Thursday, May 24, 2007

Brighton Stage Race

Joberon and Jason Lummis attended the Brighton Stage race @ Brighton Rec Area this past weekend. the events where a TT and STXC on Saturday with a XC on sunday.
Joe was 4th on the TT and Jason 7th the STXC had Joe staying in 4th and Jason Moving to 6th. On Sunday Joberon took control of the race from the start and Finished 2nd adn Jason came in 3rd. Joe finished 2nd overall for the stage race and Jason jumped to 3rd. The two teammates rode their custom steel Quiring 29ers with Stans rims with a Geax saguaro front tire and Stans Crow rear.


Team Sandbag video


2nd place!



If you take that 2nd and add it to my last result, 7th, you get 9. A two and a nine. 2. 9. Anyone guess where I'm going with this? Great race conditions and a groovy new Quiring 29er made for an excellentweekend of racing at Brighton Rec. My buddy Keith(Paint Creek Bicycles) and Iassembled the new machine late last week. The bike is fantastic. Scott Quiringbuilt me up a super light steel frame. My first steel MTB and it handles like adream. The paint job screams "lets party" and can actually cause fellow racersto lose focus. Complete with Stans big wheels/tires and a Bell's Oberon beer capatop the stem(Nicely assembled by my Mom. Thanks Mom!) this bike was ready forbattle.This stage race began Saturday with a tight and twisty TT. A perfect test forthe new ride. I managed a 4th place. Besides Christian's(American Cycle andFitness) dominating performance, the times were pretty close. I was happy. Nextup was the short track. Ouch! I had a good start but started feeling it after acouple laps. This may have been the tuffest event of the weekend. I held on for4th. Even with my bonus lap screw up. Sunday was the XC. I didn't know how I'd feel after Saturday's shenanigans. Thestart went well as I led it out for a couple miles. As soon as there was hilland a place to pass, a Frenchman blew by. BAH! I tried to stay with him. I managed to do so for about 5 seconds then began the race for 2nd. I led the chase for most of the 1st lap. Just before the start of lap 2(of 5) MikeAnderson(RBS) made a move a formed a gap. I was left with my teammate Jason andMr. Robert Herriman(American Cycle and Fitness). The three of us worked togetherand tried to keep Mike in our sites and those behind us...behind us. Midway through lap 3 Mike had some bummer luck and punctured. We went by and kept thepace high and avoided mishap. Lap 4 I came around to do some work and Jason and I were able to put a gap on Robert. Jason and I pushed the pace in order to create a cushion. I was still feeling good for the final lap and went off on my fastest lap of the race for 2nd place. This created enough time to take 2nd overall in the stage race. Thank you Tailwind for putting on a super event. And congrats to everyone whoraced. Especially the womans champ:) Thanks to all of the sponsors and of course my family and friends. Have a great long weekend everyone. Beer and Bikes. Bikes and Beer. Either way,enjoy the bonus day off.


Joberon






Photo by Bryan Mitchell

Stage racing.... Fun exciting and close to home. I was able to ride the 5.5 miles to the start of each event from the comfort of my home ! I usually don't really ever make the time to ride at the Brighton rec during my weekly ride/ trainning, but made it 3-4 times just before the race to try and get the feel for the trails. My TT went sos so has I clipped a tree and was sent to the ground, finishing 7th. The STXC was 6 laps (we found this out after doing 1 lap) and 5 -7 guys did and extra lap (with out any penalty, sure is nice to add 4 minutes to your time and have the promoter say no big deal while the racers who actually finished the race with 6 laps did't get any time bonus). Anyway onto the XC race sitting in 6th place overall, the race went well riding with Joberon and Herriman. Joe and I finally dropped Herriman and we had a nice big gap. The 2nd and 3rd place overall guys had some problems, moving Joe and I up in the overall to match our XC finishing spots of 2nd and 3rd. The Elite class had about 18 starters for the XC !

JL

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