Federalis Center Weekend

Saturday morning was the circuit race at the Federal Center. I haven't had the greatest of luck at this race, but always seem to ride pretty well, so I look forward to it. I was a little curious what they did to the course, since they switched it around a bit. But it seemed all about the same, with a slight reshuffle, adding a couple tighter turns, and a little pop, that I was actually able to recover a bit on, since it was steeper. They also got rid of the sketchy drag up around some building where we dropped down through some skinny section, that I never like. Descriptive, right? I bet you know the sector if you have raced it though. As usual though, lots of shitty shitty pavement, including some freshly chip-n-seal sections, which just tend to make the manholes deeper and more dangerous.

Anyway... it was pretty nice to race at 10am... not too early, and not so late that the motivation starts ticking away. I was patient for a full 1/4 of a lap, before things were going too slowly so I jumped away. I sat off the front, hoping for someone to come across, trying to look as sexy and tempting as possible, but no one was game. Of course, when I came back, the counter-move had a dangerous guy (Krauss) or two, in it. So back to work, just trying to keep things manageable, and hoping that Seth would be impatient, and be able to go across the gap. Once some others finally started to help bring the group back, I was able to recover, before making the move to finally shut down the gap... accidentally taking a nice prime of a 12-pack of Steamworks Brewery. It popped into my head, that it was a prime lap, about 10 meters from the line, and I just happened to be driving hard then, so everyone was happy to stay in line. With the group shut down, I recovered as the counter-moves went, with nothing sticking. I was recovered, and starting to move back up to the front when I wholloped a rock floating around on the course, which instantly flatted my front wheel. Ugh! Damn, and I was feeling good. No worries, Chuck and Seth were looking good. Until a lap later I looked up and Seth was on the sidelines with me, after exploding his rear wheel and puncturing his tire on a pothole himself. Chuck though, smooth as ever...

...picked some less than perfect wheels, but still hammered home a solid third place.

Sunday we got to sleep in, before heading into town for our usual hippie muffins and coffee. It was a cool day with showers threatening, but we decided to do a bit of a hike, and spread the ashes of good ol' Jordan. It was a lovely view from where we went;

Neo, Tayler, Alex and Lucie all came along, though Neo was more concerned with his usual stick - which of course was bigger than him.

The skies weren't the clearest, but our (seemingly) endless rain has sent both the grass and the flowers into overdrive. Perfect flowers that Jordan would have loved, so I took some time to snap a few pictures, playing with the camera, trying to capture some of the color. I have no idea what any of the flowers are, besides the thistles, but they sure is purty and stuff.