TJ Woodruff ONLINE

I traveled south for the latest stop on the Pro XC Tour.  The race was in Pelham, Alabama and my sister’s family lives not too far away in Georgia, so the relatively close proximity made the trip out all that more alluring since I could visit them for a couple of days on either side of the race. This was my first trip to the South and it ended up being a fantastic time. My nephew Mason is nearing two years old, so he’s an awful lot of excitement to be around. He loved seeing all the bikes!

The course consisted purely of screaming fast singletrack along with a couple extended sections of pavement to complete the loop. This made for intense racing since there wasn’t much along the lines of vertical gain to separate the race, instead it came down to lap one positioning and singletrack speed.  I had the call up for the final spot on the second row so that wasn’t so bad but the bottleneck entering the singletrack wasn’t the best. Being just five spots further up could have made a huge difference that first lap since there was essentially zero passing opportunity.  Hitting the paved climb on the first lap, just over 10 minutes into the race, I was sitting 27th  and not much changed from there. I went on to finish 25th after zipping through five laps of the course.  It was 90 degrees and humid, but fortunately I had excellent family support in the feedzone.  Going through 100 oz in 100 minutes was serious,  drinking only when I was thirsty.  And to think that the locals were saying that it wasn’t all that humid…

Up next will be the Teva Mountain Games in Vail, CO. Thanks to Adventure212, Specialized, and NoTubes for the support.  -TJ