Week 1, under the belt. Sort of. I figured I'd wait to post until today as I was a wreck yesterday evening. Week 1 went, well, not so good. That said, it's aaaall good. 'Tis bike racing. Lemme sum up the day...

Drive up from Boulder's 6K to Breckenridge's 10,000 feet elevation was nice and serene. Listening to Built to Spill gave me goose bumps (and would be a prophetic group to listen to vis-a-vis their title! Ha!). It set the tone of ominous clouds and rain squalls that came in and out during the drive up. It was fantastic seeing all the old friends again when I got to Breck. The scene at the Nordic Center in Breck is always alive. The junior races were going off when I got there and I saw team mates like Thomas Prehn and Doug Squires getting their game faces on for their Master's events. Hup hup you guys!

The course was a pretty good one, and very short. Swoopy through the trees with probably 100 feet or so of pavement. Lots of barriers in the right places. My warm up was great and the body felt fine. A little taxed at altitude as I expected but pretty good nonetheless. The equipment felt great and I decided to go go with the Dugast set up on both bikes. I pre-road them both and both felt spot on. The tires absolutely railed the tacky dirt so the thumbs up was given. I had seriously like 3 other sets of wheels prepared to switch out but the tread and the 32 size felt sweet.

The line up was great. Not a huge field of 35 Open guys but all the old friends were there....except Karl Kiester. He rocked one of the other Masters events. Me, Timmy, Jared and some others composed the front row. Ready set go and we're off. I took the whole shot and led the first lap. I was turning around to see what was up and there was a string out and I REALLY wanted to get a group together to start working. You can't win from teh front in a 35 plus race. Jared came through to work and life is good. I think it was Jared, me, Timmy and maybe another guy flowing for a bit, Timmy put in an attack on the 2nd lap on the double barrier run up to see who was there to play for the day. I felt the altitude there a bit but it re grouped and life is good again. The group of about 6 is formed and we're off for the race. The separation was there by lap 2.5. By this time there is already 30 seconds plus on the rest of the field so this was the split in a 45 minute race. Lap 3 or 4 (about 20 to 22 minutes into the race) Chris Phenecie and Jeff Wardell we're in front of me and we're flowing through the woods. As we come railing into this particular section, it happened: Rolled the tubular.

Und das war alles.

Honestly, I hit so hard (no embellishment) both my contacts popped out of my eyes. Ha! I rolled the front tubular at speed coming around this dirt apex at speed and the lights went out. The body is beat up but the ego worse off. Sort of like:

Body in reality:Body based upon bruised ego:

And so with blood streaming I walked to the pits were my team mates Doug Squires and Corey Carlson were waiting and new something was wrong. They helped me grab my stuff and DNF. I hit the med tent (and the guy there was great!), packed up my stuff and called it a day. The body felt good even at altitude and rolling a top 10 was not going to be aproblem but would-a could-a rules apply here. Za aftermath:

Life is good. Bike racing is awesome, if not unforgiving.