More mud

I had another mtb race this past Saturday. It was muddy again. It was raining the entire day, so I knew it would be, but I wanted to do it regardless since it was a qualifier AMBC race for next year's nationals. I just needed to get top 10 in my age group, and that would qualify me.

It was a new course for this year, and would have been really cool if it wasn't pure mud. Lots of flowing singletrack and more climbing than most WORS races. I made the mistake in not switching my tires before this race. Really, I should have switched them out at the beginning of the season after the first muddy race, but I'm not smart evidently. Mental note: huge 2.25 semi-slick tires suck in the mud. I'm putting my new set of 1.95 Mythos on ASAP. A narrower, more knobby tire would have made a big difference.

The start went well, most sections were still rideable at that time, and I was sitting fine in the group. About halfway thru the first lap, most of the singletrack sections became completely unrideable, and everyone was forced to run their bikes for many parts of the course. It got even worse as the race (and the rain) continued. Every lap (we had to do 3) more and more sections had to be run. I bet I ran over 5 miles in my stiff carbon cycling shoes! I could feel it the next day too, with my feet and ankles all sore.

Unfortunately, once again, when the mud hit...so did the chain skipping. Heather, showing off her excellent photographer skills, actually caught the chain skippage in a pic (you can see the chain wrapped around the chainring and the rear derailleur jammed all the way forward):
The bike and chain in better times:
Check out all that mud packed into my rear tire/seatstay area!
Navigating down a sketchy muddy singletrack section.
Cruising thru an open, soggy field.
I ended up getting 6th in my age group, so I already qualified for nationals next year! My legs felt fine (no issues with my knee, so that was very good) even though I couldn't really push them too hard because of the muddy conditions. I think with a better tire selection I could have done better, but I accomplished my goal, so no worries. :)

There is some bad news though. Upon returning home and starting to clean up my bike for Afton this coming weekend, I took a look at my chainstay that takes all the abuse from the constant skipping. More carbon was chipped away, and you can now push with your finger on it and make it flex in and out. So essentially, my frame is destroyed. Stupid carbon mtb frames! I am bringing it into work tomorrow to see if I can get a warranty replacement or something. I doubt I could get one before Friday though, so I am weighing my options. Possibly switching a bunch of parts onto the 970 (and running disc front/v-brake rear), or just putting the chainstay protector back on the 9.9 with a lot of tape again and hoping it holds out for a few laps at Afton. We'll see what happens...