Jay Richards

Out of Fargo earlier than expected and the rest of the trip to VT went great. The oddest thing to happen is some dude tried to take off with Jake's bike at the baggage claim. It was kind of a wierd deal but everything came in and off we went. Didn't make it early enough today to pre-ride in the afternoon so we watched the PRO Women xc then rode on the road a bit then finished watching the women. We hiked up the course a bit to check things out and Jake was really digging the course. After a bite to eat we went back to catch some of the JR Expert and U23 race action and talked to Paul Hanson who was helping the young ones with feeds. Earlier in the day Mike Phillips took the semi-pro race so that was very cool. Chris DePearsio was 7th. Bumped into most of the MN people and talked to some of the UCI and USAC folks that were at the Maplelag UCI race. Also saw fellow MNSCser Trent Warner and his dad Tom. Trent is racing Sat. am same time as Jake. After the U23 race, we went back up on course to check out some of the downhill section of the xc course. Rain earlier this week has made for some muddy conditions in spots but it dried out some today. Word was the semi-pro race was really tough in spots with a bunch of hike a bike. Phillips said he had a blast out there though. The course that we checked out is really sweet. I had to hold Jake back from going back up. It was pretty dark when we were out and he was flying down that stuff with ease so he should have fun. Its gonna be a long hard race with four laps on order but will pace it out and just have as much fun as possible.

Front line of the start of the PRO women with Jenna Zander and Kyia Malenkovich right up there. Call ups were based on National Calendar rankings. With the course, and field sizes, things get strung out pretty quick.