Jay Richards

Spankin' good times at Mon Du Lac. A pure mountain bike course with a nice long leg and lung burning climb, roller coaster flowing singletrack on top and a sweet descent down with some more fun flowing track before the fun climb back to the top. Add the shot of rain showers along with nice weather and the day was pretty much perfect for racing in my opinion.

Jake's plan was to go out hard and be first up the hill and try to maintain that position. If he was hurting than back off. He was able to hold his position and build a two minute gap and go on to take his first win of the year in Comp. He said he felt awesome on the climb. We both agreed the training rides on the Maplelag course during some rainy and wet days paid off on a day like today. He raced Comp mainly for the distance/time. If there were 10 jr experts, then there would probably be a 3 lap JR expert race and he would race that but there are not so to avoid getting burned out, he continues to race Comp. Thanks to Brendan Moore's wife Jen, for giving me a race update after my second lap. I rode past about 30 people in the feed zone and she was at the end of the feed zone and out of the blue she yelled out the race status so that was cool. Mom qualities coming out nicely there. It has been nice racing at the same time, leaving the morning of like Duluth but I always wonder how things are going in his race. Next two races are Nationals and we will be racing different times so look forward to that.

Jack was along and did the kids race. He was on his own and managed just fine. Having fun of course then hooked up with Shea Franken and came up to the top to watch Jake and I and help with water handoffs.

Going into the race I knew my form was coming along and I was ready to roll up the sleeves. Three races in the WORS cup weekend was not only great racing but excellent training. Especially the short track that was 30 minutes all out. Having riders like Schouten, Matter, Woodruff, Peariso, Hanson among other Midwest fast guys to chase around is training you just can't do at home. It took a few extra days to recover from WORS cup and most of the riding was easy spinning on gravel roads with one lap on the Maplelag course mixed in, fine tuning the technical senses. Some hard efforts on Wed were below threshold just because I didn't feel fully recovered by that time. Saturday I did the usual 16 mile Richwood loop with some hard efforts and the sensations were great.

Off the start Paul punched it pulling up the Moore bros, Fisher and Oftedahl bros right behind. I was behind those guys thinking to play it conservative again for the first lap and crank it for the last three. At the top, Paul and the Moore bros had a small gap and Sam and I made our way around Fisher. After a mile or so, Sam closed the gap down to the front group and the five of us rode most of the first lap together. A few of the corners were starting to get slick with the rain that started to fall, causing some change at the front. Sam went to the front and I followed before letting Brendan around to give chase to Sam. Sam was looking pretty strong and riding like silk on the greasy stuff and wasn't quite ready to chase that. Heading back up the climb though, I put in a surge and made way to the front. At that time the rain kicked in, greasing up the course nicely making bike handling key and not so much how hard you could go. Sam I and I started to get a gap and we rode together, having some laughs because it was some serious fun. At the end of that lap, Sam went around me and slowly started to pull away. The course was starting to tack up again and riding faster. Ben Moore was chasing hard and closing down the gap between me and him and Brendan continued to ride solid. The last climb up Sam drilled it big time putting a huge gap on me. I was able to hold off Ben and roll across second. Great racing on a great course. Salsa rode that course nicely. This years set up is really working out nicely.

Racing on hold now until we make our trip east for the Windham National at NY and US Nationals at MT Snow. Will miss racing at Kato, another fun course, but will be good to have a few weekends off and try to have a big two week block of training as time permits. A stxc simulated workout today followed by easy rides and high intensity every other day. Recent years focusing on shorter rides but higher intensity as the season progresses and seems to work and works better on the schedule as rides over 3 hours are hard to come by.

Thanks to Eric Oftedahl for the chain rings so Jonell can make more wind chimes.
Thanks to Justin Reinhart who provided a bottle after the second lap as Shea and Jack weren't quite up the hill again.
Nice job to the Comp riders who showed excellent sportmanship on the last lap. It was good times riding the last downhill with Roberto Madrigal who was hootin' and hollering. I love that stuff.
Bumped into Dave McWethy who is now living out in Bozeman working at Montana State. Dave is the grandson of the late Ginny McWethy who was one of the founders of the North Star ski club that has been coming to Maplelag for almost 30 years. The first mountain bike race I ever did, which was at Quadna way back in 1990, Dave was there and was ripping it up in the Sport class at the time and I always remember that race, of course.
Dave and Jake on Skaters Waltz, February 2006.