right side,  managing to cleverly keep BOTH feet still clipped in.   As I've told a few people in the past,  you are usually VERY slow laying on the ground. Things are SO jammed up at the stairs at this point on the first lap that I actually only loose one spot getting up & going.  Survived another trip thru the stair/drop zone on the 2nd lap,  where JUST as I started to re-mount at the top,  the guy in front of me takes a digger and slides sideways down the only rideable line,  forcing me to tip-toe down again.  Things rapidly spread out after that,  with not a lot of back & forth where I was.  Quickly led to chasing solo for the rest of the race.  Ended up in 20th place,  snagging a full one BCR point.  (With Matt gone,  the CFP team lead in BCT is going to evaporate quickly...)

Armin passed me in lap 3 after an early crash,  then disappeared up the road for 12th.   Kirk rode well to 10th in the 35+ Open,  and Matt got the full joy of his upgrade and move to the 35+ opens.   Actually did well,  ending up in 28th.

Kirk on the stairs... steep enough for ya?

a nice fall day... at 80 degrees:

Good event put on by the Red Rocks Velo guys.  hope the venue stays available.  Should have some Lap to Lap video up soon...