Huge turnout, dry trails, and beautiful weather. The race was co-sanctioned with WVMBA. I heard there was 260 riders there and I believe it. 3 gigantic wave starts, there was 100+ in the sport start, 44 alone in the sport open class (19-34). I lined up on the front line, and was 6th into the woods after a ~2 mile gravel climb. Top 3 broke away slowly, I hung on to the 5th place rider for most of the race until I started making some early-season-poor-bike-handling type mistakes. Too much time on the gravel and road due to wet trails!! One small crash and two clip-outs with poor remounts (you cyclocrossers would not have been proud) let the 5th place guy get away and actually let the 7th place rider catch me with less than a mile to go. We went two wide through two turns right near the end, rubbing elbows. I was able to hold the inside line and then outsprint him to the finish. Definitely the closest, most fun finish I've had! Only disappointment was the sport distance was on the short side at 14 miles, but the amount of climbing made up for it. Mohican next week will be a little bit more of a handful...
