2008 MTB National Championships

This weekend I traveled all the way to Vermont only to have my valve stem snap off and cause a good crash rendering my bike useless to ride for the rest of the race. Scott my team owner had gotten us a huge 6 bedroom cabin up near Mount Snow. The accomidations where awsome but the race was a bit upsetting. After a fast start I had a good gap going up past the "drummer dude" that had positioned himself on the longest sustained climb. The drumming sounded like a war beat that the soilders at Gettysburg must have heard. It echoed through the forest and was deafening. I tried to back off the gas alittle so I wasn't pushing myself to the limit this quick into the race. Once I did this the eventual winner Travis from NC made an amazing effort and caught up to me I let him pass and attached to his wheel letting him do the work. We started the wet rooty downhill and I felt way faster and jumped ahead again. I was flying downhill and hit the last of the uphill section extremely fast and had some distance on him by now, the rest of the 30+ single speed field was nowhere near. The next downhill section I hit something that sheered off the tip of my valve stem and my tire went flat very fast. The next 5 feet was a good 2 foot drop off and I went flying over the bars seeing how just my rim hit. My bike flew up and wrapped around an aspen tree fast enough to dent the down tube in a half an inch. My brake lever was facing backwards and my tire was off the bead. I flew to the left and banged my knee on some rocks and stopped against an aspen myself. I tried to air up my tire with my co2 but it failed to seat the bead and air kept coming out. I tried to jam a small stick in the valve to hold it but no go. Now out of air and no tube but just a tubeless patch kit I was out of luck. I will never race without a tube again. I walked down and sat in the van icing my knee till the rest of my teammates had finished. Very devastating, especially sense when it happened I had just started to feel real good and I was leading nicely. That's been the first race I have had to DNF (did not finish), I guess it comes with the sport. Oh well it's on to the Rim Nordic SoCal race this weekend near Big Bear CA, this can help me win the California State Series Single Speed title. This area is a lot like Flagstaff so it's a must. I guess it's back to the Airport!