Cross Vegas and More

5 races in 9 days and I'm not even doing a stage race! It all started last weekend in Michigan, then a quick trip in and out of Las Vegas for the trade show race Wednesday night, then on to the dirt in the southern kettles of Wisconsin for a mountain bike race on Saturday and finally a cross race today to finish off the week.
The trip to Vegas was quick and to the point. We bought the tickets Monday and I was on the plane early Wednesday to race the interbike cross race that night. I neglected to note that Vegas in West coast time, not mountain, making race time 11pm for me flying in from Wisconsin time. That was somewhat painful, but the glamour and lights of vegas had me pumped and when we showed up at the race with music playing and 10,000 watt lights shining into the ski it wasn't hard to forget what time it actually was.

We rode from the Wynn hotel across town to the field, warmed up good and lined it up for one of the hardest cross races I've done.

I had an awesome second row call up behind the real heavy hitters, I was pretty pumped with that. The course seemed like it should be fast, long grassy straights with wide sweeping corners and nothing very technical. The picture below shows pretty well how deep and slow the grass was. It was pretty fun, not exactly a course that fits my style, but with the crowds, music and atmosphere going on around it was a blast.

I sat in the upper teens most of the race, then popped pretty hard near the end and started taking dollar bills from drunk fans that were holding them out as I drifted back through the race. I had a good race and left it all on the 3" deep turf and came home with a jersey full of singles.
Here's the Velonews video and coverage of the race, it's pretty good.

Thursday I spent at the show, but after two hours I was blown out from the previous days travels and racing which didn't end till about 3am so I checked out to see a bit of Vegas and get some afternoon sleep. We had a great place on the 39th floor of the Wynn with a great view, not bad for a bike racer.

Thursday night was back out and over to Mandalay bay for the industry crit and US pro crit finals. Both were crash filled and it looked pretty dangerous, but it sure was fun for the thousands of fans that lined the course as Rock Racing threw out hundred dollar primes lap after lap. You might recognize the rider in red below, fun watching him race, too bad he got crashed out on the final lap in a large pileup which took him out of what would have been an exciting sprint finish. Word was he landed on Dirk Rettig from Trek, that's something to write in the training diary.
I ended the busy week of traveling by racing the Fall color fest mountain bike race Saturday and scoring a 2nd and then finally today the first Wisco cross race which I probably should have won, or at least got 2nd I was feeling so good. Unfortunately it was the best I've felt in a long time and actually went too hard and blew myself up. It was fun to be at the front and racing for the win both days especially after all the travel and racing early in the week.
Now for a few days easy and lots of sleeping to catch up what I've missed the last 9 days.