Ned showing the locals how he does it

After two weeks of traveling and not riding I decided the best thing for me to do would race cyclocross. I figured a little bit of pain and suffering is good for the soul. I registered for the race and lo and behold who is parked behind me – none other than Ned Overend! WTF? Ned’s a cool guy with some serious road and cyclocross cred. I interviewed him last year and I’ll see if we can post that on the ROAD website. He was down in SoCal showing off the new Specialized dual suspension bike to some of the mountain bike magazines and figured racing would be a great way to get in a workout. While I was getting my Scott ‘cross bike prepped, Ned was going to race on a front suspension mountain bike. Luckily for Ned several portions of the course lent itself to a mountain bike. He was racing after me and as I left he was in third place on the course. With a crash and a lack of riding I finished seventh and I think I gained a few valuable series points. Nothing like bleeding and the slight burn of lactic acid to give me clarity for the upcoming week.

The best part of crashing…picking the dirt out of the wound

A visual representation of my crash on Sunday